#me trying to remember to watermark my shit

[mystic-warriors]

I HATH FINALLY CREATED MY OWN WHISPER HUMAN DESIGN although I’d still like to give credit to user BechnoKid since their interpretation has been a big inspo lmao

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

trying to psych myself up to finally do oc refs by doing fandom-related refs instead: volume 1

wanted to update my yuma from whatever tf this au is so he was a bit more unique... takes inspo from a lot of different things while also trying to be its own sorta thing? which is fitting given the au ;)

bonus chibi now that i'm also figuring out how tf to do chibis lol:

[alllgator-blood]

I call this one "found family but it goes horribly wrong in an irreparable way" :)

I've been doing a lot of cotl comics but I kinda lost my comic making endurance after not working on art since last september, so I made this to help me flex my art muscles. Apologies for the watermarks lmao they kinda kill the mood but I've already had people repost my art when I put it on reddit so...might as well get the credit if my stuff is gonna be reposted regardless. RAMBLE INCOMING!!

Thinking about how shamura was most likely the one to find + raise their adopted siblings and help them survive the mass deicide that happened thousands of years before....OUUGH. I have so many ideas for comics that take place when half the bishops were still lil kids. I have one in progress right now actually. But it just hurts when I remember how it all ends- they loved their family for so long and yet they credit their love as what caused it to fall apart!!! The lore of the bishops only sunk in when I was dealing with my own heavy sibling angst, and I was like wow....shamura supported the sibs so much they accidentally encouraged their brother into being a heretic, and couldn't close pandora's box in time to save him or the rest of the family. They blame themself for the past 1,000 years and seem to be totally okay with dying for what they did?? Like when they get sent to the shadow realm they tell you to "finish the job" instead of leaving them in purgatory. And despite being the bishop of war, they are the only bishop to not have a "desperate" phase where their attacks get more brutal. They're not desperate, they just want to get it over with. All their other siblings are dead by then anyway so it's not like they have anything to stick around for, even if they were healthy enough to win the battle. Plus I mean...narinder is the bishop of death so they probably just want to see him one last time. Owch

Don't get me wrong I love to hate narinder and his only role in my cult is the guy who cleans the outhouse, but I really like his dynamic with shamura vs. the other siblings. I kinda see him as the troubled kid that couldn't assimilate into the family and shamura took it upon themself to try and fix him. It's interesting thinking about how they're the only one he shows remorse for despite feeling the most betrayed by them. I don't think he 100% hates them, he's just been locked in gay baby jail for so long he's had nothing better to think about than "my sibling encouraged me to experiment with my godly duties, and then punished me for it!!". He's not wrong? But also is shamura that wrong either??? Idk it's complicated with no real answer and I like it a lot, I wish the game told us more about what the bishops were like before they got their shit rocked during the schism. I would've loved to see shamura before their brain was turned to mush by their tbi + 1,000 years of suffocating grief and crushing guilt :)

ANYWAY thanks for making it to the bottom of this rant, here is a sketch I did a while ago of shamura + baby leshy from a prequel au thing I don't have a name for yet:

[frnkiebby]

30 years old and constantly reposting other people's shit? go get a job

y’know, i think the thing that throws me off about anons like this is that they’re on anon. Because it puts the person in a position where if they want to respond, they have to put an insult to themselves on their blog.

i don’t know where i’ve ever claimed ownership of any of the frimages or gifs that i didn’t take or make, and of the gifs i do make i don’t even watermark half the time bc one, i forget to, and two, i honestly don’t give a shit about someone crediting me for them.

if i know who took a frimage and it’s not already watermarked then i absolutely will credit, and if i need to crop a frimage but it takes out the credit then guess what? i don’t crop it. same idea for gifs. thankfully most people do remember to watermark their gifs unlike me, and thus have their credit on the gif.

there was an instance where i posted a gif set and hadn’t credited bc i didn’t know who created them and the creator saw and rb’d the post about it and i edited the post with credit and a link to their post and encouraged people to go give notes to that post instead. then earlier it looks like someone linked credit to another gif i posted that i now see is a full gif set. of gifs that have been watermarked by the creator. a watermark that gives them credit. because they have essentially signed it.

i have absolutely no problem making a disclaimer tag for all the content that isn’t mine. i guess i shouldn’t have assumed that people were smart enough to realize/understand that the photos and gifs that i post on a frank iero fan blog aren’t taken or made by me for christ sake.

not only that, but i kind of hoped that if someone had an issue with something i do that even if they went on anon that they’d be at least respectful enough to do so without throwing insults. i’m a person who is always willing to make corrections to my actions and posts. last night someone let me know about a post that bothered them and they were on anon. they were so fucking respectful and yk what? we came to a resolution.

alternately, if someone wants to insult me i’d very much rather they have the courage and self respect to do it off anon or in my dms. because the funny thing about me? i don’t throw insults back. not even in real life. i don’t see the point in it.

finally, to address your insult? i do have a job, technically two. and i like them. there’s this fancy thing called a queue that i use during my working hours. but also, to throw an insult like that? “go get a job”? for myself that’s not hurtful, but there are people who don’t have a job and who are desperately and actively trying and can’t get one or are physically/mentally unable to hold a job. so for them, if they were to get an insult like this, which i know for a fact they do on the fucking daily, is incredibly hurtful and is something that has potential to push them over the edge.

so how about we try this again and you send me a respectful ask on or off anon or a dm about what you specifically take issue with and we can actually discuss it and see if there’s a solution to come to.~🎃

[olderthannetfic]

There's an entire debate going on in a fandom I'm adjacent to that I want your input on. A lot of people like both fic of the characters and the actors for this fandom; I only do character fic because real people are boring (and also I can't ever remember the names of actors since to me they're just vehicles to deliver the characters to me). Since I find real life people unengaging, I don't have a dog in this fight, but the fandom debate goes like this:

If it's okay to write smut fic (or sex fic, I know smut is not a neutral word to some USAmericans) about actors, then is or is it not okay to watch or make deepfake porn of them?

Honestly it's something I don't have an opinion on because 1. I'm not into celebrities and 2. the whole "well how would YOU feel if people were jacking off to YOU" thing doesn't really hit the same way for me since my foster parents made CSEM of me and it's still in circulation, so I've had to be numb to the idea of people jacking off to me my whole life. I guess the logical part of my mind can see how there's a difference in that one is visual and one isn't? But I don't know if I think it says anything about anyone morally to be into videos/images that treat actors as a sex fantasy that wouldn't already be morally present if you're jerking off to fic of them.

On the other hand my therapist is so concerned by how unbothered I am by most heinous shit people do that she's having me work with a psychiatrist, herself, and attend group therapy so I'm pretty sure I'm not the correct person to make any judgments regarding this.

--

I'm sure some people feel differently about visuals from text, but that's not the main difference, in my opinion.

The main difference is that deepfakes are typically attempting to seem real. Porn actors who look vaguely like someone famous, explicit fan art, and fic are overtly fake. It's clear what the fantasy is, but there's no attempt to pass these things, even RPF, off as something that the actor actually did.

Photomanips might bother some people for being too close to seeming real, but I think a lot of them have some pretty clear fakeness built in. The main danger for this or deepfakes is that even if you, the artist, want it to be understood to be fake, some unscrupulous third party might be able to remove your watermark etc. and try to pass the art off as real.

I don't think it's any of an actor's business what kind of fantasies people have about them, even if those fantasies are expressed in art. I do think it's their business if someone is spreading lies about their actual activities.

[thatskindarough]

Oh it was only 3 actually, counting that one animatic on YouTube (that BTW i had no idea was yours! I was pleasantly surprised <3)

And I found it so funny that you have somewhat an idea of who I might be PFFF you can throw the guess, it would be funny if you get it right (don't have to say my name if you don't remember it, you can just go for something you remember NFKDSJ)

also time for an actual question since i'm already here, what program did you used for the animatic? I've always wanted to get into animating but most softwares cost money or are free but really bad so I could use some recommendations 👀

Good to hear there is no imposter lol. I should probably start using the false pfp so people know it’s me but I’m too lazy to change them all 💀 also my guess was right as to who you were but probably mainly because I put on my Aziraphale detective hat and you were the last notification before the ask inbox notification and your icon had a red beanie. We meet once again.

As for the animatic I used procreate for drawing and capecut for composting. Not the most efficient method but I liked it. I ended up segmenting off each camera angle into a different canvas and making any animation for the shot that way. I love capecut because the free version has every editing function you need for an animatic and the watermark only appears as a black screen at the end so it’s so easy to crop out. It’s probably the best free editing software I’ve found. (I also used a screen recording device to record the audio cause even if you buy a song it sometimes doesn’t allow you to put it in the program.)

