#massive amounts of material
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
mayapapaya33 · 3 months ago
Text
Have they said anywhere official how many seasons are going into the CC arc? Because the last time I checked in about it, admittedly a million years ago, some people were saying they could fit the Chroma Conclave into 2 seasons? It's gotta be at least 3 right? I haven't watched all the promotional material so If someone has confirmed a specific number somewhere idk. But just the sheer amount of plot is astronomical, even trimming gigantic swathes of it.
3 dragons in one season is a LOT and it might undermine the impact of how hard they are to kill or how cool they are as well. That just feels very rushed to me. Here's roughly how I see season 3 and 4 going.
Season 3 is Marquet, Rakshasa, Vorugal, and Glintshore then Season 4 is Thordak and Raishan etc.
OR Season 3 is Marquet, Rakshasa, Vorugal, Glintshore, AND Thordak, cliffhanger Raishan
Season 4 starts DIRECTLY into the fray, then bam Opash's island, Nat 20 of love Allura and Kima, Bards lament, Tary, Keyleth's Aramente water trial, Hell, year off, set up for season 5.
Even if they completely skip the Rakshasa & Hells storyline, and the City of Brass for Pikes armor (Senokir!), which would be heartbreaking, but medium constraints are what they are, there STILL doesn't seem like enough time to fit 3 dragon kills in 1 season lol.
Thoughts?
5 notes · View notes
serpentface · 5 months ago
Note
Do psychotropic drugs and/or ritual play a role in any of the blightseed cultures? A pretty broad question, lol
Yeah that’s a very broad question, the answer is about as much as it tends to play roles in real history. Alcohol is pretty ubiquitous (outside of cultures that abstain from intoxicants) and used for a variety of purposes, opioids are commonly used in some parts for pain relief or recreational purposes, stimulants (usually in mild, natural forms) are used to provide extra energy, and hallucinogens are most commonly used as part of a larger religious framework (rather than for recreational purposes). Any more elaborate answer kinda has to be case by case in a certain culture or part of the setting.
I'll just take this as an opportunity to talk about the one established sect that pretty much REVOLVES around psychoactive use. This is the Scholarly Order of the Root, which is a sort of mystery religion + elite community of scholars who currently occupy the Ur-Tree and its forest in the far southern Lowlands (southeast of Imperial Wardin, on the same land mass).
The Ur-Tree is the obligatory Huge Fucking Fantasy Tree (and its surrounding forest). It’s a mass of vegetation about a mile tall and almost as old as Plant Life Itself, its upper branches are primeval plants, which become more modern the nearer they get to the ground (and each 'level' holds tiny ecosystems, some containing descendants of LONG-extinct arthropods/other small animals). Its lowest branches and the surrounding forest are contemporary plant life, and all is connected and protected by an incomparably MASSIVE fungal mycelium network (which is itself a living god).
A lot of the Scholars' more secretive practices revolve around experimentation with substance use with the goal of expanding the Mind and transcending the body to fully connect to the Dreamlands, and they have a supply chain of traders and mercenaries called Rootrunners who traffic substances into the Lowlands. Most of their psychoactive use is in a very intentional capacity and not just like, for fun, but a LOT of them are just straight up addicted to cocaine (in the form of alchemically refined bruljenum, which is used for practical purposes of its stimulant effect during long hours of work).
All known psychoactives are desirable for experimentation (particularly hallucinogens), with each having properties that either allow expansion of the Mind, transcendence of the body, or outright divine communion. Their effects are logged in great detail and interpreted to form the basis of the Scholars' understanding of the natural world and reality itself.
The most important substance is Ur-Root, which is root matter from subterranean levels of the Ur-Tree that have both their own intrinsic psychoactive substances and a very, very high concentration of living god mycelium. The tree root contains DMT and the mycelium has its own wholly unique effects (being an actual living god). They alchemically refine it into a purer, more potent form, and use it to expand beyond the body and directly commune with the Giants, a group of entities they have identified as the only true gods.
An Ur-Root trip starts off with minor visual distortion, which turns into shifting fractals that slowly obscure the vision. Eventually the senses are entirely taken over by a 'tunnel' of rapidly shifting fractals and geometries. In a complete trip, the experiencer gets a sense that they have been pushed through a membrane and entered another realm, finding themselves in a distinct experiential Space.
At this point they may encounter entities which communicate to them in a language impossible to describe but wholly understood. These beings are understood to be the Giants, or at least aspects of the Giants that mortals are capable of comprehending (they often take familiar tutelary forms of the Mantis or the Snake, or appear resembling the same type of sophont that the experiencer is, all composed of ever-shifting geometries). The experiencer often feels a sense of unconditional and endless love from these beings, though the Giants may be more hostile and may appear in the form of the Trickster (usually a cultural figure regarded as malicious, be it an animal or otherwise) in a bad trip.
(^Up until this point, this has mostly just been a DMT 'breakthrough' experience ft. 'machine elves' and the like).
They are then removed from this space and returned to something that feels like the real world, but is nearly unrecognizable. They have a sense of rapidly moving through time, and will usually see 'the spires' towards the beginning, which just so happen to look like this:
Tumblr media
(source + some context via Implication- the spires are exactly what this art is depicting)
The experiencer continues to move across an unfathomable amount of time, occasionally 'seeing' other such flashes of unfamiliar landscapes and creatures, and yet also being devoid of all their senses, the 'seeing' is pure, unfiltered experience. There is a sense of interconnectedness with all life, and that one has become the forest (or even Life) itself. The sense of time is wildly distorted, the trip lasts only about 5 minutes but feels like an eternity and is understood as literal hundreds of millions of years.
The experiencer has usually lost any remaining sense of Self and individual consciousness during this phase (in which case this time distortion is usually a neutral or even peaceful experience), but some retain a fraction of their identity, and find themselves trapped and conscious while experiencing what feels like eternity (which can be LIFE-CHANGINGLY distressing, even after the fact).
(^This latter part of the trip is the effects of the Ur-Tree fungus).
The trip ends with a sense of rushing through the ground and back up into one's body, at which point they will abruptly return to their senses and consciousness. The details are then immediately retrieved via interview and recorded in immense detail. The whole experience is understood as having been full comprehension of the Dreamlands, communion with the Giants, and then a tour through the act of creation.
This is done as part of the initiatory practice into the inner mystery-religion of the scholars, and as needed for study by high scholar-priests. It is not taken lightly, both as it is absolute communion with the gods and reality, and in that it can be a very, very difficult experience. People who have gone through this often walk away with a permanently shifted perspective, often in a positive and/or comforting way- a sense of interconnectedness with all life, a peace with the concept of death, seeing less of a point in individual ego and the concept of Self, and comfort in the sense of divine love they (may have) experienced. This heavily influences the philosophy of the Scholars and has had effects by proxy in the religious worldviews of the region.
Details of this experience are closely guarded, and initiates are given absolutely no prior knowledge and expectations for their trip. This is seen as a necessity- their naivety will allow for a true, unfiltered experience, and can be used to gauge whether they should or should not be accepted. Those that have a distinctly bad trip upon initiation may be assumed to have been 'rejected' by the giants and thus denied full priesthood, though this largely depends on How they interpret their distressing trip- those who identify this as a test and harsh lesson in a journey to enlightenment may be accepted (as this is how fully initiated scholar-priests interpret and handle their bad trips).
This inner priesthood is only a small fraction of the Scholarly Order, and its greater function is as a hub of education and repository of knowledge, and Scholar-trained doctors can provide some of the best medical care available in the setting ('best medical care in this setting' only means so much but it's pretty solid, relatively speaking). Only a chosen few Scholars ever get to commune with the Ur-Root, and most of the divine secrets revealed in the process are kept hidden (though they indirectly influence the politics and worldview of the entire order).
