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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months ago

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The disenshittified internet starts with loyal "user agents"

I'm in TARTU, ESTONIA! Overcoming the Enshittocene (TOMORROW, May 8, 6PM, Prima Vista Literary Festival keynote, University of Tartu Library, Struwe 1). AI, copyright and creative workers' labor rights (May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building, Lossi 3, lobby). A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation (May 10, 3PM, University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037).

There's one overwhelmingly common mistake that people make about enshittification: assuming that the contagion is the result of the Great Forces of History, or that it is the inevitable end-point of any kind of for-profit online world.

In other words, they class enshittification as an ideological phenomenon, rather than as a material phenomenon. Corporate leaders have always felt the impulse to enshittify their offerings, shifting value from end users, business customers and their own workers to their shareholders. The decades of largely enshittification-free online services were not the product of corporate leaders with better ideas or purer hearts. Those years were the result of constraints on the mediocre sociopaths who would trade our wellbeing and happiness for their own, constraints that forced them to act better than they do today, even if the were not any better:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

Corporate leaders' moments of good leadership didn't come from morals, they came from fear. Fear that a competitor would take away a disgruntled customer or worker. Fear that a regulator would punish the company so severely that all gains from cheating would be wiped out. Fear that a rival technology – alternative clients, tracker blockers, third-party mods and plugins – would emerge that permanently severed the company's relationship with their customers. Fears that key workers in their impossible-to-replace workforce would leave for a job somewhere else rather than participate in the enshittification of the services they worked so hard to build:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/22/kargo-kult-kaptialism/#dont-buy-it

When those constraints melted away – thanks to decades of official tolerance for monopolies, which led to regulatory capture and victory over the tech workforce – the same mediocre sociopaths found themselves able to pursue their most enshittificatory impulses without fear.

The effects of this are all around us. In This Is Your Phone On Feminism, the great Maria Farrell describes how audiences at her lectures profess both love for their smartphones and mistrust for them. Farrell says, "We love our phones, but we do not trust them. And love without trust is the definition of an abusive relationship":

https://conversationalist.org/2019/09/13/feminism-explains-our-toxic-relationships-with-our-smartphones/

I (re)discovered this Farrell quote in a paper by Robin Berjon, who recently co-authored a magnificent paper with Farrell entitled "We Need to Rewild the Internet":

https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-rewild-the-internet/

The new Berjon paper is narrower in scope, but still packed with material examples of the way the internet goes wrong and how it can be put right. It's called "The Fiduciary Duties of User Agents":

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3827421

In "Fiduciary Duties," Berjon focuses on the technical term "user agent," which is how web browsers are described in formal standards documents. This notion of a "user agent" is a holdover from a more civilized age, when technologists tried to figure out how to build a new digital space where technology served users.

A web browser that's a "user agent" is a comforting thought. An agent's job is to serve you and your interests. When you tell it to fetch a web-page, your agent should figure out how to get that page, make sense of the code that's embedded in, and render the page in a way that represents its best guess of how you'd like the page seen.

For example, the user agent might judge that you'd like it to block ads. More than half of all web users have installed ad-blockers, constituting the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

Your user agent might judge that the colors on the page are outside your visual range. Maybe you're colorblind, in which case, the user agent could shift the gamut of the colors away from the colors chosen by the page's creator and into a set that suits you better:

https://dankaminsky.com/dankam/

Or maybe you (like me) have a low-vision disability that makes low-contrast type difficult to impossible to read, and maybe the page's creator is a thoughtless dolt who's chosen light grey-on-white type, or maybe they've fallen prey to the absurd urban legend that not-quite-black type is somehow more legible than actual black type:

https://uxplanet.org/basicdesign-never-use-pure-black-in-typography-36138a3327a6

The user agent is loyal to you. Even when you want something the page's creator didn't consider – even when you want something the page's creator violently objects to – your user agent acts on your behalf and delivers your desires, as best as it can.

Now – as Berjon points out – you might not know exactly what you want. Like, you know that you want the privacy guarantees of TLS (the difference between "http" and "https") but not really understand the internal cryptographic mysteries involved. Your user agent might detect evidence of shenanigans indicating that your session isn't secure, and choose not to show you the web-page you requested.

This is only superficially paradoxical. Yes, you asked your browser for a web-page. Yes, the browser defied your request and declined to show you that page. But you also asked your browser to protect you from security defects, and your browser made a judgment call and decided that security trumped delivery of the page. No paradox needed.

But of course, the person who designed your user agent/browser can't anticipate all the ways this contradiction might arise. Like, maybe you're trying to access your own website, and you know that the security problem the browser has detected is the result of your own forgetful failure to renew your site's cryptographic certificate. At that point, you can tell your browser, "Thanks for having my back, pal, but actually this time it's fine. Stand down and show me that webpage."

That's your user agent serving you, too.

User agents can be well-designed or they can be poorly made. The fact that a user agent is designed to act in accord with your desires doesn't mean that it always will. A software agent, like a human agent, is not infallible.

However – and this is the key – if a user agent thwarts your desire due to a fault, that is fundamentally different from a user agent that thwarts your desires because it is designed to serve the interests of someone else, even when that is detrimental to your own interests.

A "faithless" user agent is utterly different from a "clumsy" user agent, and faithless user agents have become the norm. Indeed, as crude early internet clients progressed in sophistication, they grew increasingly treacherous. Most non-browser tools are designed for treachery.

A smart speaker or voice assistant routes all your requests through its manufacturer's servers and uses this to build a nonconsensual surveillance dossier on you. Smart speakers and voice assistants even secretly record your speech and route it to the manufacturer's subcontractors, whether or not you're explicitly interacting with them:

https://www.sciencealert.com/creepy-new-amazon-patent-would-mean-alexa-records-everything-you-say-from-now-on

By design, apps and in-app browsers seek to thwart your preferences regarding surveillance and tracking. An app will even try to figure out if you're using a VPN to obscure your location from its maker, and snitch you out with its guess about your true location.

Mobile phones assign persistent tracking IDs to their owners and transmit them without permission (to its credit, Apple recently switch to an opt-in system for transmitting these IDs) (but to its detriment, Apple offers no opt-out from its own tracking, and actively lies about the very existence of this tracking):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

An Android device running Chrome and sitting inert, with no user interaction, transmits location data to Google every five minutes. This is the "resting heartbeat" of surveillance for an Android device. Ask that device to do any work for you and its pulse quickens, until it is emitting a nearly continuous stream of information about your activities to Google:

https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2018/08/21/google-data-collection-research/

These faithless user agents both reflect and enable enshittification. The locked-down nature of the hardware and operating systems for Android and Ios devices means that manufacturers – and their business partners – have an arsenal of legal weapons they can use to block anyone who gives you a tool to modify the device's behavior. These weapons are generically referred to as "IP rights" which are, broadly speaking, the right to control the conduct of a company's critics, customers and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

A canny tech company can design their products so that any modification that puts the user's interests above its shareholders is illegal, a violation of its copyright, patent, trademark, trade secrets, contracts, terms of service, nondisclosure, noncompete, most favored nation, or anticircumvention rights. Wrap your product in the right mix of IP, and its faithless betrayals acquire the force of law.

This is – in Jay Freeman's memorable phrase – "felony contempt of business model." While more than half of all web users have installed an ad-blocker, thus overriding the manufacturer's defaults to make their browser a more loyal agent, no app users have modified their apps with ad-blockers.

The first step of making such a blocker, reverse-engineering the app, creates criminal liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $500,000 fine. An app is just a web-page skinned in sufficient IP to make it a felony to add an ad-blocker to it (no wonder every company wants to coerce you into using its app, rather than its website).

If you know that increasing the invasiveness of the ads on your web-page could trigger mass installations of ad-blockers by your users, it becomes irrational and self-defeating to ramp up your ads' invasiveness. The possibility of interoperability acts as a constraint on tech bosses' impulse to enshittify their products.

The shift to platforms dominated by treacherous user agents – apps, mobile ecosystems, walled gardens – weakens or removes that constraint. As your ability to discipline your agent so that it serves you wanes, the temptation to turn your user agent against you grows, and enshittification follows.

This has been tacitly understood by technologists since the web's earliest days and has been reaffirmed even as enshittification increased. Berjon quotes extensively from "The Internet Is For End-Users," AKA Internet Architecture Board RFC 8890:

Defining the user agent role in standards also creates a virtuous cycle; it allows multiple implementations, allowing end users to switch between them with relatively low costs (…). This creates an incentive for implementers to consider the users' needs carefully, which are often reflected into the defining standards. The resulting ecosystem has many remaining problems, but a distinguished user agent role provides an opportunity to improve it.

And the W3C's Technical Architecture Group echoes these sentiments in "Web Platform Design Principles," which articulates a "Priority of Constituencies" that is supposed to be central to the W3C's mission:

User needs come before the needs of web page authors, which come before the needs of user agent implementors, which come before the needs of specification writers, which come before theoretical purity.

https://w3ctag.github.io/design-principles/

But the W3C's commitment to faithful agents is contingent on its own members' commitment to these principles. In 2017, the W3C finalized "EME," a standard for blocking mods that interact with streaming videos. Nominally aimed at preventing copyright infringement, EME also prevents users from choosing to add accessibility add-ons that beyond the ones the streaming service permits. These services may support closed captioning and additional narration of visual elements, but they block tools that adapt video for color-blind users or prevent strobe effects that trigger seizures in users with photosensitive epilepsy.