I honestly recommend procreate if you have a device that supports it. I think it’s still only a 10 dollar onetime purchase. But if you don’t have a device that supports it, I have used things like flip a clip which is free, and the paid version is pretty cheap. I have also dabbled in an app called rough animate, also free (you don’t have to pay for the onion skins) which was also okay. I got frustrated cause of the lack of brush choice but other than that it’s not bad at all. If you can’t pay anything at all I’d recommend this because, unlike flip a clip, you don’t have to pay to unlock the a lot of the really helpful features. Ibis paint also added an animation feature I think so that’s an option. Idk if you need the paid version for it, but I remember only having to watch ads for a minute to unlock all the brushes so maybe it’s the same for the animation feature lol.

If you have a computer set up, I’ve also heard nice things about Krita for animation. It’s free and from what I remember it had a really good timeline set up. I actually tried to use it, but my computer at the time was old and slow and it lagged to much, and then I had a shitty no screen tablet and my hand eye coordination when it came to drawing and writing is quite bad, so it just wasn’t a good set up for me personally. But I know people make it work. I mean, people make this kinda shit in MS paint, if you’re dedicated enough you can technically do it in almost any program (though you may not be able to make it as polished as you’d like.)

Then there is Clip Studio Paint, which does cost money but is way less expensive than like, harmony or adobe. The EX version which gives you a second of free animation per project is a $5 monthly subscription for once device, PC MaC IOS, and the Pro version (which is more expensive) gives you unlimited animation animation access for I believe around 10 -15 dollars a month (still less than most streaming services lol). There’s also a one time purchase version that is $50 dollars, but it goes on sale A LOT for $25! Although I don’t think it gives you more than a second of animation. CSP also has a very long free trial period, for EX it was legit like 3 months. so if you try it out and like it, I’d definitely suggest finding a way to pay for it. It’s actually used in some professional studios in Japan, so if you have any professional aims for your work it’s a good starting platform to get into industry software. However a lot of the nice things CSP offers for animation are not needed in the story boarding/animatic stage, so if that’s as far as you wanna take your animations it maaaaaaay not be worth it unless you love it.

If anyone else has other cheap or free recommendations feel free to add on. I have attempted to make animatics on procreate, rough animate, and flip a clip; all of which I have uncompleted projects on. It just so happens that procreate is what I was using when I finally made an animatic I liked enough to see until completion. Whatever software you do use, just make sure you learn how to use it before attempting a big project. Do some smaller stuff before you try anything big.

Edit to check the comments! We got other good recommendations for computers!

[egg-emperor]

alright last post I'll make on this, just letting you know because it'll affect the future of this blog

I've been dealing with reposters for years but this is definitely the worst case yet as members of the past smear campaign jumped on board and said nasty shit. anyway blocked by them all including said reposter, so it's over now and I know the right people will see the truth of all the proof and believe me (though they deleted the posts I linked in fear proving their guilt). again, please do not harass them or argue on my behalf. I don't want to give them ammo and I just want peace

to prevent this from happening again, I'm going to be watermarking absolutely everything visual I post from now on. I already added watermarks to my gifs but I'm going to start putting transparentish text over my images too so you can still see the image but they can't be cropped off. like old DA watermark style, though not quite as big and obnoxious

I apologize that this has to ruin it for all of us, I'm sure it'll be annoying to see and I hate it as much as you. but it's hard effort, especially with my chronic pain and fatigue I fight hard to not get in the way of my passion. I'm not going to let them stop me from being myself and posting what I want, I won't hide my blog away or make them stop me from doing what I love. going to keep doing my thing just with more protection now

and then the reposters will eventually run out of old unwatermarked stuff of mine to use and at least then I'll have a win over them :P going to try to report but if it doesn't work I'll at least be happy knowing they can't take any more

I appreciate those who use my stuff transformatively but add the due credit, remember you're always free to do that and it's appreciated. and I appreciate all of those who support me and my work, I'm going to keep going for all of you. thank you so much, I love you all 💜

again, thanks for reading and last post I'll make on this and remember to not harass or argue on my behalf. I'm going to update the post with the rest of the proof I have in time (to the best of my ability since they deleted the posts in fear) but I won't keep boosting it or anything, I don't need this to take up any more of my blog

annnnd back to our regularly scheduled posting

[just-some-random-blogger]

Its okay to be sad. Feel your feelings. It's normal and perfectly okay. Your writing will always be there. Your mental health should always come first.

aLSO OMFG SHUT UPI CAN BE THE SAME WAY BUT IT'S THAT IM TOO DISTRACTED ALL THE TIME. I'm /too/ talkative and I sometimes i feel like people are like wow not talking to this bitch lmfaooooooo. I'm always like damn my extroversion strikes again 😭

Go ahead and show us!!! I'd love to see it!!

Oh my God I'm a huge fucking metalhead. Screamo is my preferred genre, but it's pretty much all under the heavy metal genre. I'm going to see Motionless in White in July for theeeeeee 3rd? time???? I can't remember, but asdhlasiudhasildh highly recommend listening to them and their album "Scoring the End of The World" . Fucking incredible. Also Amity Afflictions new album "Not Without My Ghosts" . One song on there called "When It Rains It Pours" has been on repeat for the past four weeks for me. 🥲

ALSO can't believe that interviewer didn't bother asking his favorite metal bands LIKE YOU HAD ONE JOB. ONE. 😭😭😭😭

Oh shit i think i just got an idea for an aemond au i could write 😈😈😈😈😈

(: yeah. it is ok to be sad. its just a challenge to navigate

IM ALSO A DISTRACTED TALKATIVE PERSON LOL and im also sometimes on the fence about how people react to me and my learned extraversion AHAHAH

ANYWAY HERE ARE MY TSHIRT DESIGNS try not to mind my annoying watermark. i added it cos of the 'ok anons' i get that i do not trust. i did this for fun and i dont want anyone to do anything but look at this. @lexi-anastasia wanted to see too so heres the big reveal LOL

🤠BONK🤠

OK I HAVE AN ADAM DRIVER AS MAURIZIO GUCCI BRAINROT OK OK AND I REALLY WANTED TO TAKE A WACK AT DOING THE METAL DAEMON TEE BEFORE REPLYING. i know the metal tee it could be more distressed but IDK I THINK ITS A SLAY IM GOING TO BE MAKING MORE IM THINKING OF REDOWNLOADING PHOTOSHOP JUST FOR THIS PROJECT COS I DID THIS ON CANVA AND THERE ARE EFFECTS I CANT ACHIEVE THERE

I PLAN TO MAKE LIKE FIVE SHIRTS SO AHHH IM SO EXCITED HAHAHAHAHAH but also i probably wont redownload photoshop cos its been years since i touched that 😓 lolol

also! im so glad that you mentioned the music you did.

ive heard of motionless in white! i think i tried getting into them but lol i didnt AHAHH i took a listen to scoring the end of the world, as in the song, COS WHAT AN INSANE TITLE THATS SO COOL i loved the song so MUCH!!! i really liked how heavy the instrumentation is! i look for this in pop music a lot and im like 🧍‍♀️ why didnt they go heavier? SO THIS WAS REALLY NICE

but then i kinda giggled when i heard the lead's emo voice T_T HAHAHAH i was like yeah that's about right, i'd nearly forgotten some people sing like this unironically 💀💀🤣🤣 idk i had expected a voice timbre like the singer in maneskin, damiano LOL. i could talk about this more but itd get too long

i also listened to "Not Without My Ghosts", not realizing you were just mentioning the album name, and "When It Rains It Pours". when i was listening to not without my ghosts i thought scoring the end of the world would have been cooler had the motionless in white singer had that kind of voice timbre BUT THATS NOT A SLIGHT I JUST THINK THAT PERSONALLY I STILL THINK ITS A SLAY.

and when i was listening to when it rains it pours, it for some reason reminded me of pain by of mice & men, idk if its the screams or the lyrics, maybe a bit of both. i love that song so much. anyway when it rains it pours was like... ok for me lololol again not a slight but i liked scroing the end of the world better

oh and i hadnt realized ewan talked about that in an interview. i mean, maybe the interviewer was idk nervous or smth T_T LOL. i t be like that. anyway, i hope you have fun writing that aemond au idea my love! id ask you what is is but if you wanted to say then you would have lol.

thank you for dropping by!!! i love you

[dexter-by-designation]

Commissions [Currently Closed]

Some Ground Rules:

I respond to messages and asks on this tumblr, as well as coming from picarto.tv . If you want me to chat on another system, ask through these channels, I may not be able to bridge.

I reserve the right to reject a commission for any reason, though I shall do my best to inform you of why, so long as you...

Treat me with a basic level of human decency. I don't mind if you're curt or distant, I struggle relating with people too. But remember I have a human body and limits as...

"I AM an adult." -Gohan, DBZA. More accurately, I am an adult with a job, which means my time is limited for drawing anyways. I'll always try to give you an arrival estimate, so long as you give me material to work with from jump.

Price-Points are non-negotiable, even if I have offered to do it for less. I can give you a discount, or do work pro-bono, but don't come to me asking for it.

If I change this post after giving you a price quote, I will not ask you to meet whatever changes I have met here. I'm new to letting myself get paid for this, it's gonna be a learning experience the whole way.

I may request the chance to share the commission on my blog as an example, in which case I would add a watermark over the top and indicate you as the owner. Probably not gonna do this often.