#I'm kind of fascinated by the quasi-religious beliefs that have developed around recreational hallucinogen use (ESPECIALLY DMT)#In contrast to like. Uses of DMT-containing substances like ayahuasca for long-established religious purposes#So this concept is basically 'what if a religion was FORMED from pretty much the ground up out of DMT usage'#Like the common 'entities' people encounter in recreational use being identified as the Real Gods and producing a religious worldview#that is mostly rooted in this experience (while still influenced by other cultural factors)#Also the like. Meta going on here is that the fungus is a 'living god' and the oldest one on the planet#It is a VERY rare type of living god that is 'created' by non-sophont (non-sentient even) beings and exists as a mycelial network#that perfectly supports and protects an entire forest. Basically a god for plants. It is so deeply interconnected with its forest that the#usual power sophont belief would have over it has basically zero influence. This is absolutely the closest thing to A God in canon.#(While still not being a Creator/sapient/or even supernatural within the framework of this reality. Just VERY unique.)#The Ur-Tree has always been above water and grows very very slowly over the course of millenia by kind of 'pulling up' plant life from#the ground (so you see ancient long extinct plants in its higher branches and contemporary plants close to/on the ground)#The mycelium helps shield and feed extinct plant life that could not otherwise survive in the contemporary environment#And the forest is big enough to produce its own weather (it is a rainforest and has been ever since the capacity for rainforests Existed)#It's not really a tree at all in any normal sense but an amalgam of thousands of types of plants-#Some growing on top of others and some interwoven beyond any distinction. It does form a superficially treelike structure#(mostly in order to physically support its own mass) with a very wide 'trunk' and massive 'roots' (which end in actual roots).#It feeds on its own perpetually shedding and decaying 'body' and any animal life that dies in the forest is VERY rapidly#decayed and absorbed by the mycelial network (to the point that many large scavengers cannot survive in this forest)#(If you kill a cow and leave it on the ground for just 1/2 hour you'll see little strands of mycelium already growing up around it)#The fungus fruits and spores on a very infrequent basis (scale of ten-thousands of years) which causes the forest to very slowly spread#Fortunately this isn't really an existential threat because the spread is VERY slow (even on a geological scale) and the fungus#itself is rather mundane in nature and cannot usually compete against established fungal networks in other places.#Though there are little Ur-Tree mycelium groves and woodlands in other parts of the world that may (over untold millennia)#generate their own Ur-Trees (there's already a few but they are all MUCH smaller and not readily recognized as the same thing)#WRT THE TRIP:#Most of what I'm describing is a DMT trip but consumption of high doses of Ur-Tree mycelium has both mundane psychoactive effects#and IS kind of the person experiencing the fungus' entire lifetime and seeing flashes of the world's actual evolutionary history.#The amount of material knowledge that can be accurately gleaned from this this is VERY limited though.
72 notes · View notes
doverstar · 1 month ago
Text
joseph gordon-levitt called jim hawkins "just a very good-looking wasp of a boy that I will never be" and I've been thinking about that for two weeks
#even he was like “okay this was intentional”#and yes. every Jim Thing was SO intentional. I've read every scrap of material on the movie's creation and process I can get my eyeballs on#and I think one of the reasons I like Jim so much is that every single thing they did with him they were excited about#they were so passionate about it. they wanted to do things with his eyes and hands and expressions-#-that they said they hadn't tried yet because they wanted jim to be as real as they could get him to be#surrounded by all these not-so-real looking worlds and aliens#because his struggles were realistic and his season in life was so relatable in the story#they did model him off jimmy dean but they also modeled him off of joseph gordon-levitt and the poses and faces he'd make#JGL was SEVENTEEN when he voiced jim. he was not fully grown#jim was so “good-looking” as an animated character not just because of how he was drawn but because he himself is supposed to be so raw/rea#and that instinctively makes you like him more. plus. he IS drawn a specific way#and he IS cute don't get me wrong (he is a child)#but there's something about writing a character as true to life as you can#and trying to express something very real through that character that people can understand and care about#in order to make a true point#that sticks to people and influences them. and that's what happened with Jim#it's like Percy Jackson or Holden Caulfield#no I have never been claimed as a child of a Greek god and exploded a toilet#no I have never gotten expelled repeatedly or mugged in the 1950s#but I do know what it's like to want deep connections with people and despair of getting them#and I do know what it's like to wish I could get something right#Percy and Holden AND JIM all express those things at one point or another#they express other things too. they feel very REAL. so you listen to them and you connect with them#and just like with real people you look at them and they become more attractive to you (both literally and figuratively)-#-as you get to know them and understand them better#that's how you characterize#that's good writing#and in Jim's case good ANIMATING too#continually blown away by the massive amount of energy and thought and buckets and buckets of INTENTION that went into Treasure Planet#and it was not released at the proper time to get the attention it should've gotten
4 notes · View notes
marinaraimpasta · 8 months ago
Text
I've been on an quest to find more edible plants and overall things in my local area, more indigenous to the area as well and other cultures. Theres this phrase ive heard from those around me growing up "people will eat anything" Derogatorily, in reference to something that isnt the same fucking 10 vegetables you can get at the grocery store. How awful is that? this subconscious fear of almost 5,000 more edible things on this planet we can eat and cultivate and nurture. I want to find and discover more things I can eat. Ive always been interested in trying foods native to an area and maybe im a little homesick from my state and the foods found there. It's just odd to me that some foods and recipes are seen that way. LIKE, oooh what the fuck people eat that? thats so weird thats just some random plant. EVERYTHING IS A RANDOM PLANT!!!! omg... i want to try foods
3 notes · View notes
musicrunsthroughmysoul · 8 months ago
Text
I don't know that I've ever mentioned this before, but finding that quote by Ruth Pointer about the Pointer Sisters' Break Out album reminded me that I have also never really liked its title (even though it's one of my all-time favorite albums). I get that whoever suggested that title (why do I assume it's their producer? Richard Perry, to be specific?) thought it was going to be like their 'break out' album and apparently confidently named it accordingly, but I also think it did a disservice to the Pointer Sisters, suggesting that their material for the past ten years was never good enough to warrant "true" hits of a 'break out' status. I feel that kind of title, for that album at that time, greatly discredited the work they'd done thus far and the effort they'd put into getting to where they were; PLUS, seemingly based on the concept of being a self-fulfilling prophecy, it also seemed to suggest (by popularity, and by quality) that they'd peaked, as none of their albums following Break Out were able to surpass, much less match, the success (chart-wise) of Break Out. I just think it was a shitty move, naming the album that, and the Pointer Sisters deserved better.
2 notes · View notes
sanstropfremir · 2 years ago
Note
that one ask aabout specialized idols reminded me of the ask about all the kpop academies that are opening. I'll make the distinction now,,,, theres a difference between a regular casting and shopping around for a specific flavor of idol. for example, i liked to look at a groups debut lineup and see how many of them were approached by the company first. then look at the company to see if there are more casted idols than ones who auditioned. this shouldnt be surprising but most groups have idols that were casted. they were approached first with no previous hints to having a talent. so theres always been that "specialized" idol thing happening,,, however now that more academies are opening and more official kpop companies are opening academies where people can pay to train there and get private auditions, headshots, modeling lessons, the whole package its not really a surprise kpop companies depend more on those than combing through heaps of online auditions. they can make money while scouting talent they dont have to pay to train. yg has one, sm opened a whole school?? mnet the tv company has one, fnc, cube bought one in china etc. while its not the worst thing to happen to the industry i doooo think this correlates to how young idols are now. most of these kids have been training their whole lives already so they are skilled enough than a average kid/teen who dances as a hobby and hasnt gone to a arts school. companies dont wanna invest anymore.