The fight over EME was the most contentious struggle in the W3C's history, in which the organization's leadership had to decide whether to honor the "priority of constituencies" and make a standard that allowed users to override manufacturers, or whether to facilitate the creation of faithless agents specifically designed to thwart users' desires on behalf of manufacturers:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

This fight was settled in favor of a handful of extremely large and powerful companies, over the objections of a broad collection of smaller firms, nonprofits representing users, academics and other parties agitating for a web built on faithful agents. This coincided with the W3C's operating budget becoming entirely dependent on the very large sums its largest corporate members paid.

W3C membership is on a sliding scale, based on a member's size. Nominally, the W3C is a one-member, one-vote organization, but when a highly concentrated collection of very high-value members flex their muscles, W3C leadership seemingly perceived an existential risk to the organization, and opted to sacrifice the faithfulness of user agents in service to the anti-user priorities of its largest members.

For W3C's largest corporate members, the fight was absolutely worth it. The W3C's EME standard transformed the web, making it impossible to ship a fully featured web-browser without securing permission – and a paid license – from one of the cartel of companies that dominate the internet. In effect, Big Tech used the W3C to secure the right to decide who would compete with them in future, and how:

https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/

Enshittification arises when the everyday mediocre sociopaths who run tech companies are freed from the constraints that act against them. When the web – and its browsers – were a big, contented, diverse, competitive space, it was harder for tech companies to collude to capture standards bodies like the W3C to secure even more dominance. As the web turned into Tom Eastman's "five giant websites filled with screenshots of text from the other four," that kind of collusion became much easier:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/18/cursed-are-the-sausagemakers/#how-the-parties-get-to-yes

In arguing for faithful agents, Berjon associates himself with the group of scholars, regulators and activists who call for user agents to serve as "information fiduciaries." Mostly, information fiduciaries come up in the context of user privacy, with the idea that entities that hold a user's data would have the obligation to put the user's interests ahead of their own. Think of a lawyer's fiduciary duty in respect of their clients, to give advice that reflects the client's best interests, even when that conflicts with the lawyer's own self-interest. For example, a lawyer who believes that settling a case is the best course of action for a client is required to tell them so, even if keeping the case going would generate more billings for the lawyer and their firm.

For a user agent to be faithful, it must be your fiduciary. It must put your interests ahead of the interests of the entity that made it or operates it. Browsers, email clients, and other internet software that served as a fiduciary would do things like automatically blocking tracking (which most email clients don't do, especially webmail clients made by companies like Google, who also sell advertising and tracking).

Berjon contemplates a legally mandated fiduciary duty, citing Lindsey Barrett's "Confiding in Con Men":

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3354129

He describes a fiduciary duty as a remedy for the enforcement failures of EU's GDPR, a solidly written, and dismally enforced, privacy law. A legally backstopped duty for agents to be fiduciaries would also help us distinguish good and bad forms of "innovation" – innovation in ways of thwarting a user's will are always bad.

Now, the tech giants insist that they are already fiduciaries, and that when they thwart a user's request, that's more like blocking access to a page where the encryption has been compromised than like HAL9000's "I can't let you do that, Dave." For example, when Louis Barclay created "Unfollow Everything," he (and his enthusiastic users) found that automating the process of unfollowing every account on Facebook made their use of the service significantly better:

https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/facebook-unfollow-everything-cease-desist.html

When Facebook shut the service down with blood-curdling legal threats, they insisted that they were simply protecting users from themselves. Sure, this browser automation tool – which just automatically clicked links on Facebook's own settings pages – seemed to do what the users wanted. But what if the user interface changed? What if so many users added this feature to Facebook without Facebook's permission that they overwhelmed Facebook's (presumably tiny and fragile) servers and crashed the system?

These arguments have lately resurfaced with Ethan Zuckerman and Knight First Amendment Institute's lawsuit to clarify that "Unfollow Everything 2.0" is legal and doesn't violate any of those "felony contempt of business model" laws:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/

Sure, Zuckerman seems like a good guy, but what if he makes a mistake and his automation tool does something you don't want? You, the Facebook user, are also a nice guy, but let's face it, you're also a naive dolt and you can't be trusted to make decisions for yourself. Those decisions can only be made by Facebook, whom we can rely upon to exercise its authority wisely.

Other versions of this argument surfaced in the debate over the EU's decision to mandate interoperability for end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging through the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which would let you switch from, say, Whatsapp to Signal and still send messages to your Whatsapp contacts.

There are some good arguments that this could go horribly awry. If it is rushed, or internally sabotaged by the EU's state security services who loathe the privacy that comes from encrypted messaging, it could expose billions of people to serious risks.

But that's not the only argument that DMA opponents made: they also argued that even if interoperable messaging worked perfectly and had no security breaches, it would still be bad for users, because this would make it impossible for tech giants like Meta, Google and Apple to spy on message traffic (if not its content) and identify likely coordinated harassment campaigns. This is literally the identical argument the NSA made in support of its "metadata" mass-surveillance program: "Reading your messages might violate your privacy, but watching your messages doesn't."

This is obvious nonsense, so its proponents need an equally obviously intellectually dishonest way to defend it. When called on the absurdity of "protecting" users by spying on them against their will, they simply shake their heads and say, "You just can't understand the burdens of running a service with hundreds of millions or billions of users, and if I even tried to explain these issues to you, I would divulge secrets that I'm legally and ethically bound to keep. And even if I could tell you, you wouldn't understand, because anyone who doesn't work for a Big Tech company is a naive dolt who can't be trusted to understand how the world works (much like our users)."

Not coincidentally, this is also literally the same argument the NSA makes in support of mass surveillance, and there's a very useful name for it: scalesplaining.

Now, it's totally true that every one of us is capable of lapses in judgment that put us, and the people connected to us, at risk (my own parents gave their genome to the pseudoscience genetic surveillance company 23andme, which means they have my genome, too). A true information fiduciary shouldn't automatically deliver everything the user asks for. When the agent perceives that the user is about to put themselves in harm's way, it should throw up a roadblock and explain the risks to the user.

But the system should also let the user override it.

This is a contentious statement in information security circles. Users can be "socially engineered" (tricked), and even the most sophisticated users are vulnerable to this:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/cyber-dunning-kruger/#swiss-cheese-security

The only way to be certain a user won't be tricked into taking a course of action is to forbid that course of action under any circumstances. If there is any means by which a user can flip the "are you very sure?" circuit-breaker back on, then the user can be tricked into using that means.

This is absolutely true. As you read these words, all over the world, vulnerable people are being tricked into speaking the very specific set of directives that cause a suspicious bank-teller to authorize a transfer or cash withdrawal that will result in their life's savings being stolen by a scammer:

https://www.thecut.com/article/amazon-scam-call-ftc-arrest-warrants.html

We keep making it harder for bank customers to make large transfers, but so long as it is possible to make such a transfer, the scammers have the means, motive and opportunity to discover how the process works, and they will go on to trick their victims into invoking that process.

Beyond a certain point, making it harder for bank depositors to harm themselves creates a world in which people who aren't being scammed find it nearly impossible to draw out a lot of cash for an emergency and where scam artists know exactly how to manage the trick. After all, non-scammers only rarely experience emergencies and thus have no opportunity to become practiced in navigating all the anti-fraud checks, while the fraudster gets to run through them several times per day, until they know them even better than the bank staff do.

This is broadly true of any system intended to control users at scale – beyond a certain point, additional security measures are trivially surmounted hurdles for dedicated bad actors and as nearly insurmountable hurdles for their victims:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/como-is-infosec/

At this point, we've had a couple of decades' worth of experience with technological "walled gardens" in which corporate executives get to override their users' decisions about how the system should work, even when that means reaching into the users' own computer and compelling it to thwart the user's desire. The record is inarguable: while companies often use those walls to lock bad guys out of the system, they also use the walls to lock their users in, so that they'll be easy pickings for the tech company that owns the system:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

This is neatly predicted by enshittification's theory of constraints: when a company can override your choices, it will be irresistibly tempted to do so for its own benefit, and to your detriment.

What's more, the mere possibility that you can override the way the system works acts as a disciplining force on corporate executives, forcing them to reckon with your priorities even when these are counter to their shareholders' interests. If Facebook is genuinely worried that an "Unfollow Everything" script will break its servers, it can solve that by giving users an unfollow everything button of its own design. But so long as Facebook can sue anyone who makes an "Unfollow Everything" tool, they have no reason to give their users such a button, because it would give them more control over their Facebook experience, including the controls needed to use Facebook less.

It's been more than 20 years since Seth Schoen and I got a demo of Microsoft's first "trusted computing" system, with its "remote attestations," which would let remote servers demand and receive accurate information about what kind of computer you were using and what software was running on it.