This blog is built to be Safe for Work...ish...enough that I can show it to coworkers and peers. NSFW Blog for requests (OBVIOUSLY, MINORS DNI) is @dexter-after-hours

Please respect my list of no-no's. They are not always an indication of something I have dealt with, so much as something I've been told can come up that I'd rather avoid.

I will not draw:

-Fascist, Authoritarian, Nazi, etc. Imagery. I may make an exception for drawing Captain America punching these things.

-Real Military, modern or historic (Police included). Tends to hit kinda fasch-y anyways.

-Real Life People, though I will accept using a face as a reference.

-Violence toward a representative of a group of people, invoking harm. Anything that approaches snuff.

-World stage politics stuff is a yellow light. I occasionally will reblog a post to help give an idea where I stand with issues that are important to me. To be safe, go ahead and ask, worst I can say is no.

-Hate speech stuff.

-Any degree of excrement, be it vomit, shit, or piss. Even if it's not sexual in nature.

-Fetish work which is borderline SFW. (Check the rules of the other blog.)

-Borderline erotic or ecchi stuff is reserved for the NSFW blog, even if it meets community guidelines.

Price Points (In black and white by default):

-Single Character Portrait (Waist up) $15 ($25 for Color)

-Single Character Full-Body (+gear) $25 ($50 for color)

-Group Shot (full body or waist up) $20 ($30 for Color)/per character

-Action Shot! (In a pose! Maybe multiple Chars) $30 per character ($60 for Color)

-Anything else I will draft a quote for, try to give you an explanation as to why I came to the cost total.

[ofthedarkwoods]

Questions

Why haven't you been posting your artwork recently?

I don't know what im doing. I don't know how to feel about anything anymore. There is so much getting to me right now and will probably be for a while like hell.. election day, project 2025, Palestine, work, shopping, harsher weather, numerous holiday arrivals, and so much more. My brain has been in a slump or like this great heavy fog. I feel like I'm just trying to survive now at this point. My creativity is dimming more day by day. There's barely any motivation in any of my fandoms. I reblog and admire, but it's a battle upon myself, it seems. I really hope something good happens. I want things to turn out alright soon for everyone, or at least someone who really needs it. 10/30

Platforms currently?...

Tumblr

Ofthedarkwoods :random shit all the time basically main blog

OfthedarkwoodsArtwork :Multi-fandom artwork and content

Pinterest

Ofthedarkwoods :filled w/ lots of references, art challenges, brushes, and more.

Ofthedarkwoodsfashion :different themed oufits perfect for ocs or going out.

Twitter

I deleted Twitter I cant be supporting the first lady now can I.. so yeah Fuck Twitter I'm gonna see if I can find something better. Let me know what works best.

----------------------------------

Is rebloginging your art okay?

Yes of course reblog away! The more reblogs the better!

Are you okay with me uploading your art to other platforms?

As long as you keep the watermark & give name credits i dont mind, maybe even a link so others can find me and enjoy my artwork as much as you do. If I see on any platforms where no name credit is given (watermark deleted.. ect.) I will get it taken down, so please be respectful. Also remember not every artist is like this so always find the creator and ask no matter how long it takes or how little research there is. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother posting any artwork.

Also for mature content like nsfw & gore I beg of you to put warnings. If you can't put warnings then dont bother rebloging or reposting at all. My content is not made for everyone and any mature +18 content without warning will be taken down forcefully. Anyone who sees my artwork being shared without warning let me know please.

Is dubbing your art ok?

Yes that is fine although I would still love to hear you ask so I can research your account, find out more about you, and maybe even like and support you as well. Just remember to give name credit please.

What mature content are we talking?

I wish to post more content like gore and consensual type themes in the future for other adults to enjoy. I have been experimenting with my artwork and seem to have found myself drawn to it quite literally. I have been observing pastel gore and just love it. All this type of art will have warnings and if anyone reposts this should have warnings as well or else.

OH! Please note I WILL NEVER POST ANY INCE$T, PEDØ, CØMSHIP/PRØSHIP TYPE STUFF SO FUCK OFF!

Why are you interested in drawing gore?

What can I say.. well, when I was younger, I had surgery and was always afraid of my scars opening up. It wasn't until recently I decided that my scars were something to not be afraid of and that it was all in my head, I started seeing the beauty in candy/neon/pastel/fruit gore. I saw it all in a different perspective and that other people must feel this was too. I want people who want to see it to feel the beauty and comfort like I do. I thought as though I'm reclaiming it for myself instead of being afraid but to embrace it.

I'm a minor under 18 how do you feel about that?

I'm gonna be forward and say i dont feel comfortable with minors on my page. I'm an adult I talk about mature topics and will be posting mature content (w/ warning of course). Yes I know I cant fully stop you from seeing my posts especially on other platforms but if you message me or ask any questions I will ignore/block you. The internet is a fucked up place and I truely wish more adults would take topics like this seriously. I really care about each and everyones safety so I will take measures into my own hands if i have to. I really dont want to be friends with childern so please respect my wishes and leave me alone.

Are you open to commissions?

Unfortunately no. I'm still figuring out some things at the moment but I will take suggestions for any lgbtqia+ icons to have as a pfp. I mean starting a business is tough and I want to take my time with my art on my own terms, I'm still a part time artist and on top of that I procrastinate a lot so deadlines are exhausting.

How do you feel about Spammimg?

If we're talking about DMs I honestly wouldn't really perfer a ton of text messages to reply to however you're welcome to hit the like button as much as you like. It shows your appreciation and I know what its like finding an artist with cool artwork to enjoy. Comments are fine but I dont think I can respond to every single one.

Are you trans?

Yes probably non-binary specifically with they/them pronouns because I feel like the "given" binary spectrum and "gender roles" don't really suit me. I mean most days I feel "feminine", some days I feel "masculine", and some days I wake up feeling neither, or sometimes I wake up feeling both. Gender is very confusing so for short I'm nonbinary.

Why did you quit Instagram?

Animation is one of the hardest things I've pushed myself to do. Instagram's platform wasn't necessarily fitting to my standards per say. My technology kept failing as well and made it difficult to keep a steady rhythm with posting. But also in other words I felt many users wouldn't accept my artwork as much as they'd accept my videos. I also felt that many Instagram users didn't see me as non-binary meaning many didn't use my pronouns correctly. I felt like all this together was enough to push me away. Tumblr felt more freeing than Instagram and so far its been more enjoyable, but none the less I made friends and will miss them dearly.

Will you do anymore Animation?

Yes i do animaton but wish to expand more on that later... right now it's just artwork and edits. I've thought about posting to YouTube but idk..

Why are you so political?

I think everyone is affected by politics all over the world. It's a part of our society, and I do have morals so of course I'll be evolved. Like already most of the world is against me for their own selfish insecurities and I realize that I have some privilege of my own and should stand up for others when they are faced with unjustifiable terms. I get that people need breaks and yes please take breaks and take care of you basic needs but without ever talking about any issues, wintnessing but keeping to yourself, or simply not teaching and discussing your feelings with others can lead to serious problems or issues that will never be fixed. There is always a time to bring up your concerns and make yourself feel heard but remember things like this take some time, communication on every side, and a good support group.

You are welcome to block, ignore, or mute me but I'll always keep posting important topics.

[oorpe]

fuck certificate mills

Jesus Fuckballs Christ is ITIL certification a grift and a half. The job wants me to get certified on this basic ITIL 4 thingy. That means I have to install the official peoplecert proctoring spyware on the company laptop. Don’t really want to install god knows what surveillance crap on there but hey, not my property so fuck it. It’s not like they haven’t already breached our entire organization with this shitty software. I wouldn’t trust it but again, not my call. I already took the training course last spring, but I’ve been putting off scheduling the exam because I can’t stand reading the intentionally confusing jargon and nested, byzantine multi-level definitions of incredibly samey-sounding concepts. But alas, now I’ve officially run out of time on the test voucher I got last year. So I had to begrudgingly schedule the exam for the level 1 or whatever it was called for next week. I had the training a year ago as stated, but I doubt I’d remember any more had it been yesterday: the lecturer was absolute dogshit. It was in it’s entirety just a 2-day slog of him reading out poorly made powerpoint slides and me dozing off and leafing through the mock exams. It was the last thing I did before going on summer vacation last year. It sucked ass.  So, as all good students do, I procrastinated until the last possible moment, and then started looking around the peoplecert website yesterday for the actual course materials. And holy fucking shit you guys, what shifty anti-user nonsense their little course book app is! It’s a characteristically clunky browser-based “ebook reader” that allows you to add bookmarks and highlights and annotations in limited capacity. It’s pretty bog-standard features-wise, but what really pissed me off about it was how it fucks with page printing in a really underhanded way. I usually print any longer reading materials out, partly because I can’t stay on task when reading off a computer screen, and partly because I just like it better that way. So I print my reading materials liberally, that’s why I bought the stupid laser printer after all. And let me tell you, this company fucking hates the fact that browsers let you print web pages out. There’s an in-app print to pdf prompt, sure. But this is actually a trap designed for maximum frustration. The in-app print option arbitrarily restricts printing to 2 pages at a time. There’s a 40-60s “progress bar” before the download starts (as expected, this is complete bullshit, it only sends a request for the pages after the timeout has elapsed.) The printed pages are unnecessarily rendered into incredibly poor quality .png with impairingly large and up-keyed incrimination-focused watermarks all across. Judging by what I gleamed from the http requests made, there’s a hidden cap on activating this “print” feature of a 100 activations, and this isn’t disclaimed, so you might spend hours trying to laboriously print out what you need to read, only for it to tell you to go eat a dick 90% through the book. In short, it’s the worst print button the world has ever known. I hate this print button with great passion. So, I figured, fuck that. I’ve used a browser before, I’ll just print from the browser prompt on every chapter (the app loads the book into view chapter by chapter) and that’s that. Well, not so fast! The browser’s print preview just shows a blank page with a shit-eating little <p>don’t you know it’s impossible to print html?!? what are you even doing you dog-brained fuckstick, now go use our awesome print feature little donkey</p> (paraphrasing only slightly) plastered on top.