Tumblr media
what the fuck are you talking about. i don't even know where to start with this. how the fuck do you think casting WORKS????? you cast someone FROM AN AUDITION, that's what auditions are FOR?? like 95% of idols are literally casted from auditions??? and people that audition are ones that are usually already skilled at whatever they're auditioning with???? and also who cares if someone has a 'specialized' skill?? you have learn a lot of new ones to be an idol anyways? and also there's nothing wrong with kpop training academies existing? so by this logic all ballet schools and music conservatories and theatre schools and art schools are bad for their respective industries???? people that actively WANT to study and learn and train in art are inferior to people randomly found off the street?? also no it doesn't correlate to how young idols are now???? idols have always been debuting young did you forget about taemin hyuna minzy krystal changmin KANGTA??????????? none of those people went to specialty vocational schools and they still debuted as minors?????? also what the fuck do you mean companies aren't willing to invest in training anymore. what? establishing a fucking school isn't investing???? how much do you think it costs to run a fucking SCHOOL???????????????????
10 notes · View notes
300iqprower · 1 year ago
Text
I have zero proof so call it a conspiracy theory, but in light of recent events I'm convinced the ONLY reason they finally fcking gave us old welfares is because they got called out by a massive vtuber about how much content new players are locked out of by default.
6 notes · View notes
nyancrimew · 6 months ago
Note
saw a meme basically going 'which hacker is gonna step up and wipe away all this student loan debt, morgages, etc.' and was curious as I have very little logistical knowledge of both! What stops you from going "hmmmm I think ill go into a banks records today and start going crazy" on a day to day basis?
people say this stuff all the time because somehow hacking is the one skill where it's expected of you that as soon as you know any of it you can do literally everything, when really that response of "why aren't they doing X instead of smaller hack/hack i vaguely disagree with/hack for money (TO SURVIVE)" is basically the same thing as going up to a random protestor on the street and asking them why they haven't taken over the white house yet.
all forms of resistance require patience and while i wish i could just sit down and when i get up from the computer again the world is perfect that just isn't how the world works. hacktivists (and hackers in general) have had massive positjve material impacts over the last decades and just because the specific thing you want them to do hasn't happened yet doesn't mean we don't want to do that.
and as for why loan forgiveness hacks aren't really a thing, financial hacks are extremely hard, at this point it's basically impossible to steal money from a bank you hack without having to hack a whole number of them, and to truly get rid of something like debt which is info there is tons of copies and backups of is a monumental task which requires massive amounts of stealth and access that no one person alone could pull off and is incredibly risky. computer crime alone is already one of the most harshly policed areas to do activism in and financial crimes would only make it worse and basically impossible not to end up in jail forever.
3K notes · View notes
bluevelvt · 1 year ago
Text
i really only refer to professors by their first name, so emailing them is incredibly weird especially when i don't know them that well cause do i call them by their first name? dr. last name? what if they don't have a doctorate? just say hello?
being an arts student makes things more casual but emails are hard regardless and i will revise one ten times over before i send it
1 note · View note
just-ornstein · 6 months ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
[JK]  My first job was as an Assistant Producer for a video game company called Interplay in Irvine, CA. I had recently graduated from Boston University's School of Fine Arts with an MFA in Directing (I started out as a theatre nerd), but also had some limited coding experience and a passion for computers. It didn't look like I'd be able to make a living directing plays, so I decided to combine entertainment and technology (before it was cool!) and pitched myself to Brian Fargo, Interplay's CEO. He gave me my first break. I packed up and moved out west, and I've been producing games ever since.
Tumblr media
[JK] I loved my time at EA. I was there for almost a full decade, and learned a tremendous amount about game-making, and met the most talented and driven people, who I remain in touch with today. EA gave me many opportunities, and never stopped betting on me. I worked on The Sims for nearly 5 years, and then afterwards, I worked on console action games as part of the Visceral studio. I was the Creative Director for the 2007 game "The Simpsons", and was the Executive Producer and Creative Director for the 2009 game "Dante's Inferno".
Tumblr media
[JK] I haven't played in a long while, but I do recall that after the game shipped, my wife and I played the retail version for some time -- we created ourselves, and experimented with having a baby ahead of the actual birth of our son (in 2007). Even though I'd been part of the development team, and understood deeply how the simulation worked, I was still continually surprised at how "real" our Sims felt, and how accurate their responses were to having a baby in the house. It really felt like "us"!
Now for some of the development and lore related questions:
Tumblr media
[JK] So I ended up in the incredibly fortunate position of creating the shipping neighborhoods for The Sims 2, and recruiting a few teammates to help me as we went along. 
Around the same time, we started using the Buy/Build tools to make houses we could save, and also bring them into each new build of the game (correcting for any bugs and incompatibilities). With the import tool, we could load Sims into these houses. In time, this "vanguard QA" process turned into a creative endeavor to define the "saved state" of the neighborhoods we would actually end up shipping with the game.
On playtesting & the leftover sims data on various lots:
Basically, we were in the late stages of development, and the Save Game functionality wasn't quite working. In order to test the game properly, you really needed to have a lot of assets, and a lot of Sims with histories (as if you'd been playing them for weeks) to test out everything the game had to offer. So I started defining a set of characters in a spreadsheet, with all their tuning variables, and worked with engineering to create an importer, so that with each new build, I could essentially "load" a kind of massive saved game, and quickly start playing and testing. 
It was fairly organic, and as the game's functionality improved, so did our starter houses and families. 
The thought process behind the creation of the iconic three neighborhoods:
I would not say it was particularly planned out ahead of time. We knew we needed a few saved houses to ship with the game; Sims 1, after all, had the Goth house, and Bob Newbie's house. But there wasn't necessarily a clear direction for what the neighborhood would be for Sims 2. We needed the game to be far enough along, so that the neighborhood could be a proper showcase for all the features in the game. With each new feature that turned alpha, I had a new tool in my toolbox, and I could expand the houses and families I was working on. Once we had the multi-neighborhood functionality, I decided we would not just have 1 starter neighborhood, but 3. With the Aging feature, Memories, a few wacky objects, plus a huge catalog of architectural and decorative content, I felt we had enough material for 3 truly distinct neighborhoods. And we added a couple of people to what became the "Neighborhood Team" around that time.
Later, when we created Strangetown, and eventually Veronaville, I believe we went back and changed Pleasantville to Pleasantview... because I liked the alliteration of "Verona-Ville", and there was no sense in having two "villes". (To this day, by the way, I still don't know whether to capitalize the "V" -- this was hotly debated at the time!)
Pleasantview:
Anyway, to answer your question, we of course started with Pleasantview. As I recall, we were not quite committed to multiple neighborhoods at first, and I think it was called Pleasantville initially, which was kind of a nod to Simsville... but without calling it Simsville, which was a little too on the nose. (There had also been an ill-fated game in development at Maxis at the time, called SimsVille, which was cancelled.) It's been suggested that Pleasantville referred to the movie, but I don't think I ever saw that movie, and we just felt that Pleasantville kind of captured the feeling of the game, and the relaxing, simple, idyllic world of the Sims.
Pleasantview started as a place to capture the aging feature, which was all new to The Sims 2. We knew we had toddlers, teens, and elders to play with, so we started making families that reflected the various stages of family life: the single mom with 3 young kids, the parents with two teens, the old rich guy with two young gold-diggers, etc. We also had a much greater variety of ethnicity to play with than Sims 1, and we had all new variables like sexual orientation and memories. All these things made for rich fodder for a great diversity of families. Then, once we had family trees, and tombstones that carried the actual data for the dead Sims, the doors really blew open. We started asking ourselves, "What if Bella and Mortimer Goth could be characters in Sims 2, but aged 25 years? And what if Cassandra is grown up? And what if Bella is actually missing, and that could be a fun mystery hanging over the whole game?" And then finally the "Big Life Moments" went into the game -- like weddings and birthdays -- and we could sort of tee these up in the Save Game, so that they would happen within the first few minutes of playing the families. This served both as a tutorial for the features, but also a great story-telling device.
Anyway, it all just flowed from there, as we started creating connections between families, relationships, histories, family trees, and stories that we could weave into the game, using only the simulation features that were available to us. It was a really fun and creative time, and we wrote all of the lore of Sims 2 within a couple of months, and then just brought it to life in the game.