This could be beneficial to the user – you could send a "remote attestation" to a third party you trusted and ask, "Hey, do you think my computer is infected with malicious software?" Since the trusted computing system produced its report on your computer using a sealed, separate processor that the user couldn't directly interact with, any malicious code you were infected with would not be able to forge this attestation.

But this remote attestation feature could also be used to allow Microsoft to block you from opening a Word document with Libreoffice, Apple Pages, or Google Docs, or it could be used to allow a website to refuse to send you pages if you were running an ad-blocker. In other words, it could transform your information fiduciary into a faithless agent.

Seth proposed an answer to this: "owner override," a hardware switch that would allow you to force your computer to lie on your behalf, when that was beneficial to you, for example, by insisting that you were using Microsoft Word to open a document when you were really using Apple Pages:

https://web.archive.org/web/20021004125515/http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/2002-07-05.html

Seth wasn't naive. He knew that such a system could be exploited by scammers and used to harm users. But Seth calculated – correctly! – that the risks of having a key to let yourself out of the walled garden were less than being stuck in a walled garden where some corporate executive got to decide whether and when you could leave.

Tech executives never stopped questing after a way to turn your user agent from a fiduciary into a traitor. Last year, Google toyed with the idea of adding remote attestation to web browsers, which would let services refuse to interact with you if they thought you were using an ad blocker:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

The reasoning for this was incredible: by adding remote attestation to browsers, they'd be creating "feature parity" with apps – that is, they'd be making it as practical for your browser to betray you as it is for your apps to do so (note that this is the same justification that the W3C gave for creating EME, the treacherous user agent in your browser – "streaming services won't allow you to access movies with your browser unless your browser is as enshittifiable and authoritarian as an app").

Technologists who work for giant tech companies can come up with endless scalesplaining explanations for why their bosses, and not you, should decide how your computer works. They're wrong. Your computer should do what you tell it to do:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/your-computer-should-say-what-you-tell-it-say-1

These people can kid themselves that they're only taking away your power and handing it to their boss because they have your best interests at heart. As Upton Sinclair told us, it's impossible to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on them not understanding it.

The only way to get a tech boss to consistently treat you well is to ensure that if they stop, you can quit. Anything less is a one-way ticket to enshittification.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

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

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

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xstevex-world · 2 years ago

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Steve Harrington’s favourite musician has been the same since he was 17.

He distinctly remembers hearing Chrissy Cunningham play in his car radio during his senior year, subsequently listening to nothing but her breakout EP for a week straight - and that was just the beginning.

He followed all of work for over the past 7 years: bought physical and digital copies of all her albums, watched every music video multiple times, read every interview, saved up enough while working weekend shifts at scoops to get tickets to her sold out shows in Indiana - he had so much merch that Jonathan Byers once joked that Steve could probably make a shrine to his idol.

He had even kept up during her hitatus, almost two full years of radio silence from the star, like she had disappeared off the face of the earth. It wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened, but it didn’t help that it overlapped with him dropping out of business school to pursue a career in cosmetology and that final falling out he had with his father over his choice in education.

The day she came back felt like Christmas.

Her comeback announcement dropped on June 13th - and it wasn’t just a new post on social media or a candid shot online someone managed to snap.

It was a whole EP drop, 4 entire songs (and a music video) that he knew he was going to play on repeat after 716 days of radio silence.

That opened the floodgates for everything to start again: she went back on social media, thanked her fans for their wholehearted response to her new releases. She started doing interviews again: discussing her mental health and the impact of her mothers control in her life; her reunion with her best friend (and apparent ex) from high school; her label dropping her after it was found that her “momager” had embezzled a huge amount of money from said company, releasing her from her contract early and allowing her to find new partners, new producers, new projects.

She talks about how she’s never been happier, and Steve can’t help but beam at it. He can hear it in her music, how it’s going more against the grain of what’s popular, opting instead for etherial synths mixed with heavy guitars. She sings about heartbreak and moving on and being better than then the people who brought her down for long, now that she’s starting fresh.

Steve loves it, thinks some of the changes have something to with Eddie Munson’s name appearing in the credits of all her new material.

Truthfully, he got curious after someone on Twitter posted a screengrab of cameos made by Munson and his own bandmates in all of her new music videos. He thankful someone else made the connection, and although he’s not the biggest fan of Corroded Coffin’s music (apart from the collaboration EP they did with Chrissy: “CCxCC presents Satanic Slumber Party”, that was incredible), he would lying if he didn’t say he was totally enamoured by Eddie goddamn Munson.

Let alone the fact that he’s totally Steve’s type (big hair, bigger eyes, a complete dork with a heart of gold but who also looks like he would bite someone in both a feral dog and a “please take me to your bedroom right now” kind of way), the guy is a genius when it comes to music, spending interviews talking about the process of artistry and the importance of storytelling - even when they’re discussing songs about him, written by Chrissy about their break up, he’s still so passionate and witty, the two of them spending interviews bouncing off each other in a way that would rival his relationship Robin.

He’s fine, really, he knows logically this is just a celebrity crush that will pass if he stops thinking about it for long enough, but he’s certain that this could develop into one of those all encompassing obsessions if he doesn’t curb it now- and that’s exact what he does. He tries to put that energy into school, excelling more than he ever did in an academic setting. He meets up more often with Nancy, Jonathan, Argyle and Barb, inviting them over more often for dinner or drinks, sometimes even just because he wants to make a breakfast feast and need someone else to eat it.

It’s at times like this that he misses Robin, who only has about 6 weeks left of her internship in Paris - he hasn’t seen her in person since he went to visit her a few months ago during spring break. He wishes she was her to openly judge him over this, before rambling on about her own current hyperfixation or moaning about her lack of romantic adventures since she and Vickie broke up.

They still talk on the phone every afternoon (nighttime for her), ranting to each other about their perspective day and sharing any worthwhile gossip.

Tonight’s no different, he’s telling her about the current drama happening in his classes when Robin says:

“I met someone today.”

He’s ecstatic - in his opinion robin deserves the world and the fact she’s met someone on her own in a city where she has been finding it hard interacting with people outside of her placement is a miracle in itself.

She tells him more: how she met this girl that morning at café, acting as a knight in shining armour (Robin’s words, not Steve’s) when the girl got flustered trying to order her coffee in broken French; how she spent the day showing this girl around to her favourite shops and parks and museums; how they spent hours talking about everything and nothing; how Robin hasn’t felt this way about someone since Vickie.

“So then we had dinner at that Italian place, the one I took you to, and, Steve, oh my goddess, she has the cutest little laugh-“

“Did you get her name?”

“Oh, sorry” he can hear her move the phone from one ear to the other. “Yeah it’s Chrissy.”

Steve stops his pacing. That would be one hell of a coincidence, if it was Chrissy Cunningham. She is playing in Paris the following night, the penultimate stop of her current tour. (The very show that he had been tempted to go to, since he could stay with Robin. It absolutely wasn’t because Corroded Coffin was joining her for the European leg of the tour - acting as her band, as well as performing songs from their collaboration as the encore - something that did not happen at any of the American shows). It couldn’t be the same Chrissy that Robin had fallen head over heels for in the space of a few hours, right?

“Did you get any of her socials?” He asks, cautiously.

“Nope,” she answers, popping the p for emphasis. “I didn’t think to ask, because I’m an idiot and all that-“

“Robs,” he interrupts, trying to keep his voice steady. “You’re not an idiot.”

Her hears her laugh on the other end of the line, the same kind of self-deprecating giggle she uses when she’s nervous. He wishes he was there with her so she could see him roll his eyes at her, their main way of communicating their love.

“What did she look like?”

“Oh!” She exclaims as he hears her tumbling over something (knowing Robin, probably herself). “We took a picture together, hold on, I’ll send it over.”

His phone vibrates against his ear, so he brings it in front of him, putting Robin on speaker so he can see the photo.

And.

Holy fuck.

“Robin,” he says slowly, because he actually can’t believe it himself. “Do you know who that is?”

((Part 2))

#stranger things #stranger things au #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #chrissy cunningham #Steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #Buckingham #bandcheer #robin x chrissy #robin buckley x chrissy cunningham #Luci’s ST thoughts

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thebomb-thebird-andtheburntbitch · 3 months ago

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Wishing On Golden Stars [1]

Welcome to Teyvat

genre: isekai, slow burn, fluff, hurt/comfort, humor(?)

warning(s)!!!: tenryou samurai being rude lmao (good cop/bad cop situation)

chapter w.count: 4k

a/n: welcome to the first chapter of my isekai, kamisato ayato series! buckle in buckos, it's gonna be a long ride c:

The final chime of the bell attached to the convenience store door rang as the shift lead more than eagerly crossed the room to lock the entrance for the day. Letting out a collective sigh of relief that the day was finally done, you both slump into less-than-ideal postures. You're left leaning over the counter, your company-issued polo feeling way too hot and uncomfortable from the amount of sweat it had soaked up from your last-minute rush of people who just had to wait until almost closing to do their shopping. Popping open a few buttons, you look up to see the shift lead heading back in your direction doing the exact same thing.