Fuck me, these people really don’t want people reading their garbage book, huh.

Ok. Let’s dig a tiny bit deeper, what is it doing here?

It turns out that the app registers a few event handlers for the beforeprint event, so that when you open the browser’s print dialog, it can remove and re-add the main content iframe. That in turn displays only their little passive-aggressive message, until some logic clears it a moment later, and the actual chapter becomes visible. Of course, the browser’s print dialog tries to print the current state of the page, and only captures the single paragraph that is visible at that moment, hence the preview from before.

Well, that’s annoying and profoundly anti-user. Let’s continue. Eventually they have to give my browser workable markup in order to display this stupid thing, it’s just a matter of digging.

It turns out the chapters are rendered via two nested iframes (some other dickish obfuscation scheme I’d assume), so I grab the inner one and quickly look over the markup. Yup, fantastic, the buck stops here. I can just open the src= of the inner iframe in a new tab and use devtools to drop a few fuckery-inducing script tags and the style tag that hides the page contents initially. A presto, the chapter is suddenly entirely printable with minimal hassle! Someone really should let these people know that it’s actually not that hard to let their users print out this material. In fact it takes some pretty grifty fuckery to screw with a basic browser feature in this way! Anyway I didn’t actually read a goddamn word of the material because I was so pissed off about this comprehensively wrong-headed approach to basic accessibility. But I did manage to download and re-collate the stupid book into a single file today, which was naturally a lot more fun than reading their godawful business management wank, so all in all a decent day of “work”. At least I’ll have the materials fucking accessible for the inevitable round 2 after I botch this stupid exam.

[superemeralds]

update on this: they miracolously edited my credits and linked the correct project site, so they DID see this post? Curious. I did ask for it to be not posted but I guess they overlooked the other post that came straight before this one.

borrelia  also left a good comment on this post:

also its already here for free? the repost does nothing but pull away audience from the actual site, therefore pulling ppl away from support/patreon links... sorry you are dealing with this :(

They are correct, as right now the super early access is sadly my main source of income as my job has a huge summer break and I won’t get back to it until september, so over the next two months I need to scrape by with my subscription members and the occasional commission. People potentially reading fancomics on the grabber site are most probably never seeing if there’s ways to support the artist, because they never even get to interact with them.

I’ve seen a comment on the grabber site*s GOTF page that just. appaled me.

Krafter is defending all fancomics by posting comments saying the site shouldnt pull fan creator’s audiences/steal content. They got 3 downvotes.

Chaos Coffin answers this (two upvotes)

“Don’t listen to this person and keep archiving good fancomics. Tumblr, Deviant Art and Twitter are all blocked in my country and this site is a great way to explore new content. Archive.org has all the issues of GOTF uploaded too and nobody’s accusing them of theft. Because it is not. Nobody’s stealing anything here, there’s always a link to the author.”

First of all, I acknowledge that some countries are doing heavy censoring and blocking of websites.

However, the person brings up archive.org themselves. They know there’s an archive on a neutral website that is available to them that has all the pages available, if they want. Why is there a need to reupload them AGAIN? GOTF has been posted in multiple places, other than deviantart, by evan herself. I forgot the name of the site but she definitely had it up on some neutral small comic hosting page together with a bunch of others (pls provide link if u have it!).

And I also have my comic on a neutral free to use comic hosting site. There is No Need for it to be put anywhere else. You don’t need an account to comment or see the comic. My author notes and hidden comments and the way I upload the pages, they are all part of my intended experience. I put so much effort into my website, I transcribe all the dialogue, I add context tags to every page, for YOUR convenience so if you type in anything u vaguely remember abt a page, the search funtion will be able to find it.

In the answer above I said “it wasn’t a big deal”, because this happened to be before. it happened too many times before. But that was the beaten up and defeated me talking, because I couldn’t find a way to contact the reposter, again. The me that is exhausted of hearing of this shit happening to me, again. I have a watermark for a reason. I try to hide it to be not obstructive but I might change that.

Now I’m the me that’s irritated and annoyed. I’m not going to hold back for potentially hurting anyone’s feelings, I’m not holding back for fighting for myself.

Literally the whole situation wouldn’t be so bad if THE CREATORS WERE JSUT ASKED FIRST. You were able to pull all the pages from the sites, so you need to have had access to their pages. You had access to communication with them. You had the access to ask them if they were able to create a neutral website to host the comic on, because the website they use is blocked in some countries. A russian fan has come up to me asking if they can post a translated version to their VK account. They asked me and I said yes, under my conditions you can. And they did.

If the admin had come up to me about it before all this, I would’ve allowed my comic to be listed there no problem. I would’ve allowed all the issue covers to be uploaded there for discoverability and serialization accuracies, given they link to my own page to read them on my website, and that I get to chose the description text and how I’m credited.

I would’ve been okay with it.

You had the choice to use your mouth, but you didn’t.

You saw my complaints, but chose to ignore the one that mattered.

I’m tired of the many times I’m notified of yet ANOTHER person badly uploading my comic to youtube. I’m tired of seeing those reposts get so much attention and people in the comments acting like the person uploading the repost has any control over the comic itself. I’m tired of not being appreciated for the hard work I’m doing.

I’m doing all this for free, I’m trying. Making comics and maintaining the website and maintaining a LIFE BESIDES THAT is hard. It’s really fucking hard. So it hurts every time when I see people have the audacity, the disrespect, to treat the efforts of my HEART AND SOUL like fast consumerist scraps. I’ve spent a third of my life on this comic, all for NOTHING in return but love and air. I know I’m partially at fault for this, but I’m neglecting time and resources for marketing my commissions, I’m neglecting my original graphic novel, I’m neglecting applying to jobs, all so i can focus on working on THOAM, because it’s fun and I love it and it means just SO MUCH to me. I’m a very emotional person and this comic is an important outlet for me to work through and express that. I’m content just doing this for myself, I could just stop posting and be happy with it. But I know that some of you have a strong attatchment to it to, and I appreciate the heartfelt and honest support I’ve recieved for this series over the years.

But in the end I also do all this for people that act like art is just a magical thing that pops into existence, as if it didn’t have a background of hours upon hours of tireing labour. All for people that ignore the big “DO NOT REPOST” watermark, and repost it, because who cares about the artists’ wishes.

And idk if the admin will see this post too, maybe they will ignore it, I wouldn’t know. But I hope you’ll think critically about what you’re doing. I’d be ashamed of not having had the guts to at least fucking ask.

Anyways read my comic on https://thoam.the-comic.org, a neutral website that’s literally for free and you don’t need an account to interact with the comic.

support me by subscribing to my kofi. https://ko-fi.com/superemeralds/tiers I have multiple tiers with different perks. even just 1€ per month helps out a lot and you get to see all my art that i never post and if i do you see it first. For 1€!

thoam super access gets you the beginning of issue 8 already and you’ll be a great help in getting me pay bills and not starve. (for legal reasons I’ll clarify i’m not charging for the comic, I’m charging for ppl to see my process of how i make comics. the comic itself is free forever.)

If you want to get art drawn by me, check out my commission info here: https://shadow.carrd.co

PS: I don't hate or am against the grabber site; I think the archiving bit of this site is great. I think a volunteer based no advertisement no monetization archive of sonic comics is GREAT. Especially because the older comics have become extremely obscure and it's hard to keep track of what exists. especially for new fans that are JUST getting into it all.

I also think using the site to PROMOTE fan comics is a good idea, as long as like. they are not directly fucking hosted on the page as full on reposts, as mentioned above. <3 ok that's it from me for real. i gave my constructive criticism.

Hey I just found out about your wonderful comic because of the grabber zone website so maybe it’s not that bad…? they always provide links to the creators and their website is not monetised there’s no ads whatsoever which is great

im wrongfully credited though ;_; the username for me is wrong (i dont have a dash in it) + tehre's no actual link to like. me as a person it's just my name (ppl are lazy idk how many ppl will put in the effort to actually find me instead of just subscribing to the comic on grabber zone) and i would prefer if the actual website was linked, instead of the tumblr

and also just the fact i wasn't notified of it. the comic pages all have this big watermark saying DO NOT REPOST.................

like technically it's not the end of the world but the circumstances just annoy me a lot

[burnthoneydrops]

Is That my Sweatshirt?