Strangetown:
Strangetown was kind of a no-brainer. We needed an alternate neighborhood for all the paranormal stuff the Sims was known for: alien abduction, male pregnancy, science experiments, ghosts, etc. We had the desert terrain, which created a nice contrast to the lush Pleasantville, and gave it an obvious Area 51 vibe.
The fact that Veronaville is the oldest file probably reflects the fact that it was finished first, not that it was started first. That's my guess anyway. It was the simplest neighborhood, in many ways, and didn't have as much complexity in terms of features like staged big life moments, getting the abduction timing right, the alien DNA thing (which I think was somewhat buggy up until the end), etc.  So it's possible that we simply had Veronaville "in the can", while we put the last polish on Pleasantville (which was the first and most important neighborhood, in terms of making a good impression) and Strangeville (which was tricky technically).
Veronaville:
But my personal favorite was Veronaville. We had this cool Tudor style collection in the Build mode catalog, and I wanted to ship some houses that showed off those assets. We also had the teen thing going on in the aging game, plus a lot of romance features, as well as enemies. I have always been a Shakespeare buff since graduate school, so putting all that together, I got the idea that our third neighborhood should be a modern-day telling of the Romeo and Juliet story. It was Montys and Capps (instead of Montagues and Capulets), and it just kind of wrote itself. We had fun creating the past family trees, where everyone had died young because they kept killing each other off in the ongoing vendetta.
Tumblr media
[JK] You know, I have never seen The Lone Gunmen, and I don't remember making any kind of direct references with the Strangetown Sims, other than the general Area 51 theme, as you point out. Charles London helped out a lot with naming Sims, and I'm pretty sure we owe "Vidcund" and "Lazlo" to him ... though many team members pitched in creatively. He may have had something in mind, but for me, I largely went off of very generic and stereotypical ideas when crafting these neighborhoods. I kind of wanted them to be almost "groaners" ... they were meant to be tropes in every sense of the word. And then we snuck in some easter eggs. But largely, we were trying to create a completely original lore.
Tumblr media
[JK] Well, I think we kind of pushed it with The Sims 2, to be honest, and I remember getting a little blow-back about Bunny Broke, for example. Bunny Broke was the original name for Brandi Broke. Not everyone found that funny, as I recall, and I can understand that. It must have been changed before we shipped.
We also almost shipped the first outwardly gay Sims in those neighborhoods, which was bold for EA back in 2004. My recollection was that we had set up the Dreamers to be gay (Dirk and Darren), but I'm looking back now and see that's not the case. So I'm either remembering incorrectly (probably) or something changed during development.
In general we just did things that we found funny and clever, and we just pulled from all the tropes of American life.
Tumblr media
[JK] The alien abduction started in Sims 1, with a telescope object that was introduced in the "Livin' Large" expansion pack. That's when some of the wackier ideas got introduced into the Sims lore. That pack shipped just before I joined Maxis in 2001; when I got there, the team had shipped "House Party" and was underway on "Hot Date". So I couldn't tell you how the original idea came about, but The Sims had this 50's Americana vibe from the beginning, and UFOs kind of played right into that. So the alien abduction telescope was a no-brainer to bring back in Sims 2. The male pregnancy was a new twist on the Sims 1 telescope thing. It must have been that the new version (Sims 2) gave us the tech and flexibility to have male Sims become pregnant, so while this was turned "off" for the core game, we decided to take advantage of this and make a storyline out of it. I think this really grew out of the fact that we had aliens, and alien DNA, and so it was not complicated to pre-bake a baby that would come out as an alien when born. The idea of a bunch of guys living together, and then one gets abducted, impregnated, and then gives birth to an alien baby ... I mean, I think we just all thought that was hilarious, in a sit-com kind of way. Not sure there was much more to it than that. Everything usually came from the designers discovering ways to tweak and play with the tech, to get to funny outcomes.
Tumblr media
[JK] Possibly we were just testing the functionality of the Wants/Fears and Memories systems throughout development, and some stuff got left over.
Tumblr media
[JK] I can't remember, but that sounds like something we would have done! I'm pretty sure we laid the groundwork for more stories that we ended up delivering :) But The Sims 2 was a great foundation for a lot of continued lore that followed.
--
I once again want to thank Jonathan Knight for granting me this opportunity and taking the time from his busy schedule to answer my questions.
1K notes · View notes
missaengg · 22 days ago
Text
Massaging Lord Sukuna
Day 23 of Kinktober: Visions of Temptation hosted by @xxsycamore found here Featuring: Jujutsu Kaisen | Sukuna x f!reader Tags: mdni, smut, massage, hand job, Lord Sukuna, servant reader, Sukuna is massive Prompts: Massages | “That's it, you're doing such a good job.” ao3 link here.
Tumblr media
“Enter.”
The deep, foreboding voice commands you through the sliding doors. You enter, hastening to your Lord’s feet and falling to the ground in a deep bow.
“You called for me, my Lord?”
“Uraume tells me you’re well-versed in the art of massage.” “Y–yes, my Lord.” 
You keep your eyes trained on the polished wooden floor. You’ve heard the stories whispered among the other servants, how Lord Sukuna can change his mood on a whim, how if you happen to be present when his mood shifts… You shiver. You’ve seen the empty beds of those who entered his chambers and never returned.
“Stand before me.”
You scramble to your feet keeping your head bowed. You don’t dare look him in the eyes.
“Look at me.”
Trembling, you raise your chin, tentatively gazing into his cold, demon eyes. They appraise you slowly, taking his time to drag over every inch of your tiny form. You hold your breath, terrified of making the wrong move and catching his ire. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, he looks away, releasing you from his hold.
“Do not disappoint me, wench.”
You inaudibly release the tense breath you’re holding in your lungs. “Yes, my Lord.”
Lord Sukuna disrobes, casually slipping the luxurious silk material fluidly off his shoulders and discarding it carelessly to the side. You gasp and avert your eyes quickly, a blush blooming on your cheeks at your Lord’s unabashed naked form. It’s your first time seeing a man – if Lord Sukuna can be considered a man – bare, and you’re surprised by how much you relish it, at the rush of heat overwhelming you. While it’s no secret Lord Sukuna has an informidable build, seeing him disrobed… you can’t help, but admire just how chiseled he is, how clearly each contour of his body is outlined under his flesh.
“Where…” You clear your throat, reaching for the massage oil. “Where would you like for me to focus, my Lord?”
“My shoulders and my back. Do not skimp on the pressure.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
You get to work briskly, slathering a generous amount of oil on your hands, rubbing them together to warm up the oil so your hands aren’t too cold. You don’t know if he’ll mind, but you prefer not to find out at the cost of your life.
Desperately attempting to quell your shaking, you place your hands on his shoulders, feeling his taut muscles ripple under your palms. You can tell that he’s tight, and you knead along the fibers, pressing as hard as you can with your thumbs. You run your thumb along a particularly dense knot, and Lord Sukuna grunts. Lightening your touch, you wonder if perhaps you’ve pressed too hard, and you wait with bated breath, waiting to see if he’ll turn on you in rage.
“Harder, brat. Do not make me say it again.”
You bite your lip to keep from squeaking in fear. “Y–yes, my Lord.”
You dig your thumb in the knot again, harder this time, rocking it back and forth to loosen what you can. Lord Sukuna grumbles in displeasure, your thumb too weak against the thick fibers of his dense muscle. Coating your elbow in oil, you press your bony joint into the stubborn point. You relax when Lord Sukuna sighs, now using your forearm and elbow to soothe the strain in his back.
“Uraume was right. You are satisfactory.”
A rare utterance of praise.
“Thank you, my Lord.”
The tense clench of your body begins to subside as you focus on the task at hand, finding a rhythm to the way your arms slide along his broad torso. You frown when your thumbs travel down towards his waist. His lower back is an impenetrable column, even tighter than the knots in his shoulders. Re-coating your hands with more oil, you rake your knuckles against the firm ropes of muscle, following the path to his glutes. 