“Thanks again for agreeing for the last minute cover,” the lead, who’s name tag read Max, comes to the counter and turns so his back is against it to lean and soak in the newly acquired quiet of the store. Max was a pretty good guy, taking college courses online on top of working himself to the bone for a company that would probably never remember his name if not for his badge.

“It’s not like I was busy, so it’s fine,” you reassure. It wasn’t a lie anyway. Genshin had gone down for a 5 hour maintenance that day, and while you could��ve done something else to pass the time like watch a new show or even go out and walk, an extra shift for bringing in money didn’t sound like such a horrible pastime. Straightening out from your slumped over position on the counter, you direct your eyes to the flickering digital clock hanging on the wall that really needs new batteries soon.

10:07 PM

Perfect.

“I’ll make sure to have Sam cover for you tomorrow since she was the one who was supposed to work with me today.” Normally, this would be something you turn down since an extra shift would typically push you into overtime, and like it or not, that was more extra moola in your pocket. Still, the facts at hand were that the maintenance was finished and new stories and quests had been added to Genshin. And the kicker? New banners had just begun to run and you hadn’t been saving up for nothing!

“That’d be nice. I have some plans that take place far into tomorrow morning.”

“Pulling another all-nighter on that one game you play?”

“Yup,” you ashamedly admit. It wasn’t a secret that a big chunk of your down time went into your games. Why would you feel ashamed about something you like? Be it a game or tv show or anything else. It made you happy so of course, you’d work around it as much as you could. Besides, it wasn’t the only thing you did- you weren’t a complete shut in. It was also the middle of winter, so being outside wasn’t on your agenda. “The servers were down today, but it should be back up now. I’m going to be playing through some new quests.”

Standing fully up, you stretch and start making your way to the back room where your bag and jacket sit patiently in a locker with your name on it via a tacky store-bought (and customized) magnet. You can hear Max’s footsteps fall in step with your own. You were sure he was eager to get home too.

In the back, while you both gathered your things, mindless conversation that held no real topics came and went. Asking about how his classes were and if he had a paper due soon that he’d have to rush home and complete. He was more of a social butterfly than you, so he took the reigns on most conversations he found himself involved in.

“Do you need me to walk you back? You live in a pretty nasty neighborhood don’t you?”

“Oh, no, don't worry about it. I don't live anywhere sketchy like that.” You chose to leave out the fact that even if you don’t live in a sketched-out part of town, you do have to walk through one to get to your apartment though. If you told Max that, there’s no telling the lecture you’d get as he marches with you back home without argument. Besides, you’ve walked it hundreds of times back and forth already since you moved and got this job… and it wasn’t like you didn’t have pepper spray and a compact stun gun on you anyway. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Be careful!” He calls as you start the normal trek back home. Normally the only weirdo’s out at this time were drunkards you could easily kick in the groin and give a harsh shove into a wall to make a quick getaway. When someone comes rushing around a corner of an alley, you yelp at the sudden appearance. Their shoulder checks into yours and from the sound of their (his?) gasp, he didn’t expect someone to be around the way either.

Both of you stumble, and you feel him grab your bicep and yank you so you don’t trip off the curb into the road. His fingers catch onto the strap of your bag that rests over your shoulder and in the midst of making sure he wasn’t going to start yanking you around some more, you neglect to see the small object drop easily into the pit of your bag.

“S̶o̵r̸r̴y̴” he mumbles before he’s rushing off away from the scene. You stand there on the sidewalk for a moment wondering what that was all about and what his deal is. And why his voice sounded so... fake to you.

‘Is it me, or did he sound kinda… weird?’ You stand bewildered for a moment longer before dismissing it all. Thinking about it would only make you nervous, so shaking the thoughts away was the best course of action. You promptly spin on your heel and with a little more speed to your steps, high tail it home.

Your desk chair never felt more welcoming. You drop your bag on the floor beside your desk and promptly sit yourself down to boot up your computer. The game resources would take a few minutes to download, so while that was running, you rush to get a few snacks and drinks that would make an all-nighter easier to pull off. Shutting off your main light, you flick on the desk lamp you kept beside your monitor. By the time all was said and done, you remembered you should probably text Max that you made it back safely. He would go full ‘big brother’ mode on you if you didn’t.

Digging around your bag for your phone, you pull it out, and with your action, a small item flings out of your bag with it. Hearing it dully hit the ground, you push your chair back and see a small hard object under your desk. Dragging it closer with your toes, you pick it up and examine it under the desk light.

“A piece of candy? No, maybe a trinket or… charm? Where did this come from?” Looking around your room, you look to see if maybe this small item- which with its colors of blue and lilac weaved together looked oddly familiar- had fallen off something you forgot you owned. Coming up short with theories on the origin of the piece of (possible) candy or knocked loose charm, you shrug it off and toss it ceremoniously in the trash bin under your desk by your legs. “Whatever,” you roll closer to your desk and after a click of your mouse, that familiar entry door into the game appears and allows you entry.

Instead of immediately starting to pull on the now-running Kamisato Ayato banner, you decide to knuckle down on some quests and dailies for just a few extra primos to up your chances of that beautiful, easy, golden 5-star man.

Ayato’s banner was one you have been waiting for. Playing through Inazuma (as painstaking as it could be) and meeting Thoma and Ayaka made you excited to meet the head of the family, Ayaka’s older brother. Playing through his character story, you were happy to see that he was as appealing as you hoped.

A cheeky and clever man who has been through more than his fair share of situations that try to lessen his imposing image. Being able to come up with plans that can not only put him in the place of playing ‘villain’ but also not directly involving himself was appealing. A man with the means to put together such a ploy and solely devote himself to the role- Teyvat better thank its lucky stars that he wasn’t an antagonist. Of course, it helped that he was a looker to boot. An exceedingly beautiful man if you’ve ever seen one.

“I’m getting him, come hell or high water,” is the mantra you keep repeating as your grind session continues until almost 3 in the morning. Feeling the creeping of about the hundreth yawn in your throat in the last 20 minutes, you lean your elbow on the desk before opening up the Wish menu. Curling your hand, it pushes into your cheek as your eyes droop dangerously close to shut and you yawn... again.

“Why am I so tired?” You mumble. Normally, pulling all-nighters wasn’t too hard for you. You could usually last until around 6 the next morning on a good day. Maybe work wore you out more than you bargained for since it was an unexpected shift.

You feel yourself slipping further into your palm as your head feels heavier by the second. Your finger clicks for yet another round of 10-pulls. You could hear the sound effects of the transition screen, but you couldn’t bring yourself to pry your eyes open again. A golden color lit up your room behind your eyelids but you were already far past the point of wondering if the five-star screen was always that bright or if maybe your lamp was about to explode from some random burst of overheating- even if it never had any issues before. Nothing else registered in your mind before you were completely falling asleep.

It was noisy.

Your mind wakes up before your body does, and that is the first thought you have. The noise. It was so loud. Way too loud for your bedroom that you know you just fell asleep in. You were playing your game, so maybe you were hearing in-game sounds and ambiance. Of course, that didn’t explain why you were on your back.

You could feel the hard surface of the floor against you, and while still only half-conscious at this point, it still crosses your mind on why it didn’t feel like your bedroom floor. It was like planks of wood were digging into your shirt and threatening your skin with splinters like anxious tiny spears against a giant.

Maybe you had fallen off your chair. If you had though, surely the fall would have woken you up. You weren’t so dead tired from working that you could stay asleep through the tumble of the chair to the floor. Not to mention you must’ve slept through the last few hours of the night because you could feel the sun warming your skin to a near-uncomfortable degree. It almost felt suffocating with the misty humidity hitting your face and assaulting your senses. The sound, feel, smell- all of it felt like you were washed up on some wharf.

Either you were lucid dreaming, or you had sleptwalked into the bathroom or something where you somehow turned the shower on.

Still, there was one thing you could try and rule out, and that was the occasional rough prodding of something solid jabbing into you every few seconds. A jab to the shoulder. A jab to your stomach. A jab to your leg. Even a nudge to your head that tossed your forward-facing position onto your cheek and hit that same wooden surface you feel under your back. Then the shouting starts to finally register in your eardrums.

“..up… ‘ey!” It sounded like a man? What was a man doing in your house? A police officer maybe? But that still didn’t make sense. For the first time since your consciousness started coming back to you, you groan. Your sideways resting head twitched and somehow you found the strength to swivel it back to face the sky. Eyes wrinkling at the bright sunlight behind your eyelids.

You feel small vibrations before hearing accompanying footsteps along the floor before another voice starts speaking. It was much closer than the one you could barely make out before.

“Miss.. ‘ear me… ‘llo?” It was softer, almost nicer to try and listen to. Good cop, bad cop sort of vibe.

You manage to crack your eyes open for just a moment before the closed-eyed warmth of the sun turns into a blinding flash bang that assaults your retinas. You hiss, chest jumping as your shoulders and arms twitch and tighten. The first signs of movement must’ve startled the people around you since you could feel their rushed steps in startlement through the floor. Moving your head slowly, you rock it from left to right trying to will a cloud over the sun; or if you were actually in the bathroom, for someone to draw a curtain or something.