Synopsis: Peter as Spider-Man knows you, but you only know of Peter. So when Spider-Man shows up at your window, things get a little bit sticky. (gn! reader)

Requested: No

Warnings: Language, mention of blood/injuries/trying to stitch up a wound

Word Count: 1,425 A/N: Well here’s my first attempt at an imagine! Let me know what you think and feel free to request anything else you’d like to see! :)

You were seated at your desk, trying desperately to survive the horror that was your current math homework. Scratching the side of your head with the end of your pencil, you drifted off for a moment, noticing the rain that was softly tapping upon your window. The curtains were drawn, but the sound alone gave enough comfort to make up for the lack of visuals. When you looked back down at the textbook that was flopped open on your desk, the numbers and directions all blurring together, you decided that maybe it was time to call it a night. You slowly rubbed your hands up and down the sides of your face, pulling the skin lightly as you did so. Thunder rolled through, sounding so very close to your building and you flinched before running a hand through your hair and standing up. The rain grew louder against your window as you walked over to your bed, grabbing the sweatshirt you stole from Peter during your last homework “date” off the end.

Peter Parker must be the most oblivious boy on the planet. Not that you had tried to be outright with your feelings for him, but you definitely weren’t great at hiding it. Even Ned had asked you about it, and you couldn’t exactly not tell him. Especially not when he was hoarding the newest LEGO set from you and wouldn’t let you help him build it until you answered him. Now lunch periods were filled with wiggling eyebrows and suffocated laughter from the dark haired boy as Peter continued to look completely over your head. You just hoped that your death glares back at Ned weren’t as obvious as they felt. It’s not like Peter was around much to notice his two best friends bickering more than usual anyway, with him ditching classes and group hang outs more times than you could count with both hands. You tried not to show that you minded much, but making plans and then having them fall right out from under you was never fun. 

You pushed the thought out of your mind as you slipped the sweatshirt over your head, pulling your hair out from under the lining. You took a deep breath and noticed that Peter’s cologne was still stuck in the fabric, a light smile coming to your face as a result. You were brought out of your little daydream when the rain grew incredibly loud, almost as if targeting your window specifically. Lightly gliding your feet across the floor, you made your way over to the window, pulling the curtains back just slightly. What you saw might as well have given you a heart attack. There, staring straight back at you, was the one and only Spider-Man. He was precariously situated against your window, the thin ledge being the only thing keeping him from the ground. 

“Can I get some help here?” He called, the rain and the glass muffling it. 

You quickly moved forward, unlocking the window and pushing it open. Spider-Man crawled through, landing almost immediately on your floor. Well that’s going to leave a watermark, you thought, though not for long as you quickly remembered that the literal Spider-Man was now in your room. 

“Holy shit, are you ok?” You asked, noticing he was breathing heavily and holding his side. 

“Yeah just a little,” he paused to take a deep breath, “run in with some bad guys. You know how it is”. 

“Actually no but that’s besides the point,” you sighed, “Do you need medical attention?”

Spider-Man raised the hand that was attached to his side and revealed quite the stain of blood that had come through his suit. 

“I guess you could say that,” he tried to laugh. 

“That looks like it needs to be seen by a doctor, not someone in their apartment bedroom!” you hissed, trying not to wake up your parents. 

“No! No medical rooms, no hospitals, no nothing. Please,” he replied. 

“For god’s sake, ok fine. Stay here,” you said as you went to go grab whatever you could gather. 

“Yep, sounds like a plan,” Spider-Man muttered as you walked away. 

You raced to the bathroom, grabbing everything you could think of. How in the hell did this happen? You tried not to think about the circumstance too much, instead focusing on the fact that you had someone who needed looking after. After gathering as much as you could fit under your arms, you moved back to your room, Spider-Man still in the same spot you had left him in. 

“Do you think you could move up to my bed? It would make it easier than having you on the floor,” you asked, dumping the supplies in a pile. 

“Yeah just one,” he hissed as he tried to stand up, “never mind”.

“Here, let me help,” you moved over to him, putting his free arm over your shoulder and your arm around his side. 

Though it took some effort, you two eventually made it on your bed, laying him down as comfortably as you could while still being able to see the wound. 

“Ok, we’re going to have to get you out of that suit. Do you think you can do that?” You asked, looking over to see if there was an easy way out of it. He nodded his head yes, giving you permission to move forward. 

“Press the little icon at the front,” he instructed seemingly through gritted teeth. 

As you did so, the suit appeared to shrink, quickly removing itself from him. You tried not to think too hard about the fact that you now had a suitless Spider-Man on your bed. Looking at the now exposed wound a little closer, it looked like a series of cuts that were running along his side. It was as if some animal had slashed him with its claws. 

“How the hell did this even happen?” you questioned, not noticing that he continued to keep his mask on. 

“Some crazy new weapons the bad guys have now,” he responded, hissing slightly as you began to clean the area. 

“Sorry, forgot this might sting a little”. 

“A little, uh huh”. 

“There, now for some stitching,” you commented once you had finished cleaning the cuts. You grabbed the needle and thread, silently thanking whatever was above that your mother kept random medical supplies around. 

As you gingerly weaved the thread through the exposed skin, you couldn’t help but think about the hilarity of the situation at hand. No one would believe you if you chose to tell them. Peter and Ned might, but even you had to admit it sounded a little crazy, and you were the one living through it. Out of all the people the famed New York superhero could have chosen to go to, he chose to come to you. Whether or not he chose your apartment because of you specifically was a question for another time. 

“I think I’m done,” you sighed, putting the supplies back down in the pile and rubbing your hand over your forehead. 

“Thank you, I really appreciate it,” he replied. 

You scoffed, “yeah, no problem”. He sat up slightly, staring at you as if really looking at you for the first time. 

“Can I help you?” you asked, lightly joking, as you looked up to meet his masked eyes. 

“Well I did just kinda crash in here, so I didn’t really notice who exactly I was talking to”. 

“You’re saying you were fine with crashing into a complete stranger’s apartment at night when it’s raining?” “I could see your light was on!” he replied a little too quickly. 

Deciding now was not the time to question it, you shook your head. “Do you think you’ll be able to make it back without popping a stitch?” 

“Oh yeah, wouldn’t be the first time I’ve swung while healing,” he chuckled lightly. Spider-Man stood up carefully and tapped his suit again, this time making it fit back onto his body. He looked over at you once again. 

“Ok well, I guess you know where I live now so-”

“Is that my sweatshirt?” You had accidentally talked over each other. You looked at him for a moment, not sure if you heard what you thought you heard. 

“I’m sorry what?” 

“Uh- nothing!” He exclaimed, having realised that he said that out loud, “I gotta go!” With that, he had opened your window and crawled out into the storm. 

You shook your head, beyond confused at this point. 

“What the hell just happened?”

[jenomark]

PART 1: LUCAS, THE BOYFRIEND

➔Pairing: Lucas x Reader (Female) | Ten x Reader (Female) ➔Other Members/ Characters: -.- ➔Genre: Smut (+ angst, + fluff, + plot) ➔Warnings: vaginal penetration, passionless sex, exchanging money for sex, very light bdsm and mentions of pegging ➔Word count: 5,107

➔Summary: You don’t know what you do. You don’t even know who you are. Some would call you a whore. Some would refer to you as a sex worker. All of your clients would say you’re damn good at your job.

MASTERLIST

  It hadn’t rained in months. It felt strange to hear it coming down hard enough to drown out Lucas’ snoring. You laid in bed and listened a little while, wishing that it would lull you back to sleep somehow. But your eyes were wide open and they kept searching for the clock Lucas kept on his bedside table. 2:45 a.m. 3:14 a.m. 4:20 a.m. Time kept moving as you stayed still, eyes occasionally glancing up at the water marks on his ceiling, and hoping the rain wouldn’t drip through.

 “Lucas.” you whispered. 

  When he didn’t stir, you sat up in his bed and reached for your phone. He slept soundly on the nights when you had sex, which suited you just fine. You didn’t want him turning over in the night and asking you why you weren’t sleeping. 

  You unlocked your phone, your password far more complicated than it needed to be. You and Lucas once got into an argument when he asked you what you were hiding from him. You felt too exposed, for someone with something to hide. You felt like you no longer belonged to yourself, and he felt hurt that you didn’t want to share what secrets you kept.

  Unread text messages: 56   Unread emails: 134

  Your phone wallpaper was a photo of Lucas during Christmas of last year. He was smiling and holding up a gift you had bought him: an expensive watch nestled in black satin. You remembered the moment well. He opened the box and nearly dropped it to the floor when he realized it was the same model of the one he’d been lusting after for years. Every little boys dream was to own an expensive watch just like their father, and Lucas was no different.