You almost topple over once you realize where your hands are placed.
“F–forgive me, my Lord. I did not mean to touch you indecently.”
Lord Sukuna simply chuckles. “You wish to seduce your Lord?”
“No, my Lord!” You throw yourself into a deep bow even though you know Lord Sukuna can’t see you. “For–forgive me, my Lord!”
Lord Sukuna sighs. “You may continue.”
Shaking, you place your palms back down on his glutes, but the heels of your palms are too feeble against his powerful muscle. You wince. You have no choice, you’ll have to use your knees. Hiking the hem of your yukata up to your hips, you coat your knees in massage oil.
“Please excuse me, my Lord.”
“Hm?” Lord Sukuna’s bored hum hangs in the stifling tension, but he doesn’t move, uninterested in your next move.
You carefully climb on top of your Lord, your knees moving in opposing circles on his cheeks, leaning with your hands on his shoulder blades. You’re practically laying on top of him attacking both his glutes and his upper back simultaneously, painfully aware of your close proximity. You can feel his body heat radiating off of him in heavy crashing waves. For such a cold, imposing demon Lord, his body heat is impossibly, scorchingly hot, and you’re burning in its presence.
Lord Sukuna tenses, and you freeze. Are you not using enough strength? Remembering his earlier threat, you prepare to sink more of your meager weight into his flesh when he suddenly rises, and you tumble unceremoniously off his back to the hard floor below. 
Your breath catches in your throat, fear dancing in your now teary eyes. Is this where your life will end?
Lord Sukuna simply flips over in one swift movement, his back now on his futon. You catch a glimpse of his impressive twitching cock, and you almost choke at the sheer, monstrous size of his appendage. It’s standing at attention, fully engorged, a bead of something glistening on his tip. It’s your first time seeing a cock in real life, but they can’t possibly be this big… Can they?
“I’ve changed my mind…”
You forcefully tear your wide eyes away from his lap.
“I want you to work on my front.”
You’re still too dazed to fully comprehend Lord Sukuna’s request or wonder why he suddenly changed his mind when you’ve hardly worked on his back, which is still a mess of crunchy, tangled fibers. All you can do is stutter, “Yes, my Lord,” before moving to kneel by his head.
You jump when Lord Sukuna grabs you by the wrist, snapping you out of your dazed trance.
“By my side.”
You blink. You don’t understand why he wants to keep you by his side to massage his chest. The best placement for the neck and chest is with his head cradled between your knees, but you comply. You aren’t reckless enough to argue with him. What Lord Sukuna wants, Lord Sukuna gets.
“Yes, my Lord.”
You kneel by his chest. Despite the awkward angle, you do your best to knead his pecs. 
“Lower.”
You move your hands down until they’re directly cupping his chest.
“Lower.”
Abs aren’t quite an area that’s normally massaged, but you accede. While humans don’t generally prefer having their stomachs pressed, perhaps demons are different in that regard.
“Lower.”
This time you pause. Lower would mean… you blush furiously at what his command is implying.
“My Lord?”
“You heard me, brat. Lower.”
You hesitantly slide your hands lower following the trail of hair leading down to his… your blush deepens. There’s only one thing in that region that’ll require a massage, and it’s currently twitching quite violently in your view.
“Do I need to spell out what I want?”
The irritation threading through his words is clear. 
“N–no, my Lord.”
You know what he’s asking you to do. Taking in a deep breath, you grasp his thick shaft, your tiny hand barely able to close around its full girth. It’s throbbing, the protruding veins pulsing in a steady yet demanding rhythmic beat. You exhale. The feeling of a man’s dick is foreign to you, and you’ve heard other ladies giggling over their midnight trysts with the other men, but this is your first time even holding one in your palm, much less one this massive. 
Struggling to remember what exactly was shared in the cover of night, you timidly move your oil-slicken hand up and down his shaft. Are you supposed to squeeze? How fast are you supposed to go? Do you include the tip?
You squeeze your eyes shut, tears prickling your eyelids. You so desperately want to please your Lord, but you have no idea what you’re doing, and you’re too scared to ask. Too scared of the consequences that may follow.
“You’ve never done this before, have you?”
“No, my Lord.”
“Hm. Interesting.”
Lord Sukuna is staring at you, contemplating something in his head. There’s a look in his eyes you can’t quite read. You don’t know whether you should be struck with fear or something else entirely or a combination of both. Your hand stills. The moment is tense with unspoken words.
“Apply more pressure and increase your pace gradually.”
Relief floods your anxious, fearful heart. For whatever reason, he is being patient with you, and you’re grateful for his mercy. You strengthen your grip around him, and pump, twirling around his shaft to cover every exposed inch.
“That's it, you're doing such a good job,” Lord Sukuna purrs, his eyes still trained on you, still gleaming with the something you can’t identify.
“Thank you, my Lord.”
“Do not forget to include the head of my cock.”
Your hand aches. After the strenuous exertion of massaging Lord Sukuna’s dense body and the width of his member, your fingers are cramping, at their limit, but you refuse to give in to the strain. Lord Sukuna has spared you several times already, and you’re determined to keep him pleased.
Lord Sukuna growls quietly under his breath, and you take a peek, taken aback at the rosy flush that has appeared on his cheeks and at the way his eyes are rolling under his eyelids and his mouth hangs open. His breaths are rapidly shallow.
He’s enjoying this.
Emboldened by your Lord’s response, you pump furiously. This time remembering to include the bulbous head. Your hand glides easily, the massage oil acting as a slick lubricant allowing you to increase your pace smoothly.
Your aim is to please your Lord, but you feel unsettled by the way your thighs are rubbing together, the way his growl has awoken a fluttering in your belly, the way you ache and throb between your legs.
Sukuna’s growls grow louder, interspersed with guttural grunts, all laced with a feral edge. Every so often his hips jerk against your fist until his cock pulls taut, and with a fearsome groan he erupts, shooting wave after wave of his white cum, his explosion so powerful and copious, his cum is spilling over your fist and spurting onto your clothes.
The ladies spoke of what happens when a man is pleasured, but this… This is something else entirely. Lord Sukuna’s release is a relentless torrent of white far beyond anything you’d previously heard. 
Lord Sukuna finally stills, his breathing labored. Despite spilling an impressive amount, his cock is still undeniably firm. He cracks his eyes open, and he languidly smirks, taking in the way you’re practically bathed in his cum.
“You have pleased me, little one.”
“Thank you, my Lord.” You bow, ignoring just how drenched you are from his release. “If you are satisfied, I shall take my leave.”
You’re so shaken from how much pleasure you also felt from pleasing your Lord, you forget you must first be dismissed before leaving his presence.
Lord Sukuna narrows his eyes, and he grabs you by the arm, pulling you closer towards him. “I’m not done with you, brat,” he hisses.
You flinch, recognizing your impudence. “I’m sorry, my Lord,” you whisper, flushing from how close his face is to yours.
Lord Sukuna trails his finger down your cheek, a wicked grin gracing his lips. You look into his eyes, finally understanding the gleam you couldn’t identify earlier.
Ravenous hunger.
He brings his lips so close to your ear, they brush your helix causing you to shiver, and says…
“I won’t be done with you until morning.”
455 notes · View notes
acti-veg · 3 months ago
Text
Leather vs. Pleather: 8 Myths Debunked
Since we are all beyond tired of seeing the same regurgitated leather posts every day, I've compiled and briefly debunked some of the most common myths peddled about leather and pleather… So hopefully we can all move on to talk about literally anything else.
1) Leather is not sustainable.
Approximately 85% of all leather (almost all leather you'll find in stores) is tanned using chromium. During the chrome tanning process, 40% of unused chromium salts are discharged in the final effluents, which makes it's way into waterways and poses a serious threat to wildlife and humans. There are also significant GHG emissions from the sheer amount of energy required to produce and tan leather.