You got your wish of shade when something hovers over your squeezed eyes. When the shade persisted with no signs of slipping away from you, you try once again to crack your eyes open.

Your vision was blurry. You could barely make out shapes, the world just a blob of converging colors and textures that started to register in your mind like code being processed. You must’ve hit your head way harder than you thought if you fell off your chair. Groaning was all you could do to communicate how uncomfortable you were in the current moment; that and the small shuffling movements of your limbs you could finally start moving.

The way the world shifted from blobs to shapes then into objects was astonishingly quicker than you expected and soon enough you were narrowly looking at a face you hadn’t seen before. Though, this stranger’s clothes looked oddly familiar to you. A cone-shaped hat that tied under his chin with a symbol on its front. Dressed in a uniform consisting of shades of dark purples- parts of it almost resembling armor. Laying on the floor- which you now see are planks of wood outside, so more so laying on the ground- next to him was a long spear-like object.

“Wha…” is all you can articulate at the confusion personified in front of you. The shade you had gained was given graciously by the man beside you lifting his hand to cover your eyes from the sun.

Your lethargic state was quickly swatted away by a sudden and painful jab to the stomach. Lurching up with a choked ‘Oomph!’, you jump into a coughing fit. Your arms come to fold over your gut as your body positions itself into a semi-half sitting-up angle. One of your arms comes to perch behind your back, holding you up and keeping you from flopping back onto the wooden ground as coughs scratch up your throat. You were parched.

“What are you doing?!” The man who had been crouching beside you this whole time had not only said a full complete sentence that you could actually understand but had shouted directly next to your ear. His bickering aimed at a man who had the same uniform and weapon as him. The standing guard- Bad Cop you’re guessing- had apparently grown restless and impatient as he lifted his spear and hovered it over your stomach before letting the butt end of it jam you in the gut. Hospitality was in the negatives with Bad Cop.

You felt Good Cop’s hand come to rest on your shoulder and you instinctively shrug it off. The realization of something being wrong finally starts to dawn on you. Maybe Bad Cop’s little assault was a good wake-up call after all… even if it was a jerk move.

Eyes wide with a fully functioning brain and processing intuition, you look beyond Good and Bad Cop and all around the area you were in. It was a dock… a port? On the edge of a small little town, there was a starting crowd beyond the wooden dock. Far off to the left up atop a cliff was a statue, one that was carved into the shape of a person, and even farther and higher than that were the beautifully pink and purple sparks of what seemed to be a shrine rising above all else.

With a yelp of recognition, your legs kick out and scurry your body back until you're dangerously close to toppling into the water at the edge of the dock.

“No way… there’s no way,” you mutter to yourself. “This has got to be some freaky dream. There’s just no way..!” That was clearly your denial talking. You’ve felt your fair share of pain- although none of it was lasting- to know if that this is a dream you would have woken up well long ago. Bad Cop, with a click of his tongue, stomps towards you and bends to snatch your arm in his palm before yanking. His rude attempts to get you on your feet are met with well-deserved resistance.

“On your feet! You have some explaining to do!” His voice boomed in your ear like it was bouncing off the ocean waves and back again. “Who are you? Where did you come from!”

“Let go of me!” His grip wasn’t gentle and you could feel your skin pinching painfully from his grip between his gloves. Since he had at least brought you to your feet, you plant them as firmly as you can into the wood beneath you before yanking back. He must’ve underestimated a washed-up person’s strength because you had ripped free easily, but all that power you put into your backward retreat lands you back on the ground. You hiss as you land on your side and scrape up your elbow. You could feel the burning sensation of broken skin and probable splinters making a new home in your arm.

You look back up to Bad Cop and your eyes shine with a glossy frustration.

“I don’t know how I got here! And what’s with your attitude! I’m not telling you anything with the way you’ve treated me- someone who's just as confused as you by the way!” That was a partial lie. In your heart of hearts, you know you’re in Inazuma. You have no idea how or why or what the hell is happening, but you weren’t about to tell him that. Good Cop- who had been anxiously kneeling with his arm barely outstretched in a poor attempt to mediate? Maybe. At least he was more or less kind. If not a tad whimpy.

“Outsiders are not permitted within the boundaries of Inazuma by demand of the Sakoku Decree! Now, how did you end up here!”

“I. Don’t. Know.”

While you and Bad Cop face off in the most pointless round of shouting roulette, there was a buzz circulating from the crowd that had fully gathered to witness the whole debacle. You took no notice of it or the person who had emerged from that buzz to step confidently onto the dock along with the three of you.

“Ah, good morning!” A bubbly, warm voice breaks the extremely tense atmosphere of the argument between Bad Cop and you. Shattered it so much that you were both rendered speechless for a moment before setting your sights on the newcomer. You choke back a gasp since any form of recognition was strictly off-limits unless you want Bad Cop to pick up on it and thus pick another fight.

In front of you, behind Good Cop who had finally risen to his feet with a relieved expression, was the ginger haired Thoma. His happy and friendly smile was present on his face like it was natural to break up fights on the street (on the dock?) with his hand raised in a relaxed, quick greeting. The Fixer himself had somehow come to your aid... you hope.

Being harassed by the Tenryou Commission and having Thoma show up and hopefully save your butt? You’re really getting the Traveler Treatment.

Thoma struts up to the three of you and claps his hand on the shoulder of Bad Cop, a small signal of ‘back up my friend, let's talk about this’. His quick glance towards you finally makes your shoulders slacken- you weren’t aware of just how tense your body was. Even your jaw started to ache from all the clenching you were doing.

“Let’s start from the beginning. Now, what’s the situation?” Bad Cop goes through the trouble of explaining- in his harsh tone- the sequence of events. They had shown up to the harbor for regular routine checks, and had found you unconscious on one of the wooden docks. They had tried waking you up, he leaves out that he had used his spear on your gut, and that when you woke up you started verbally attacking them.

“Now, hang on!” You almost screech when he finishes his spiel. His glare is overshadowed by the quizzical look of Thoma’s. “I did not ‘verbally attack’ anyone! I'm just as confused as you are and you slammed your stupid little spear into my stomach to wake me up. Remember that? It hurt you know! Of course I’d yell at someone so hostile!”

As you both started bickering once again, Good Cop anxiously tried to get a single word in, that was always drowned out while Thoma just watched. He couldn’t see a trace of deception on you; your face was the dictionary definition of confused and scared. Sure, you were full of fire at the moment, but given the opportunity to calm down maybe you’d realize just how you're really feeling instead of being so fired up. So, he saw no reason not to help you.

“For the time being, why not take them into custody of the Tenryou Commission?” Thoma pitches and your jaw drops in betrayal. Prison? You? Before, you could open your mouth to defend yourself, he starts again. “If they really have no memory of how they got here, then the safest place for them is a monitored location defended by guards. Right?” He looks at you and your jaw shuts with a small clack of teeth.

“You… might have a point.” A stupidly good point. “Fine,” you relent. There was no point in drawing it out. You really didn’t have anywhere to go, so at least a cell is a roof and protection from the elements. Bad Cop was fighting back a smug smile, you could see it tugging behind his teeth. “I’m not going anywhere with Ba- I mean, this guy though.” You cross your arms adamantly and mutter, “he’s been enough of a pain in more than one way.”

At your attitude, Thoma laughs. Even though it’s amusing, the calming atmosphere doesn’t deter him from the slight trembling of your hand tucked under your crossed arms.

“Of course. You can have your other Tenryou friend here escort you there,” he gestures to Good Cop and you nod. You can get behind that plan.

With little conversation left to be had, Bad Cop leaves the dock, Thoma speaks privately to Good Cop for a moment, and then soon you’re ushered off to Tenryou property where you’re expecting to be good friends with iron bars for an unforeseeable, undisclosed amount of time. The small wave Thoma gestures at you to come over has you walking cautiously his way. Once at his side, his back curves down as he cups around his mouth to your ear.

“Just bare with it. I’ll help you the best I can.”