“We can’t afford this.” Lucas had said.

  You, not we. You had wanted to say it, but his family was around the Christmas tree and all eyes were on you. It was true that Lucas could not afford the watch with his low-end salary, but you could. Of course, you had to play the part of the lowly office worker with a salary fit for someone shoved into a shoebox apartment.

“Don’t worry about it,” you had said to soothe him. “You’re worth every penny.”

  And Lucas was. You were with him because he was the first man in a while to make you feel alive. He used to be more daring before he got older, used to make you laugh so hard you’d nearly piss your pants. Like all things, the older things get, the harder it is to keep them in good condition. Your relationship with Lucas never failed on the surface, not really, but there were too many things brewing underneath. You were a lot like the watermarked ceiling: barely holding it together.

  You checked to make sure Lucas was sleeping before opening your inbox full to the brim with emails from men. The descriptions were all the same: I’m tall, handsome, and worth your time. The names all basic and no doubt aliases, were lined in a row for as far as you could scroll down. Every once in a while, you would entertain one of them and look at their email, expanding it so you could see their plea. Pick me, I’m a winner. 

  Tonight's lucky winner was a twenty-three year old artist. The picture attached was of a man smiling, his whole face lighting up at whomever was behind the camera. He looked barely legal, and definitely too cute for what he wrote in his description

WinWin, 23. I want to fuck you raw and parade you around town to all of my friends.

Not today, kiddo. 

  You closed the email and set your phone back in your lap. You wondered how much longer you could keep it up.

     You were dreaming of him, which you did often. He was sitting at his kitchen table, his tie undone and resting around his neck, and a newspaper spread out in front of him. You waltzed into the kitchen in a bouncy dress, announcing your presence with a slight clearing of your throat. The picture felt very old school, static-y lines and scalloped edges. Like a dream of the past, you were bordering in housewife territory, red lipstick turning grey in the black and white film. He looked up immediately to smile at you over his shoulder. The camera panned to reveal a table with food set on it, and two children sitting in chairs.

“Is it almost ready?” he asked

  All you wanted to do was go kiss your dream husband and wrap your arms around him. You wanted those kids to pull faces, like they were really disgusted their parents were still in love after all the years. But you couldn’t move. You looked down and your little kitten heels were stuck in quicksand that was dragging you under too fast. He couldn’t save you. He didn’t even care, just went back to his newspaper. It was all white noise.

  You woke with a jolt, shooting up so fast that Lucas came out of the bathroom. A toothbrush was hanging out of his mouth, and he wasn’t wearing clothes. 

“Bad dream?” he asked, toothpaste spitting in all directions. 

  You looked at his body, just trying to collect your thoughts. Lucas assumed you were checking him out. He started flexing his muscles to make you laugh, showing you all the parts of him he’d been working out lately. You smiled for his benefit and held your hand to your chest.

“Nightmares,” you said. Lucas went into the bathroom to rinse his mouth. When he came back out, he was heading towards his wardrobe.  “Are you leaving for work so soon?”

“Gym.”

“Again?” you asked. “You went last night. Isn’t it true that if you go to the gym too much you’ll leave a very disgruntled and lonely girlfriend behind?”

 When Lucas wasn’t working out, he was at work. During the day, he was the terribly intimidating Veterinarian assistant, his pink scrubs and puppy pin making all the Great Dane’s growl in his direction. From another direction, all the women who worked there practically swooned when he walked his muscled body through the door.  

You got out of bed and opened the blinds. “The rain stopped.” 

  The view was terrible, but he got what he paid for. You watched the little old lady from across the other apartment building hang her clothes on a line. When you turned back to talk to Lucas, he was silently masturbating.

 “Oh shit,” he breathed.

  You closed the blinds quickly before he practically tackled you, lifted you into the air and swung you around. 

You screamed like you were being murdered. “Lucas! Put me down.”

  He lifted up your pajama shorts and smacked your ass. His laugh was loud and boisterous, and you couldn’t help but laugh with him. He dropped you on the bed. His big cock was swinging between his legs before he took it back in his hands and continued stroking himself. You weren’t in the mood for sex, but the sight of him standing over you made it hard to resist. 

“I have to be at work.” you said, your eyes on his cock.

“That doesn’t sound very convincing.” he laughed.

  He took your ankle and pulled you to the edge of the bed, sliding you across the sheets like hot butter in a pan. You were taking off your shorts and panties while still denying him access.

“I do!” you said. “And I need you to drop me off at my apartment so I can get my things.”

 You didn’t need to tear your tank top off. Lucas pulled the spaghetti straps off on either side to reveal your breasts. His big paws were on you as he moved closer. Without wearing a condom, he pushed himself inside of you, both hands holding either breast while he thrusted.

 There was no talking as you fucked. Lucas took your leg and placed it on his shoulder. He kissed your calf softly. There were always tender moments like that, where it felt like it was only him and you that existed in the world. His eyes were big and brown and full of love whenever he looked at you.  You hoped that when he looked into your eyes, he didn’t just see his own reflection peering back at him.

  You felt something swell inside of you with a big wave, before quelling. Lately, you couldn’t seem to orgasm with him. There was a mental disconnect somewhere between him and you, but that didn’t stop you from pretending. You moaned and told him you were coming, even though you and him could feel yourself drying up.

  Lucas lifted your ass up and held your body as he moved, his pace too fast for you to enjoy. You just stopped moaning and stared at him, your mind completely blank. Whenever he came, the veins in his neck popped out. You were expecting him to come inside of you, but when he pulled out and came on your stomach, you let him. You held him as he collapsed on top of you, his big body making it harder for you to breathe.

  Dressed in his gym clothes, Lucas sat in the driver's seat. The drive over to your apartment was silent, mostly because Lucas still hated that you hadn’t moved in with him yet. The other reason was the awkwardness that existed after you both had sex. You laid on the bed for far too long with his semen pooling in your belly button. Not bothering to hand you a towel to clean up, he very quietly got dressed. 

  Lucas had never came on you before. He had always been the romantic look-me-in-the-eyes-as-I-fill-you-up type of guy. It’s not that you didn’t like it, just that it was so out of character you were wondering if something was wrong.

“Do you want me to come inside?” he asked.

  You snapped out of your thoughts, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I think I can handle it on my own.”

  You got out of the car and walked up your steps without looking back at him. You went inside and closed the door behind you, leaning against the wood to regain your nerve.

  You didn’t like Lucas being anywhere near your apartment. He was insecure that yours looked a little better than his. Whenever he was there, he had a million questions about the things you owned. Why they were so expensive. Why it seemed like you had never lived there. You assured him it was because you spent the majority of time at his apartment, but there was always a bitter taste left in both of your mouths any time it was brought up. The other reason was that you weren’t sure what he would find if he looked hard enough.

 You ran up the stairs and unlocked your second door. You could never be too careful. Inside, you were met with a musty smell. You didn’t bother cleaning as you went, just tore through the place gathering what you needed. You stopped briefly to look at yourself in the mirror, at the way your pantsuit hugged your body. Business professional is what the saleswoman had said. It’s what all the men want. 

What do you know about what men want? You wanted to ask her.

  You moved on, click-clacking your way to your bedroom. Your bed was unmade, and there was trash strewn everywhere. You opened the door to your walk-in closet, grabbed a duffel bag and started shoving lingerie into it. You picked up a pair of handcuffs and threw them aside. Rifling through your things didn’t help you find what you were looking for. You cursed out loud and sat down in your closet, leaning your head against the wall. 

“Must be in the other apartment.” you whispered, trying to recall where it was.

 By the time you made it back to the car with Lucas, he had fallen asleep. You tapped the window and apologized for taking so long.

  Lucas pulled up in front of your office building. He hadn’t asked why you brought a duffel bag, because after his nap, his attitude was so damn chipper that he couldn’t stop smiling. He leaned over the console to kiss you.

“You know what?” he said. “I’ll walk you inside.”

There was a panic in your chest. “No, baby, it’s okay.”

  He didn’t hear you. He was halfway out of the car. Lucas opened your door and held out his hand for the duffel bag. Reluctantly, you placed it in his hand and got out of the car.

“So, what time do you work until?” you asked, your eyes on the bag he was holding.

“Late day,” he said, taking your hand with his other. “I won’t be home until after dinner. Save me some?”

“Of course.”

  Normally, Lucas would lead you, but it was your place of work, so you did the leading. You opened the door and walked inside, your heels tapping against the marble. The woman at the front desk and the security guard both nodded at you at the same time before looking back to what they were doing. You guided Lucas to the elevator.

“Are you done the same time as always?” he asked. “I can send someone to pick you up.”

“No, that’s okay.” 

  You stepped into the elevator. You weren’t the only people in there. Luckily the office building was so big that you didn’t need to know everyone. He held your hand the entire ride, giving it a little squeeze. And every time he did, you were forced to look at him and smile.

“This is me.” you said, stepping out. 

  A glass wall separated the hallway from your offices, gold lettering etched on all of the doors. Lucas had never made it this far up, so his eyes were taking in everything like a greedy child.