Before we even get the cow's hide, you first need to get them to slaughter weight, which is a hugely resource-intensive process. Livestock accounts for 80% of all agricultural land use, and grazing land for cattle likely represents the majority of that figure. To produce 1 pound of beef (and the subsequent hide), 6-8 pounds of feed are required. An estimated 86% of the grain used to feed cattle is unfit for human consumption, but 14% alone represents enough food to feed millions of people. On top of that, one-third of the global water footprint of animal production is related to cattle alone. The leather industry uses greenwashing to promote leather as an eco-friendly material. Leather is often marketed as an eco-friendly product, for example, fashion brands often use the Leather Working Group (LWG) certificate to present their leather as sustainable. However, this certification (rather conveniently) does not include farm-level impacts, which constitute the majority of the negative environmental harm caused by leather.
2) Leather is not just a byproduct.
Some cows are raised speciifically for leather, but this a minority and usually represents the most expensive forms of leather. This does not mean that leather is just a waste product of beef and dairy, or that it is a completely incidental byproduct; it is more accurate to call leather a tertiary product of the beef and dairy industries. Hides used to fetch up to 50% of the total value of the carcass, this has dropped significantly since COVID-19 to only about 5-10%, but this is recovering, and still represents a significant profit margin. Globally, leather accounts for up to 26% of major slaughterhouses’ earnings. Leather is inextricably linked to the production of beef and dairy, and buying leather helps make the breeding, exploitation and slaughter of cows and steers a profitable enterprise.
3) Leather is not as biodegradable as you think.
Natural animal hides are biodegradable, and this is often the misleading way leather that sellers word it. "Cow hide is fully biodegradable" is absolutely true, it just purposely leaves out the fact that the tanning process means that the hide means that leather takes between 25 and 40 years to break down. Even the much-touted (despite it being a tiny portion of the market) vegetable-tanned leather is not readily biodegradable. Since leather is not recyclable either, most ends up incinerated, or at landfill. The end-of-life cycle and how it relates to sustainability is often massively overstated by leather sellers, when in fact, it is in the production process that most of the damage is done.
4) Leather is not humane.
The idea that leather represents some sort of morally neutral alternative to the evils of plastic is frankly laughable, at least to anyone who has done even a little bit of research into this exploitative and incredibly harmful industry. Cows, when properly cared for, can live more than fifteen years. However, most cows are usually slaughtered somewhere around 2-3 years old, and the softest leather, most luxurious leather comes from the hide of cows who are less than a year old. Some cows are not even born before they become victim to the industry. Estimates vary, but according to an EFSA report, on average 3% of dairy cows and 1.5 % of beef cattle, are in their third-trimester of pregnancy when they are slaughtered.
Slaughter procedures vary slightly by country, but a captive bolt pistol shot to the head followed by having their throats slit, while still alive, is standard industry practice. This represents the “best” a slaughtered cow can hope for, but many reports and videos exist that suggest that cows still being alive and conscious while being skinned or dismembered on the production line is not uncommon, some of these reports come from slaughterhouse workers themselves.
5) Leather often involves human exploitation.
The chemicals used to tan leather, and the toxic water that is a byproduct of tanning, affect workers as well as the environment; illness and death due to toxic tanning chemicals is extremely common. Workers across the sector have significantly higher morbidity, largely due to respiratory diseases linked to the chemicals used in the tanning process. Exposure to chromium (for workers and local communities), pentachlorophenol and other toxic pollutants increase the risk of dermatitis, ulcer nasal septum perforation and lung cancer.
Open Democracies report for the Child Labour Action Research Programme shows that there is a startlingly high prevalence of the worst forms of child labour across the entire leather supply chain. Children as young as seven have been found in thousands of small businesses processing leather. This problem is endemic throughout multiple countries supplying the global leather market.
6) Pleather is not a ‘vegan thing’.
Plastic clothing is ubiquitous in fast fashion, and it certainly wasn’t invented for vegans. Plastic leather jackets have been around since before anyone even knew what the word vegan meant, marketing department have begun describing it as ‘vegan leather’ but it’s really no more a vegan thing than polyester is. Most people who wear pleather are not vegan, they just can’t afford to buy cow’s leather, which remains extremely expensive compared to comparable fabrics.
It is striking how anti-vegans consistently talk about how ‘not everyone can afford to eat plant-based’ and criticise vegans for advocating for veganism on that basis, yet none of them seem to mind criticisms directed at people for wearing a far cheaper alternative than leather. You can obviously both be vegan and reduce plastic (as we all should), but vegans wear plastic clothing for the same reason everyone else does: It is cheaper.
7) Plastic is not the only alternative.
When engaging in criticism of pleather, the favourite tactic seems to be drawing a false dilemma where we pretend the only options are plastic and leather. Of course, this is a transparent attempt to draw the debate on lines favourable to advocates of leather, by omitting the fact that you can quite easily just buy neither one.
Alternatives include denim, hemp, cork, fiber, mushroom fiber, cotton, linen, bamboo, recycled plastic, and pinatex, to name a few. There are exceptions in professions like welding, where an alternative can be difficult to source, but nobody needs a jacket, shoes or a bag that looks like leather. For most of us, leather is a luxury item that doesn’t even need to be replaced at all.
8) Leather is not uniquely long-lasting.
The longevity of leather is really the only thing it has going for it, environmentally speaking. Replacing an item less often means fewer purchases, and will likely have a lower environmental impact than one you have to replace regularly. Leather is not unique in this respect, however, and the idea that it is, is mostly just effective marketing.
As your parents will tell you, a well-made denim jacket can last a lifetime. Hemp and bamboo can both last for decades, as can cork and pinatex. Even cotton and linen can last for many years when items are looked after well. While some materials are more hard wearing than others, how long an item will last is mostly the result of how well made the product is and how well it is maintained, not whether or not the item is leather.
374 notes · View notes
reasonsforhope · 4 months ago
Text
"Scientists have developed a way to dramatically reduce the cost of recycling certain electronic waste by using whey protein.
Their method allows for the easy recovery of gold from circuit boards at a cost of energy and materials amounting to 50 times less than the price of the gold they recover—these are the numbers that big business likes to see.
Indeed, the potential for scalability depends on this sort of cost savings, something traditional e-waste recycling methods just can’t achieve.
Professor Raffaele Mezzenga from ETH Zurich has found that whey protein, a byproduct of dairy manufacturing, can be used to make sponges that attract trace amounts of ionized gold.
Electronic waste contains a variety of valuable metals, including copper, cobalt, and gold. Despite gold’s public persona as being either money or jewelry, thousands of ounces of gold are used in electronics every year for its exceptional conductive properties.
Mezzenga’s colleague Mohammad Peydayesh first “denatured whey proteins under acidic conditions and high temperatures, so that they aggregated into protein nanofibrils in a gel,” writes the ETH Zurich press. “The scientists then dried the gel, creating a sponge out of these protein fibrils.”
The next step was extracting the gold: done by tossing 20 salvaged motherboards into an acid bath until the metals had dissolved into ionized compounds that the sponge began attracting.
Removing the sponge, a heat treatment caused the gold ions to aggregate into 22-carat gold flakes which could be easily removed.
“The fact I love the most is that we’re using a food industry byproduct to obtain gold from electronic waste,” Mezzenga says. In a very real sense, he observes, the method transforms two waste products into gold. “You can’t get much more sustainable than that!” ...
However the real dollar value comes from the bottom line—which was 50 times more than the cost of energy and source materials. Because of this, the scientists have every intention of bringing the technology to the market as quickly as possible while also desiring to see if the protein fibril sponge can be made of other food waste byproducts.
E-waste is a quickly growing burden in global landfills, and recycling it requires extremely energy-intensive machinery that many recycling facilities do not possess.
The environmental value of the minerals contained within most e-waste comes not only from preventing the hundreds of years it takes for them to break down in the soil, but also from the reduction in demand from new mining operations which can, though not always, significantly degrade the environments they are located in.
[Note: Absolutely massive understatement, mining is incredibly destructive to ecosystems. Mining is also incredibly toxic to human health and a major cause of conflict, displacement, and slavery globally.]