He straightens back up and with a pat on the back, sends you off. Your first morning in Teyvat- as absolutely asinine as that sounds- is ending on a pretty low note. Jail time.

|- prev. / INDEX / next ->

a/n: its a slow start but you hAVE to trust me gang

#ayato x reader #kamisato ayato x reader #kamisato ayato #genshin impact #ayato x you #ayato x y/n #ayato fluff #genshin ayato #ayato angst #ayato hurt/comfort #ayato comfort #genshin impact ayato #genshin impact kamisato ayato #genshin impact x reader #genshim impact x you #genshin impact x y/n

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blueskittlesart · 1 year ago

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What advice would you give beginner artists?

it's fine to want to do more stylized art, but nothing will help you improve quickly like studying from life. even if you want to draw very stylized figures, life drawing is still going to help you understand how the human body works and then you can build your stylization off of that understanding. I also recommend studying specifically things you're looking to improve--if you feel like your poses aren't dynamic, ask your model to do some quick (1-2 min) dynamic poses and work on getting the gesture down. if you're looking for anatomy, ask for longer, more static poses and really study the contours of the body. this also applies for portraiture and character art--my expressions and facial structure improved like CRAZY when i started doing portrait studies from life! (note: i know live model sessions aren't accessible for everyone. i'm a huge advocate for nude models, if you can find a studio nearby that's affordable to you that offers sessions, that's the best you're gonna get. however, there are sites that will give you photos of nude models to draw from, too, or you can even just ask friends or family to pose for you when they aren't busy, that's what i did before i started getting model sessions from my school!)

materials are not everything but sometimes a good material can make a difference. it's important to know what's worth it and what isn't for your skill level. invest in some decent-quality supplies or a good art program, but understand that you're still going to need to work to understand your materials and use them to their fullest potential. (if you're a digital artist buy csp. trust me on this. get it on sale. it will change your life. also do not fucking use photoshop)

tracing is ok. listen to me. TRACING. IS. OK. tracing is how you learn. don't trace other people's art and pass it off as your own, obviously, but there is literally no problem with tracing real-life reference photos. I routinely trace references for backgrounds and the like. there is no reason for you to kill yourself trying to make complex perspective and shit up from your head when you can very easily just overlay a photo and get what you need.

in that same vein, USE REFERENCE PHOTOS. find pics online or take pics of yourself and USE THEM to see how your poses work. it makes it SO SO SO much easier. the understanding that you need to create a pose out of nowhere will come with time but you're not going to get that skill unless you have a foundation of understanding how the real human body works, and the easiest way to get that understanding is by copying photos of real people.

last but not least, there's generally a sort of 'rulebook' that new artists are expected to go by, especially online, when it comes to digital art. when i was first learning, it was all about lineart and cell shading, two things that I didn't really like. Nowadays it seems to be all about rendering. the single most important thing i can tell you is if it sucks you don't have to do it. if you hate lineart just color your sketches. if you hate shading don't shade, or find a different way to shade that you enjoy more. if rendering is annoying or difficult for you DON'T BOTHER!! art is supposed to be fun. if part of your process is annoying or upsetting to you, cut it the fuck out. don't torture yourself just to do art the "right" way. i guarantee your art will look better when you're having fun making it anyway!

#asks #ALSO don't go in expecting to monetize your social media presence/go viral as an artist. make art for YOU and make what you want to make.#if your art has passion behind it then attention will come naturally!

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idyllcy · 4 months ago

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from one admirer to another : how do you like your eggs?

pairing: leon kennedy x reader || masterpost: from one admirer to another

synopsis: from one admirer to another, an online penpal service, allows for two people with common interests to write to each other without ever revealing their actual address! Luckily for both you and Leon, you get matched up! What do eggs and Christmas even have in common anyway? sure hope it's that modeling business and NOT that Ada Wong addiction.

featuring: reader as scrambled eggs // leon as christmas

Dear scrambled eggs:

it feels strange to write to someone in such a format, but I suppose I should get used to it. We got paired up via from one admirer to another because of our shared passion for Ada Wong. I find it a little amusing that someone else just straight-up put a model's name instead of modeling on its own, but I'm glad you did.

As an ada stan, I feel the need to ask this immediately. How did you feel about her helicopter shoot? I'm hoping you aren't some weird stan like those... yeah. Also, while on that topic, if you're really as die-hard as me when I have free time, you should read glhf <3 by okaokra on ao3. It's gender-neutral, it's a great fic, unless, of course, you're too normal for reading fanfiction. In that case, maybe we can find another middle ground aside from Ada Wong.

Right, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm user Christmas, a weird translation + twisting of my real name. I live in Raccoon City, and I model as a part-time job because of ... you guessed it, Ada. My dream role is to model with her, but considering that I'm only a local model, this is truly out of my reach. Maybe some strike of luck will help me?

I used to dream of being a cop until I got scouted off the street by some guy for modeling. Do you think I suit it? Who am I kidding, you have no idea what I even look like. Maybe you pass me on the covers of local magazines all the time if you live nearby. I'm not nearly as famous as Ada Wong, though, so I suppose I can never truly call myself a big model until I become someone like her. Even then, she's not a supermodel.

Tell me more about yourself, maybe? What's your favorite holiday? How do you like your eggs in the morning? Do you even eat eggs? Why the name "scrambled eggs" over anything else? What do you do in your free time— oh, I should answer that question.

I seldom have free time lately, but I feel like all I've been doing late is reading the fic that I mentioned earlier. Oh, right, hopefully you enjoy the sticker I got from a fan gathering. I did a little bit of research, and it seems pretty normal to send your penpal small trinkets in the letters, so we'll start with a sticker.

I thought the mail would be digital, and then I was notified that you would prefer physical mail — which, to be fair, I'm not complaining about. I think it would be funny to open a box of letters exchanged between a penpal and I 10 years down the line. Who knows, maybe you'll even be at my wedding.

Right, my apologies for a long first letter, but I'm excited to be starting this.

signing off, Christmas

Leon sends the mail the next morning, rubbing his eyes slowly as he rides the public transport to his next shoot, waving good morning to his manager as he sips on his coffee, hair blushed back and gelled, formal clothes handed to him. Leon finds that he doesn't really suit clothes like this, but for the camera, he puts up with just about everything. He finds it interesting that he would be modeling in clothes he hadn't liked wearing all that much.

"You have another shoot later today, and then you're off for the rest of the weekdays. You have another shoot over the weekend."

Leon nods, blinking slowly as the coffee shoots through his system and he's revived magically. It feels unreal. He's working as a model despite finishing the police academy at the top of his class. Is this what delusion and some sweet talking from a random agent can do to a person? It feels a little wasteful to let his training turn into this, but he's not complaining all that much. Yet. he meets eyes with the model he's supposed to be posing with, blinking in surprise. Wow. That appearance is lethal.

He waves at you, giving you a small smile as you wave back, smiling back.

"New?"

"Mm... moreso someone who doesn't like booking. My manager booked this months in advance, so I'm here." You stay still as the makeup artist finishes with you, Leon raising a brow as you give him a cheeky grin.

"Did you leave before your makeup was finished?"

"I wanted to meet you. I heard I was modeling with someone pretty well-known." You grin. "Leon Kennedy, was it?"

"Yes. Am I that big now?"

"Mm... you're quite a name amongst us local models." You tap your chin. "It's quite an honor modeling with you. I heard you have deadly biceps."

"Well, you can't see them through the suit."

"It comes off, no? I'll just fix it." You tilt your head.

"And how do I know you won't jump my bones?"

"Oh, please. I'm your coworker right now. I'm not someone sketchy." You roll your eyes, helping him free an arm as he flexes for you. You blink at his arms, raising a brow as you stare up at him. "Can I squeeze?"

"As long are you're not weird about it."

You grab his bicep, giving it a squeeze as you nod slowly. "God, I need your arm routine. You got a trainer? I'd like to get that contact."

Leon rolls his eyes, fighting the blush that threatens to creep up his neck from your skin contact. God, what is he? fourteen? Get a grip, Leon. "Gotta get that from my manager, then."

"Shame." You sigh, helping him put the suit jacket back. "Maybe the next time I bump into you, I'll have biceps of a greek god too."

"Leon, model two! You two are up!"

"Wow, they don't even name you?"

"Maybe I just like being mysterious."

start : masterlist : next letter

#leon kennedy x reader #☾.oata #leon x reader #feels necessary to make mention... YOU KNOW THEY'RE PENPALS BUT THEY DO NOT.#also i know leon would never realistically leave the police academy for modeling with his backstory but SHHHH

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rat-king-writes · 6 months ago

Note

Hi I was wondering if you could do some head canons for Cassidy? Where is his s/o is a big gamer and they introduce him to red dead redemption 2. (Not sure if you know the game or not) I can image Cassidy getting really attached to Arthur and hating on Micah. I can also see them playing the online to get her and Cassidy is just enjoying the scenery and then they turn around to see their s/o getting dragged around by another player.

If you don’t want to write about this it’s totally fine but if you do thank you in advance!

Thank you for the ask , I tried by best .

Synopsis ; You are a huge , HUGE gamer . However your boyfriend , Cassidy , isn't as in tune with the digital world. So you introduce him to a game that you think he will like . ( Red Dead Redemption 2 )

Cassidy isn't big on games, sure he likes watching you play them, (He just likes watching you do whatever) but he can never seem to win or even understand the concepts of a controller in his hand. The buttons are too confusing, and because you're a huge game nerd, you have multiple consoles with different controllers with different settings and oh my gosh he doesn't get it. How do you memorize all the different buttons, the moves, the characters? He's in awe when you play.

Usually, it would be you on the floor with some type of game projected onto your tv, and Cassidy’s head in your lap while you focus on your game. Occasionally Cassidy would ask you a question about it, but he generally just stayed pretty quiet and admired the screen, and you. That is how it usually went. Until you pulled out a new game, a game you had bought with the intention to show Cole. It’s something you had heard about before, but never really got into. Until you learned there was a multiplayer option.