“This looks expensive,” he said. “No wonder they pay you so well. Maybe I should quit and get a job here.”

  You laughed. It was obligatory. You leaned on your tip-toes and kissed Lucas at the same time you ripped the duffel bag from his hands.

“Call you during break?” you asked.

Lucas smiled. “Yeah,I’d like that. I love you. Have a good day.”

 You could tell he didn’t want to leave. He was too curious about what was behind the glass wall. He could see people milling about, stacks of papers in their hands. There were cubicles and privacy offices, a break room that was too high-tech for a plain office building. 

“I love you, too,” you said. “If you just go down to the ground floor I’m sure someone can help you find your way out.”

  You waited until the elevator doors closed to walk through the glass ones, crossing the threshold like you were walking into a new world. As soon as your heels stepped down into the grey carpet, you walked a little looser, your hips swinging. You did feel professional. And as eyes were on you in every corner of the room, you were the one person who knew exactly what men wanted.

  The office. You didn’t belong. Everyone could smell it on you, that new car smell that always seemed to drive right onto their floor and disrupt everything. For many of them, you were something they couldn’t afford. Oh, how they’d love to test drive you, though. As soon as they got a tasty look at you, all cream interior and buttered seats, all eyes seemed to avoid meeting yours. You sashayed across the floor in peace, your eyes scanning cubicles and the people coming and going.

“Hey.” a familiar voice called.

  You ducked down beside a cubicle. A woman sat in a chair, her long legs bare and freshly waxed. She crossed them and swiveled her chair to face you. You picked up a paper from the floor and shoved it in your pockets. 

“You’re early.” she said.

“Needed time to change.” you shrugged.

  You put your hand on her shoulder to lift yourself up and kept walking. No one stopped to talk to you, and there was something lonely in that feeling you couldn’t put your finger on. You stopped before a door, one of the only non-glass ones in the whole place. Your manicured fingers against the shiny door knob made you pause. You caught your reflection for the second time that day, the distorted figure grimacing back at you.

  You would never open the paper so brazenly in front of other people, but it was the calm breath you needed before you opened the door. It was what would launch you, truly, from this office into the next part of your journey. You opened the paper and stared at each letter burning a hole in your retinas. 

             Sweetie, I miss you. Today’s advice is to never look behind you.

  You tucked the paper in your bra. Every inch of you wanted to look behind you, but instead, you opened the door to the dark closet and changed your clothes.

  You stepped out of the closet dressed in clothes one would find in the mens department. Sweatpants that could be worn playing basketball, a grey sports t-shirt with faded writing, and a black windbreaker. Your sneakers were white with little worn marks on the side, and your hair was thrown underneath a ball cap. If anyone thought you were crazy for entering as yourself and exiting as someone socially male passing, they didn’t bat an eye. 

  Passing by the cubicle, the woman whistled. “If I didn’t know you, I would have you bend me over this desk right here.”

You smirked. “Only if you pay me enough.”

  You threw the duffle over your shoulder and kept walking, all of the confidence in the world in the way you moved. People still looked at you, but it was in a new, illuminated light. You walked through the glass and made it to the elevator. 

“Excuse me.” you said, weaving your way past a man.

“No problem.” he said, eyeing you up as he stepped out. He stared at you until the doors closed.

  In the lobby, you waved hello to the woman at the desk and the security guard. Both were unbothered by your new attire. You swung open the front door and stepped into the sunlight where a black, unmarked car was waiting for you.

“Am I too early?” you asked the driver.

“Right on time, miss.”

 He opened the car door and you slid in, the leather feeling cool, even through your sweatpants. In a fancy car like that, you felt underdressed, but it was all in the job description. He shut the door and went around to the drivers side, any chatty banter he may have started falling short of his lips.

You took out your cell phone and unlocked it.

  Unread text messages: 72   Unread emails: 212

You looked at the very last message from Lucas sent right after he left:

             I love you more and more every day. See you when I get home.

  Trees. That was all you saw. Streets with trees lining them, parks with the healthiest limbs and most luscious green leaves. They stood proud and strong, only wavering with a slight wind. Occasionally, when you were lost in thought, they played against the glass of the car window, a kiss of a leaf here and there, as if to say, “Welcome, open your eyes.”

“We’re almost there,” the driver said. “He asked that I don’t escort you inside. I expect you know your way around.”

  You nodded, making eye contact with the driver in the rearview mirror. He was judging you, you could tell. He wasn’t new, by any means, but the lifestyle took some getting used to. When you first met the driver, you were scared of what he  thought of you, but now you didn’t spare a single thought for him at all.

 The car came to a stop in front of a three-story brick building, its red face powerwashed to pristine condition. There were flower boxes on every windowsill and forest green shutters. A wreath on the door felt welcoming, but only if you were someone who liked open invitations. In the neighborhood, that might have been plausible, but only you really knew what lay beyond the oak front door, its stained glass windows more expensive than Lucas’ monthly rent.

“Thank you.” you told the driver.

  You stepped out of the car, your sneakers crushing a twig. It was the only blemish on an otherwise clean street. You closed the door behind you and held your duffel bag in your hand. The driver waited a beat before driving off, his strict time schedule unable to be rearranged if you chickened out.

 But you would never chicken out. Before you was a place you had been to many times. Anyone who looked out of their window would recognize you, even if the flavor of you didn’t sit well under their tongue. As you ascended the stairs, no one bothered to push aside their curtain for a glimpse of the girl dressed in baggy clothes, every trace of her from this morning vanished completely.

 You walked right in.

  You were met with a smell that hit you instantly: cinnamon. Candles burned on a foyer table, the wick barely black. 

Just lit, you thought. You have to be around here somewhere.

  The home inside was cozy, deep blue accents and unexplainable modern art tucked into corners of the room. It was the home of someone with an eye for the unusual, but whose very facade made one feel more comfortable with themselves. You walked further inside, your fingers touching along the walls. When you were away, you missed the smells terribly.

“Where are you hiding?” you asked. “Little kitten.”

  You walked further inside, your shoes still perfectly on your feet. At his request, he wanted you to keep them on. You never asked why, but you expected that after you left, he got on his hands and knees and scrubbed his floor after your every footprint, in his bid to serve you. 

“Don’t you miss me?” you asked.

  There were so many doorways without doors. You weaved in and out of rooms, taking your sweet time to make sure he could hear you trampling through. You touched some things softly, and others, haphazardly. You didn’t wince as a part of a measuring cup family fell from its hook, clattering to the ground loud enough to make your teeth hurt.

“Tenny,” you said. “Come and play.”

  You wandered up the stairs, your manicured fingers tapping against the wooden railing. You let the duffel fall to the ground when you made it to the top, and rubbed your shoulders.

  If the downstairs was grandmother chic, the upstairs looked like the hallway of a sex club.The walls were deep sapphire and velvet, gold tassels dividing each door. You walked down the center, looking foolish and out of place. On your right, you went in through the first door to an empty bedroom. You looked around but could find nothing. 

“This is taking too long,” you said. “What if I just leave?”

  A sound tipped you off. Your head snapped in the direction you heard it coming from: the very last door on the left. You walked towards it, stopping before it. You rubbed the wood, massaging it in your palm. 

“My little kitten.” you cooed.

  You opened the door to find him in plain sight. His arms were above his head, his wrists strapped to a mechanism chained to the ceiling. He was naked and blindfolded, and there were headphones around his ears so he couldn’t hear anything. You stepped in but didn’t close the door behind you. You stood in front of him, watching as he mouthed the words to a song. When you pulled the headphones down his neck, he gave a little shake.

“You were right under my nose the whole time.” you said.

  You walked around him. His joints looked like they were straining too much. He could hardly keep himself up right. And yet, he began to smile as you made your way back to him.

“How long have you been waiting?” you asked.

“An hour.” he said, his voice hoarse.

  You took off his blindfold and was met with the most mischievous eyes. He looked you up and down, his cock twitching right as he got to the sneakers on his carpet. You had been in the room before, so all of the sex toys and contraptions lining the walls didn’t bother you. People liked to play, and in your line of work, you would do whatever they wanted for the right amount. 

 His name was Ten. He was your age, but there was something about him that felt older than your years. His eyes were that of an old soul, his body young and supple. You scraped your fingernails against his chest and watched him close his eyes and quiver.

“Should I leave you here for another?” you asked.

He shook his head. “I need you to hold me.”

  Ten was one of your favorites. It wasn’t so much about the sex but the companionship. Sure, there were things he did and wanted you to do to him that were a bit different, but your attachment to him was hard to explain. 

“Before I hold you,” you began. “I need to know I can’t disappoint you.”

He opened his eyes. “I don’t think you ever could.”

“You put too much faith in me.” you said. 

  You reached up to unhook him from the ceiling. He whimpered in pain as his arms fell. You massaged his shoulders and brought him against your bosom. Ten’s hair tickled your chin. You were scared to tell him that you forgot his blanket, that it was in your real apartment with the life you hid from Lucas. 