Other countries are trying to incentivize the recycling of e-waste, and are using gold to do so. In 2022, GNN reported that the British Royal Mint launched an electronically traded fund (ETF) with each share representing the value of gold recovered from e-waste as a way for investors to diversify into gold in a way that doesn’t support environmentally damaging mining.
The breakthrough is reminiscent of that old fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin who can spin straw into gold. All that these modern-day, real-life alchemists are doing differently is using dairy and circuit boards rather than straw."
-via Good News Network, July 19, 2024
495 notes · View notes
callsigngrim · 4 months ago
Text
3 times you accidentally end up on Königs lap and 1 time it's on purpose 
You guys know the drill MDNI
Konig x reader - smut, horny monologues, slightly mean konig, knive mention(clothes get cut thats it) please enjoy!!!
1 In the car
The drive to base is long and the heat is unbearable. Especially considering you're sitting on your colonel's lap hyper focused on not squirming too much. You made that mistake about an hour in. And you had wished you could vanish the moment you finally realised why König had caged you in his large arms to stop you from moving. He was hard and every tiny movement you made you could feel his massive length twitch. And the worst part of all? You could hear him panting right in your ear. He had silenced you the moment you tried to apologise. His voice came out breathless and down right sinful. And the only thing you could do was pray that your fellow teammates didn't pick up on you and your superior flustered state. 
2. At the bar
The mission was a success and drinks were in order. Everyone was so happy to be finished with the month-long assignment that even König had agreed to join the group.
The bar was packed and you all had to squeeze into one of the booths. You and König hadn't had the chance to talk about the ride to base. But then again that was nearly a month ago. Sure he had popped a boner but you couldn't really blame him now could you. The man was as pent up as the rest of you. Working back to back missions left little time to take care of your more intimate needs. It meant nothing.
You had just gotten back with a new round of drinks when you were suddenly pushed onto König as one of the sergeants no doubt drunk out of his mind pulled one of the ladies he had been chatting up all evening into the already crowded booth.
König barely has time to register his beer, nearly being knocked out of his hand. Before he's greeted with a soft warm body being pushed against him. You smell good is the first thing his brain registers. The second being the fact that he has the perfect view to see the pretty blue bra you're wearing and how it accentuates your pretty tits.
Fuck not again. He barely held his composure in the truck and now with you out of uniform he can see and feel the softness of your plush body. He pissed off some deity and now he's being punished.
You can't believe you're sitting on his lap again. And now you can feel him even more through the flimsy material of your dress. God this can't get any worse.
3 You're drunk (not so accidental this time)
As it turns out it can get worse so much worse. You're tipsy teetering on being drunk and the person to blame for this is currently sitting in the dark little corner hidden from everyone. And he is looking right at you.
These last few months have been torture you are pent up beyond belief. And the source of your dishevelled state has been ignoring you ever since the incident at the bar.
But you don't know if the silent treatment had made things better or worse. Because he might not be talking to you. But fuck has he been much more touchy than usual . And it's driving you insane. It started out slow you wouldn't even have noticed if you weren't as high strung as you were. Little touches here and there. And then it progressively became worse. He went from soft little touches to full on groping you. You were nearing your breaking point 
Your vibrator has broken from the amount of times you've used it and your fingers aren't helping at all. No, your brain has short circuited ever since you felt Königs deliciously large cock press up against your ass. And now nothing is scratching the itch you've been struggling with for months.
Tonight though you were going to get back at him.
He was testing you; he knew it was cruel you didn't really do anything wrong . But König was allowed to be selfish especially when it came to you.
You with your soft body and pretty smile. He often caught himself staring at your pretty eyes too. He wondered what you would look like, face flushed red and tears running down your cheeks as you struggled to take his cock. Would you let him fuck that pretty tight mouth of yours? And how beautiful would you look stuffed full with his cock begging him to fill you up over and over again until you couldn't remember anything else but his name.
He was sure you were ready to snap given how often he heard the little moans late at night while you fucked yourself on that flimsy vibrator. Honestly, liebe you didn't need to be so shy. He would glady fuck you if you asked.
That's what had started this little game in the first place. You had scattered off both times after landing on his lap. Red faced and unbearably shy. 
But after tonight that shyness will be gone after he's done with you.
The shots you had been downing all night had made you unbearably hot and ready to give König a piece of your mind. You were horny and the main culprit to your month's long suffering was going to fix it.
Almost everyone had left, leaving just you and König alone it was now or never.
“So do you want to tell me why you haven't been talking to me”? The words come out slightly slurred but right now you don't care you want answers and you'll be damned if you don't get them.
“Liebe, is there a reason that you are so shy when it comes to me”? He's trying to keep his voice neutral. The last thing he wants to do now is scare you off. Not when you have come so far.
“I'm not shy. If I was shy I wouldn't ask to sit on your lap now would I”?
Maybe it's the alcohol talking or your horny brain. But it's out and there is no going back.
“By all means then schatz come here and take a seat” he's smug you can hear it just as clearly as you can see the self-satisfied grin on his face. 
You move to sit but he turns you so that you're facing him . And instantly you feel heat rushing to your face. You can feel his cock pressing right against your cunt. He moves back resting against the coach, his eyes are half lidded. He's observing you taking you in and you feel absolutely tiny against the behemoth of a man. 
He's saying something to you but the alcohol has turned your brain off and exhaustion has replaced everything else.
“Tomorrow night liebe my room 8 o'clock don't be late” his voice is so soft and he's so warm before you know it you're out cold being carried to your room by König. He places you in bed and can't help but smile at your sleeping form.
“Rest up schatz you will need it for tomorrow”
1 Intentional 
The day is gone before you know it. You knock on Königs door at exactly 8 o'clock. He tells you to come in. Whatever you were expecting, wasn't this. He's sitting on his bed naked lazily stroking himself. He looks like a god;with the light from his lamp casting a shadow over him it makes him look ethereal. His bed is just barely big enough to hold his massive frame. And you can feel how you're getting wet from the wet sounds coming from him.
“You like sitting on my lap so come here and take your seat”
You move towards him. And he meets you halfway. He pulls you up and once again you're on his lap but this time hopefully you'll get the release you need.
You want to ask him something but all thoughts die the moment he pulls you close and kisses you. He tastes like coffee and mint. And it's absolutely intoxicating. 
König takes his time exploring your mouth. Committing every sound you make as he finally gets to touch you and be the one to make you sing from the pleasure he's giving you.
The need to feel every inch of you makes him impatient and instead of waiting for you to pull off your clothes and underwear. König simply flips you over pulling out a knife from under his pillow. And effectively cuts off the offending clothes.
You pout at your clothes being cut to shreds. But is quickly forgotten the moment König takes one of your breasts into his mouth, sucking and biting while his hand is toying with the other. You're a moaning panting mess completely at his mercy. Every part of you feels like it's on fire while he toys with your sensitive body.
Slowly he moves down leaving a trail of bruises in his wake as he sucks and bites the soft supple skin. Marking you up before he reaches your clit. He spreads you open, baring your pussy to the world. His eyes are pitch black as he takes you in. And then he strikes. He doesn't give you time to breathe as sucks on your clit till it's throbbing in the most delicious way. He's eating you out like a man starving and you just have to brace yourself and enjoy the ride. His tongue is filling you up as he prepares you for his fingers. Slowly your orgasm builds as he devours your cunt. He takes his time letting you get used to one finger and then two. By the time he had you stretched on three fingers you felt like you might explode. He had become impatient and was fucking in and out of you with his fingers at a brutal pace. You were numb from the pleasure he was giving you.
And just like that your climax had hit you like a tidal wave. Waves after waves of pleasure were coursing through you. 
König watches transfixed as you ride out your orgasm. You look breathtaking. The way your chest heaves and how your hair clings to your face he could look at you for hours like this marvelling at your beauty.