You hadn’t told Cole about it yet, leading the day as any normal one with your boyfriend following you around like usual. When you loaded up Red Dead Redemption 2, you could already see the glint in Cassidy’s eyes as he sat next to you. You smile, already knowing your plan would work. You started as normally, eyes trained on the game as it played out in front of you. Cassidy was absolutely enthralled and would ask you many many questions about who was who, the premise, etc. He was just so happy to see multiple cowfolk in the media.

He seemed to really relate to and enjoy Arthur. But he absolutely despised Micah, and even booed when the man would appear on screen. He gave his opinions on other characters too, relating Sadie to someone he used to be friends with, and saying you reminded him of Charles. It was cute how he would get excited when you booted up the game. And you absolutely loved it too, the game was quite fun. And seeing how Cole liked it, made it a even better experience.

It got even better when the next day you had set up an extra tv, controller, and of course another copy of Read Dead 2. Of course you had paid the online service fee for both of you, something Cole will never know, leds he lecture you on spending money on him. But how could you not? The way his eyes lit up, voice carrying a happy tilt to it. It made your heart flutter, and now that you could play with him things would be even better.When Cassidy got to your home you greeted him with a hug and a kiss before eagerly leading him to your shared room.

He was confused at your sudden excitement, but smiled along with you as you practically dragged him. His confusion grew even more as his eyes set onto the extra tv setup. Though judging by your extremely large smile and you ushering him to sit down, he wasn’t too worried. You explain to him your plan, fidgeting nervously with your own controller as you tell him you want to try the online feature with him. He accepts almost immediately, though you have to spend some time getting him used to the controls.

The online wasn't that busy thankfully, and you and Cassidy would ride horses side by side and go sightseeing. You would look over at him and just watch him play and interact with the horses. It melted your heart how he would verbally hush the fake horse after accidentally hitting it. He was so kind, and so silly it made your heart swell. Other players would come up to you both, often riding alongside or causing some type of trouble, but it was primarily civil.

One afternoon, Cole and you sat down to play some online as you usually do, however you wanted to show him the lavender fields in Big Valley. Something you knew he would adore. The ride there had you both chatting idly, mainly about Cole's line of work in overwatch. It was going well, and as you two approached the beautiful scenery you couldn't help but smile at Cole. It seemed stupid, getting happy over a game, but seeing how happy your boyfriend looked just made you giddy.

Unbeknownst to you, and to Cole, a player had run up to you with their lasso out, snagging you and just dragging you around the land. Once you had caught notice of this, you let out a burst of laughter. This prompts Cole to look over as well, and the sight of you getting dragged causes him to let out his own hearty laugh too. He chases the player around, vowing to free you from your silly predicament. And he does, fairly easily. The other player finally leaves, leaving you two alone to look at the scenery. And just like you had predicted, Cole loves it.

Playing Read Dead became a sort of pastime for you both, something to do to relax and wind down. Of course Cole would be content watching you play the story mode, and sometimes he would prefer to. But all that you cared about was him having fun, and you achieved that goal.

#overwatch x reader #x male reader #overwatch x male reader #cole cassidy x male reader #cole cassidy x reader #cole cassidy

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blissfullyecho · 13 days ago

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Elevating Your Personal Brand for 2025: Your Online Presence

In today’s digital age, your online presence is one of the most powerful tools you have to shape your personal brand. Whether you're looking to land a dream job, build a side hustle, or simply embody a more refined and elegant lifestyle, curating a sophisticated and luxurious digital image can make all the difference.

If you're ready to elevate your online presence with class, elegance, and a touch of luxury, you’re in the right place. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of refining your personal brand and creating an online identity that’s poised, polished, and truly you.

Step 1: Define Your Personal Brand Vision

Before you start curating content, it’s essential to get clear on what you want your personal brand to represent. What does luxury, class, and elegance mean to you? Your personal brand should reflect your unique style, interests, values, and aspirations. It’s about crafting an image that feels authentic to you, yet elevated to match the lifestyle you desire.

Action Steps:

Write down your core values. These might include qualities like elegance, kindness, professionalism, creativity, or adventure. These will guide your brand’s tone and messaging.

Visualize your ideal lifestyle. What do you want your life to look like in 5 or 10 years? Let that vision inspire how you portray yourself online.

Identify role models. Think about women you admire (public figures, entrepreneurs, or influencers) whose personal brands resonate with you. What elements of their style, approach, or values can you incorporate into your own online presence?

Step 2: Curate Your Aesthetic

Your aesthetic plays a huge role in creating a luxurious and elegant online presence. A cohesive and thoughtful aesthetic conveys sophistication and attention to detail, whether it's through your Instagram feed, personal website, or blog. You want your digital space to be visually appealing, refined, and purposeful.

Action Steps:

Choose a color palette. Soft neutrals like beige, cream, white, and blush pink often convey a sense of luxury, while gold accents or muted jewel tones can add a touch of glamour. Make sure the colors you choose reflect the vibe you want to communicate.

Select your fonts carefully. Opt for classic, timeless fonts like serif fonts or clean sans-serif styles for a minimalist, chic look. Keep your typography consistent across all platforms.

Create a content plan. Plan your photos and posts to fit into your aesthetic. Whether you're showcasing your fashion, lifestyle, or business endeavors, ensure each piece contributes to the refined image you're building.

Step 3: Perfect Your Digital Wardrobe

Your online presence should mirror your real-life style, and this doesn’t mean you need to wear expensive clothes all the time. It's about cultivating a polished, put-together look that communicates elegance and sophistication.

Action Steps:

Invest in key pieces. Build a capsule wardrobe with timeless, high-quality pieces. Think tailored blazers, elegant dresses, neutral tones, and accessories that elevate your outfits. It's not about having a lot, but rather about having a few, well-chosen items that you wear often and with confidence.

Master the art of styling. Focus on classic silhouettes that flatter your body shape and keep things simple. Less is often more when it comes to cultivating an elegant look.

Show off your style online. Curate photos that highlight your wardrobe choices. Whether you're snapping selfies, sharing outfit posts, or showcasing lifestyle shots, make sure your fashion choices align with your refined brand.

Step 4: Cultivate High-Value Content

Luxury and elegance are not just about aesthetics—they’re about substance too. High-quality content that reflects your values, expertise, and passions will elevate your online presence in ways that go beyond just a pretty picture. Whether you’re sharing beauty tips, fashion advice, or personal development insights, make sure your content is valuable and thoughtful.

Action Steps:

Share your expertise. What are you passionate about? Whether it’s personal development, fitness, wellness, fashion, or business, share your knowledge and insights with your audience in a way that adds value. Offer tips, tutorials, and advice that make people feel inspired and empowered.

Focus on storytelling. People connect with stories. Share moments from your life that showcase your growth, your achievements, and your journey toward a more luxurious lifestyle. Make your audience feel like they are a part of your world.

Consistency is key. Post regularly, whether it’s daily, weekly, or biweekly. The more you show up with valuable content, the more your audience will trust and admire your brand.

Step 5: Cultivate Grace and Confidence

A huge part of elegance and luxury is not just how you look, but how you carry yourself. Cultivating confidence, grace, and poise in all your online interactions is crucial to building a brand that feels truly elevated.

Action Steps:

Be kind and respectful. The way you engage with your audience speaks volumes. Respond to comments thoughtfully, offer encouragement, and be gracious with your interactions. Classiness is often reflected in your communication.

Maintain boundaries. It’s important to stay authentic, but also protect your personal life. Keep your online persona polished by sharing only what you feel comfortable with, while leaving room for privacy.

Embrace a positive mindset. Luxury is as much a state of mind as it is a lifestyle. Cultivate a mindset of abundance, and focus on uplifting others. This positive energy will naturally translate into your online presence.

Step 6: Network with Like-Minded Individuals

To truly elevate your brand, it’s important to surround yourself with people who share similar goals and values. Networking with other women who embody elegance, class, and luxury will help you grow, both personally and professionally.

Action Steps:

Engage with like-minded influencers. Follow, comment, and build relationships with women who inspire you. Share their content, collaborate on projects, or simply connect over mutual interests.

Attend online events. Participate in webinars, virtual conferences, and online workshops to connect with other professionals in your industry.

Leverage social media platforms. Use platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest to network, share your expertise, and build meaningful connections that can help you advance your personal brand.

Step 7: Stay Authentic and Evolve

Finally, remember that a truly luxurious and elegant brand is one that remains authentic. As you grow and evolve, so should your brand. Don’t be afraid to adapt, try new things, or shift your focus. Your journey toward elegance and luxury is a continual process, and your brand should reflect the authentic version of yourself—today and in the future.

Action Steps:

Evaluate and adjust. Regularly check in with yourself and assess if your online presence still aligns with your vision. If it doesn't, make adjustments to reflect where you are now.

Embrace change. Your tastes, interests, and goals will evolve as you grow. Embrace these changes and let them shape your brand naturally.

Conclusion: Own Your Elegance, Own Your Brand

Building a luxurious, classy, and elegant online presence is about more than just aesthetics. It’s about curating a personal brand that reflects your true self and communicates your aspirations. By following these steps, you’ll elevate your digital persona and create a brand that resonates with authenticity, grace, and sophistication.