 You wrapped your arms around Ten and kissed the top of his head. You owed him honesty, so you opened your mouth and told him that you forgot the thing he wanted most from you. Tears welled in his eyes, and for a second, you thought about breaking the arrangement and asking if he wanted his money back, but Ten took your hand and started leading you out into the hallway.

“We can do the comfort blanket next week,” he said. “This week, we’ll do something else.”

  Briefly, he showed you the man he was when you weren’t there. He was straightened up and assertive, his eyes more disobedient. It was rare that you were privy to how he was when you weren’t there, but it was always refreshing that somewhere underneath it all, there was something you liked to think of as a friend.

  Ten brought you to a room with only a bed in the middle of it. An island of sadness is what you always thought of it. You remembered when you had found him there sprawled on his stomach, his puckered, wet asshole waiting for you to fuck it. You did as he asked, the money too good to turn him down.

  Ten waited for you to get on the bed by yourself. Before you did, you made sure no hair was peaking out of your ball cap before you stretched your body across the sheets. Ten climbed in and tucked himself into the side of your body. He moved down so that his cheek was pressed against your stomach.

“Tell me you love me,” he said. “And that you’ll never leave me.”

You let your fingers smooth his hair. “I love you, Kitten, and I’m never going to leave you.”

  You fell asleep on the car ride home, the sound of thunder waking you up just a stop away from Lucas’ apartment. You groaned because, for once, your sleep was dreamless. It was too good of a thing to wake up from.

“Drop me off at the corner,” you said. “I don’t want anyone to see me.”

  You had ditched the clothes at Ten’s place and changed back into your pantsuit, but you had hat head and felt like your body had been run over by a truck. You cuddled with Ten for six hours in the same position, your body aching more than his was when he was chained up. You cracked your neck and got ready to jump out of the car as soon as it stopped, just in case someone in the neighborhood was nosy enough to tell Lucas.

“Thank you.” you said for the second time that day.

“See you next week.”

“Yeah.” you sighed.

  You got out and walked the last block to his apartment. The duffel was in your hands, but it was empty. If Lucas asked, it was once full of office supplies the company let you borrow that you needed to return. He would buy into the lie. 

 You let yourself into the darkness, removed your shoes like you were a zombie, and thought about collapsing right on the floor. It wasn’t even that late, but there was something about being deceiving that sucked the life out of you. Deciding against it, you walked your way to the bedroom and flipped on the light. 

 After you usually left Ten’s, you felt too soft to the touch. Some nights, you cried the whole car ride, missing something you didn’t know what you were missing. Often, you would climb into Lucas’ arms and make the most passionate love to him. You just needed to be near him, to make sure it was him who would never leave you.

  Everything looked the same as you had left it, only Lucas’ gym clothes were on the floor and one of his drawers was half hanging open. You went over to it and stuffed his shirts down so it would close properly. Your fingers lingered on the soft fabric. You brought his shirt up to your nose and buried your face in it, inhaling deeply. When you went to put it back, your hand knocked into a small jewelry box.

Uh-oh.

 You took the box out and opened it. A diamond ring sat nestled in black velvet, the name of the jewelry shop printed in silver script on the lid. Feeling dizzy, you snapped the lid shut and shoved it back where it was.

[sociieties]

" yeah, i know, " makoto says, finally fully moving off of shuuzou as he takes the book back from tatsuya and opens it to a random page. flips to another random page. flips to another / 260, and allows pages to fly in search of 218. it's stained with some kid's hand print along with very light watermarks from makoto trying to dab up the sticky so pages wouldn't be glued together. he remembers that day and the girl who put her disgusting, sticky fucking fingers clean in the middle of the page just to get his attention because he didn't answer to the call of his own name. " i was exposed to a lot as a kid, through books and movies and the fact that i asked my mom if she was a prostitute and she told me the difference between that and a stripper. i argued with her, asking the difference and she said it wasn't too much of one other than sex. "

makoto also remembers how the sex talk turned into the pregnancy talk and how shuuzou said something about not wanting to get him pregnant and his mother's face. he's laughing at the memory, too, as he nudged shuuzou and directing him towards the middle of the page.

" yeah, i remember. i also remember deciding that i didn't want to have sex and that it was gross. didn't understand shit else, but i knew back then that it probably wasn't for me. that's when she explained how sex could mean different things for different people and i didn't really get it until a few years ago. " he shrugs, looking at shuuzou, then back at the book, fingers tapping the page mindlessly. " here-- the hand print is from when kimine asked me if i liked any in her group because apparently one of them had a crush on me? i dunno. i was... " pages fly to 290 and finger slides down towards mentions of capital thinking, " here when i realized that i was also attracted to guys. "

" when was that? " kazuya asks, genuinely curious.

" friday, october 9th was the day kimine asked me that. first year of middle school. the 10th was then i realized that i liked guys... then again, that's when i realized i liked people in general. at least, when i realized that i had the capacity to like people in any sense past general friendship. "

" and you remember the date, why? "

" because exactly two weeks later, shuu and i had our first official game against one another and his team won. those two weeks -- core memory. "

tatsuya hums, as he skims over the pages as well. it's a well-loved / well-read book. that much is obvious to tatsuya and eventually he gets bored of it and turns back to the other's. he can pinpoint, just about, when makoto started to actually take care of his books. shuuzou shrugs, letting makoto talk. " i didn't really talk to makoto until we were in our third year of primary ? he was new. but auntie ko has a picture of us when we were like six. i was trying to show him ahiru who was as big as me and kind of shoved him ? " kazuya is handing him the book, and tatsuya's finger runs down spine, as eyes take in the dried mud and yellowed pages, and dog-eared pages. he releases a breath, and flips through it as well. he blinks. " exposure therapy, " he says off-handily, " but in the opposite direction it should work. " he closes the book, and passes it back to makoto. " what we're exposed too people tend to go in two different directions. if you're exposed to one thing, then you just dig deeper and deeper into it, or you go the complete opposite and refuse to go near things like it. for example, some people who are raised in a heavy alcohol household will never ever touch the stuff, or become so dependent on it. " he shrugs, " you're however, just a curious person by nature. not even morbid, but you want to tinker and know the how and the why. it's perfectly fine. " shuuzou snorts and laughs, " yeah. i couldn't even pronounce prostitute and she had to help me be able to say it. my first sex talk came from auntie ko. " his head tilts, and he briefly remembers ( ' kissing and sex is different. ' and him looking up at her with wide-eyes, ' i don't want to have sex then. ' and her laughing. ' do you have to have sex if you're married ? ' and auntie ko shaking her head, and him letting out the worlds most relieved sigh, ' good. because i don't want makoto to get pregnant. ' ) he laughs at the memory, oh he was a riot as a child, " -- remember when you leant it to me, and ma pitched a fit about it so auntie ko had to come get it ? i think i ran away to live with you for a week or so after that. "

[system-of-a-feather]

Not necessarily DID related and honestly I have an art blog for this but I also don't use my art blog and shit, plus I don't really consider this "art posting" considering its actually more on just the hobby of it - but like, its around three years of arting at this point - probably a bit more. I had originally picked it up out of spite that one of our littles could actually draw somewhat well and was using it for chaos and found that it is honestly one of my best and most reliable self regulating activities that can help me ground, relax and focus the best.

And so ever since I started, I had originally made a deal with myself that we draw at least 30 minutes daily and for the first two years, we barely missed a day partially because we are (problematically) good at keeping routines and making hobbies out of work and work out of hobbies, but also just because it is really something I just >need< to do in order to properly maintain a sense of like, homeostasis and zen.

At this point, I don't even try to make myself draw regularly, I just naturally really try to set at least an hour aside to draw and its just become a regular part of my routine. Which is honestly a double win for me since I have this story I've been writing with a friend since I we were 12 and very much like to say "raised us more than our parents" and as a result both of us have a very strong need and urge to one day put the story out there so it can live on outside of our own mortal "foreshortened future experiencing" heads. And over time we realized that turning it into a comic / webtoon would probably be the best means of telling the story, and so as the art friend between the two, I've just casually added "becoming a reluctant mangaka" onto my list of side hobbies and skills I plan to one day do and am slowly working up, cause again - the story needs to get out there some point.

I don't plan to actaully even so much as draft anything until the RP-format of the prequel is over and at least a year or two from now has passed, so I'm currently just bolstering out skills in my art to actually make it so that I'm not gonna 1) be limited in how I can make characters and the world and 2) So that I can find a consistent style and method to going about drawing things and people

And with this up running year (I count years by art fight years) my main focus is expanding my designs to things I dont usually draw (I specialize in pretty boys, so I gotta expand out to different age groups, more traditional masc characters, remember how to draw women etc) and to actually drawing backgrounds / sceneries

And I just got done drawing my first somewhat old man in a while and not only is he old and more of a not-twink faced dude, but he actually has a beard and Im like huh. This is really out of my 'preferred character design' but I'd like to think it is turning out well and I'm just like huh.

It's really neat how my skill has developed over time.

Anyways, sketch of the character below to enjoy this art log. Please excuse the lazy watermark. @feathery-creations is the art blog I never update.