You lay there catching your breath slowly coming down from your high. God it was good but his fingers weren't enough. You need him inside you now.
Moving up you pull König down for a kiss. Before you push him so that he's sitting against the headboard. You keep kissing each other grounding one another before you slowly move to line him up. The first few inches already make you feel impossibly full. And when he's finally fully inside you? You have to breathe and count to ten to stop yourself from coming right then and there. You can feel every inch and every vein as he pushes against your gummy walls. Curving out the shape of his cock. He's ruined you for anyone else.
“Please move”. You gasp out your pleas and it seems that's all König needed before he starts lifting you up and pushing you down on his cock.
Your pussy keeps sucking him back in every time he starts to pull out. You're so wet that even with his large length he practically gilded right into your warm heat.
He finally had you bouncing on his cock after month's of torture and you where better than he imagined.
You look so gorgeous bouncing on his cock with your pretty tits right in his face to suck and do with as he pleases.
He can't help but groan at the way your walls are clenching around him he knows you're close he can feel his own climax nearing. Soon he'll get to fill you. Claim you as his
And then you won't need to worry about using that silly vibrator or your small fingers. You would have him to use as you saw fit.
Just like you were his to use.
The warmth of your cunt and the sounds pouring out of you has König tipping over the edge and filling you up. But even after the both of you have reached your climax he's still rutting into you. Until you're sobbing from the overstimulation.
Only once you've come for a third time that night does König stop his ministrations.
But he doesn't pull out. He simply flips you over and covers you both in a blanket.
You're on the verge of passing out when you hear him mutter something. But your brain is too tired to comprehend what he was saying.
It's only the next morning with his head between your thighs that you remember what he had said to you
“Rest liebe we have a few months worth of pleasure to make up for”.
411 notes · View notes
gallusrostromegalus · 1 year ago
Note
Hi Gallus, I'm doing some worldbuilding and you seem like you could be connected enough for me to find an answer to the problem of dwarven agriculture. Many problems are created by the requirement of no sunlight, as even the common response of mushrooms still need light to break down decomposing matter as a primary energy source. Currently, we're thinking that they use a special type of mushroom that breaks down rocks in an energy-producing reaction, giving them enough energy to absorb nutrients and grow - this would serve a second purpose in explaining why building a massive hollowed-out mountain fortress doesn't produce an equally large amount of gravel.
Any thoughts? We're grasping at straws kinda lol
Well, some thoughts:
There's plenty of cave systems (especially Karst Systems) that are at least partially open to Sunlight- especially the kind that have rivers running through them, which is something else that's really helpful for agriculture.
For Example: This Cool AF Sinkhole cave in china that has an entire Forest in it
Tumblr media
Now There's a view to put outside the city Gates!
Karst specifically is a landscape where underground rivers hollow out the limestone underground and then the cave roofs fall in. This kind of landscape answers your gravel question nicely: the hollowed out mountain does produce an equal amount of gravel, but the gravel turns up as the sandy banks of the river system hundreds of miles away.
So, there's your sunlight that can be used directly, or reflected or magically transferred deeper into the cave system.
Or they just put more holes in the roof! Unless your dwarves are also vampires, there's no reason for them to not hollow out a few Skylights into the mountain too.
But let's talk some other cave ecology and agriculture!
For starters, your dwarves could be sitting on top of a literal gold mine that would allow them to trade for a lot of needed materials and crops.
And by gold mine, I mean Salt Mine.
Historically, salt comes out of hollowed-out mountains and is worth more than gold.
Also something the humans have historically fought a bunch of wars over, so there's some free political tensions if you needed that!
I can also mean the possible fucking enormous piles of bat guano that accumulates in Karst caves, which is the world's most insanely good fertilizer, and ALSO something that has been worth more than it's weight in gold.
Speaking of Gold, another thing that often lives in sinkhole caves in abundance is BEES. turns out, limestone stalactites are a terrific place to build a hive that is difficult for predators to reach, stays dry and the stone substrate means the hives can reach many tons in weight before they start having structural issues. That sweet, sweet insect-derived liquid gold is already important to Dwarves in a lot of folklore- it's really hard to have a Traditional Dwarven Mead Hall without the honey to make the mead, you know?
So you got your mushrooms, you got your sunlight-grown sinkhole crops, you got your traded goods and you got your source of alcohol- the only thing really missing from an ancient food pyramid here is a staple carbohydrate. To that end, may I propose our good Peruvian Friend: The Potato.
Grain crops aren't actually all that nutritious and were kept around in ancient societies more as legal tender that kept the peasants busy, because wheat or rice takes months to grow, an enormous amount of labor to harvest, and wheat also needs to be milled before it can be turned into food- all enormously time-consuming processes that keep peasants busy and easy to rule tyranically over.
Potatoes though? Pop one in the ground in spring and you can dig up fingerlings all summer, and if you make potato towers, you can harvest up to 40lbs of delicious, easy-to-prepare-and-store carb out of a single plant- a real space-saver for the limited sinkhole skyspace.
If your dwarves have cheese, the potato makes even more sense, because Potato+dairy is the easiest, most nutritionally complete survival food there is.
Finally, consider: Dwarven Vodka.
This post is open for anyone to comment suggestions on, but that's my take: put your dwarves in a Karst-sinkhole cave system, give them a highly in demand resource like salt or guano, bees, and taters. Boom. Whole agriculture, economy and political scheme starters.
1K notes · View notes
batmanlovesnirvana · 2 months ago
Text
Money in massive amounts is never clean.
To amass a certain level of wealth, there’s inevitably a little blood on your hands. That's why I prefer the Wayne family with a touch of moral ambiguity—keeps things interesting.
Sure, we can say Thomas Wayne was a good guy (I mean, "good billionaire" sounds like an oxymoron, but I’ll let it slide since he's fictional). He’s a surgeon, sometimes a co-CEO, and in some versions, he even takes a shot at being mayor. But let's be real—his wealth didn’t come from rainbows and fairy dust.
No, the Wayne fortune wasn’t built on saving puppies and planting trees. Somewhere in the family history, there’s probably a dark corner filled with skeletons, or you know, a handful of emerald mines for exemple. I wouldn't be shocked if Thomas's great-great-grandfather named a labor camp after his wife—romantic, right? Sweet sentiment aside, you don’t just wake up one day swimming in billions without a few questionable "business decisions" sprinkled in.
Yeah, the Waynes are old money, but we’re talking about billions—like "richer-than-Queen-Elizabeth" money. Battinson alone is worth what, 9.2 billion? And in the comics? Bruce is probably a trillionaire, and that fortune didn’t just materialize from charitable bake sales.
You can’t convince me that all of the Wayne money is squeaky clean. Even if Bruce himself isn’t aware of it, some of that fortune likely came from, oh I don’t know, oil deals that were less "above board" and more "we took it from the Middle East." Because, like I said, you don’t build an empire like the Waynes’ without some shady dealings. Let’s face it, billionaires don't get to that level of wealth by being saints.
Now with the new Penguin series, we’re about to see how wealth is really made—without the rose-tinted glasses. Sure, Oswald Cobblepot is a mobster and criminal, but money is money. You can work hard, play by the rules, and become a millionaire—that’s fair, that’s normal. But billionaires? I guarantee you they’ve done worse than Penguin to reach their fortune.
Fictional or not, it makes for a more grounded and realistic Gotham and I do hope Reeves will explore this idea.
In Nolan’s trilogy, we had the shiny, perfect Thomas Wayne and his oh-so-virtuous family, but we never really dug into how the Waynes probably weren’t doing great things for, you know, the rest of the world.
In the Snyderverse, we got that backstory about the Waynes being hunters and building their fortune by selling furs to the French, if I remember right—but still. You don’t become that filthy rich by just selling that.
We always pin the morally questionable label on the Kanes or the Arkhams (Martha Wayne's family), but the Waynes? They’re consistently portrayed as Gotham’s golden dynasty.
Anyway, that’s my ramble for the day.
Tumblr media
313 notes · View notes