Remember, elegance isn’t about perfection—it’s about being the best version of yourself, every day. So go ahead, step into your power, and own your unique, elevated online presence. The world is waiting to see the graceful, confident woman you are becoming.

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yandere-paramour · 5 months ago

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Alright, questions about Noelle. What does she look like? Who is she attracted to? Does she have any hobbies? Does she enjoy animals?

Meet Noelle!

Noelle is a no-nonsense lesbian assistant to the Montclair heir, Atalanta, meaning she spends her days dealing with Atalanta's bullshit 24/7.

She can be called at any time, any day of the year, and will have to respond to whatever foolishness Atalanta wants. She'll even pick up and work when she's sick or injured.

Noelle is one of the only people Atalanta considers a true friend, and as a result, can speak informally and give advice to Atalanta when they are in private.

Because of this, she is also called upon to sometimes babysit/accompany Atalanta's Darling or even accompany Jamie places (if his manservant is busy).

Noelle knows all the intricate details of Atalanta's life and relationships. If Atalanta needs a new strap because the current one isn't "ribbed for her pleasure," Noelle is going to research the best brands, buy it, and have it delivered to the penthouse. And probably ask Atalanta how it went and if she should get one too.

Noelle's favorite color is ice blue.

Her apartment is decorated with ice blue and grey, and she keeps it spotless. She gets really agitated if her apartment is dirty.

Noelle is 25 years old.

She is 5'4" and hates it.

Noelle is a virgin.

Ever since she was a child, she has always had the drive to go FAST. So, nobody knows this about her, but on her days off, she likes to ride her motorcycle (her one vice) recreationally.

Because she works so much, she is pretty bad at taking care of herself. She doesn't sleep much, and only eats microwaved/frozen foods, what she can order in, or just outright skips a meal and sleeps. Because of this, she is extremely small, almost underweight, and gets cold very easily.

She grew up very poor and worked hard enough to send herself to college and get this job. She has crawled up from the bottom rung of society and will die before she gives up her 6 figure salary.

School was everything to her as a child. It was a place with heat, food, and no little sisters to take care of. Noelle was always a few years ahead of her grade in school because she did homework with her older sister, but they never skipped her grade because it wasn't that kind of school. So she occupied herself with other pursuits, like computers at the public library and reading. She eventually got a full ride to college and broke the cycle.

When she made it to college, she took more classes in both business and computer science and further refined her already impressive hacking and online skills that she uses a lot at her job.

Noelle has a mother, one older sister, and three younger sisters. She has no father and never needed one. She is estranged from her mother but still speaks and sometimes helps out her younger sisters who are teenagers. Her favorite sister is Odette, the oldest who is 28.

Odette also pierced her ears for her.

She hates cigarettes because her mother smokes. She doesn't drink either.

Because of her pale and delicate skin, Noelle is a skincare enthusiast. There is always sunscreen and moisturizer in her purse. She had sunburns constantly when she was young and she's tired of it.

Her hair is another luxury for her. She had to have short hair as a child because it was difficult to take care of, but now that she's an adult, she can grow it as long as she wants. It is currently halfway down her back, but she keeps it in a bun at work. Touch her hair and she might punch you.

With her lover, Noelle is extremely manipulative. She will do anything to improve your perception of her, including drugging you, threatening the people around you, and digitally changing online records.

She starts with stalking you. With Atalanta's connections and her own computer skills, she can easily follow you using street cameras and the ones in your home. She'll move your things around, make you worried someone is following you so you'll run right to your girlfriend's arms. She's the only one you can turn to, the only one you can trust.

When you're around her, she's always rubbing and caressing you, praising you, getting you to associate her with good feelings so when you're away, it always feels like something's missing.

In her small bits of free time, Noelle likes to do yoga, indulge in computer science, and do number puzzles.

Noelle only likes one animal: her Russian blue cat, Sasha. She generally associates animals with filthiness because of her childhood, but she found Sasha alone in a dumpster, starving and dirty, as a kitten, and it reminded her of herself, so she took pity on him and took him in.

Noelle does not want kids. She's raised enough little bastards for one life.

Noelle is practical, logical, and sensible, and what she says, goes. There is no arguing with Noelle, and sometimes her analytical sense of reasoning can feel callous and mean, but she doesn't always mean it that way.

Although she is usually physically in the office with Atalanta, she is sometimes permitted to work from home, provided she stays on call and keeps her phone nearby and charged at all times.

She gets along okay with coworkers, but she does not consider them friends. Except Ata. She considers her a friend.

Noells's job is mainly composed of her keeping blackmail on file, scheduling meetings, planning Atalanta's weekly and daily schedules, prepping and scheduling travel plans, itineraries, and agendas when needed, filing paperwork, doing background checks and compiling resumes for new hires, composing and preparing confidential correspondence (contacting the crime boss Ata uses), and delegating tasks given to her by Ata.

She likes to take relaxing baths, would inject iced coffee into her veins, and prefers fresh and clean scents.

What would make her soft is when she gets home from work and she's tired and stressed and burnt out, but you made her a relaxing dinner, and then you try to release her tension with orgasm after orgasm. Someone taking care of her and showing her that level of concern makes her want to cry, and she never cries.

Noelle has participated in street fights. There is a scar on her stomach that looks suspiciously like a knife would but she doesn't talk about it.

Noelle will do whatever it takes to survive. Don't ever forget that.

Cute kid, right? Don't be fooled, she'll charm you out of your rent money in a second.

#Noelle my oc #yandere imagine #yandere blog #yandere darling #yandere oc #soft yandere #yandere headcanons #yandere fluff #yandere #yandere x darling #yandere lesbian #possesive yandere

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maziijapanese · 4 months ago

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Complete guide to self-studying Japanese

Learning Japanese on your own can be a rewarding experience with the right resources. Here's a comprehensive guide to various methods and materials that can help you effectively self-study Japanese.

Self-study Japanese through textbooks and guides Textbooks and guides are the backbone of structured language learning. They provide comprehensive coverage of grammar, vocabulary, and kanji, ensuring a solid foundation. The "Genki" series is highly regarded for beginners, offering thorough explanations, engaging exercises, and accompanying audio CDs to practice listening and pronunciation. Another excellent resource is "Japanese for Busy People," perfect for those with limited time, focusing on practical conversation skills and essential vocabulary. Additionally, "Minna no Nihongo" offers an immersive experience by using only Japanese, pushing learners to think in the language from the start.

Self-study Japanese through videos Videos are an invaluable resource for enhancing listening skills and understanding pronunciation nuances. YouTube channels such as "JapanesePod101" and "Learn Japanese from Zero" provide free lessons ranging from beginner to advanced levels, covering grammar, vocabulary, and cultural insights. Additionally, watching anime like "My Neighbor Totoro" or dramas such as "Terrace House" with subtitles helps learners get accustomed to natural speech patterns and everyday expressions. For music lovers, listening to Japanese songs like those by J-pop artists such as Hikaru Utada or Arashi can also improve language skills and pronunciation.

Self-study Japanese online The digital age has revolutionized language learning, and Japanese is no exception. A plethora of online resources are readily available to cater to diverse learning styles. Interactive platforms and engaging apps offer personalized experiences, allowing learners to focus on specific language skills and track their progress efficiently. From mastering grammar to honing pronunciation and expanding vocabulary, these digital tools provide flexibility and convenience for self-paced study.

Self-study Japanese through exam preparation For those aiming to certify their proficiency, preparing for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) is crucial. Resources like the "Nihongo So-matome" and "Shin Kanzen Master" series offer focused practice across all JLPT levels, including grammar, reading, and listening exercises. Additionally, websites like "JLPT Sensei" provide practice tests and tips to help learners gauge their readiness and identify areas for improvement. Self-studying Japanese can be a fulfilling journey with the right resources. By utilizing textbooks, video lessons, online tools, and exam prep materials, you can develop a well-rounded understanding of the language. Remember, consistency and practice are key to mastering Japanese, so make use of these resources to enhance your learning experience.

#japanese #learn japanese #language #studyblr #studying #studyspo #nihongo #japanese langblr

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shinesurge · 29 days ago

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I think it's a side effect of having a slightly bigger audience than before, but this year I've been getting a LOT of questions about offering digital editions of the KC books so I wanted to talk about it out loud for a bit.

There are a bunch of complicated reasons I've never offered the volumes as digital downloads, and I think they mostly boil down to concerns about the pretty embarrassing lack of significant internet presence Kidd Commander has accumulated over the 11 years it's been running. The audience I DO have is very enthusiastic, and let me be clear that I appreciate how unique and cool that is, especially in the era we're in where I really have no business running things the way I do lmao

The problem is, in refusing to do any of the predatory social media bullshit that tricks people into doing advertising for my comic while pretending it's a fandom, and by taking initiative to build fandom spaces for people to hang out in myself, I've created an extremely insular community where folks don't really feel any need to help it grow. "If you build it they'll come" is true, but the other half of that is people going "hey neat this thing builds itself!" and you end up with dozens of fandom posts, hours of discussion, and even fanwork locked away in inaccessible spaces while the pages on the site consistently get no comments or interaction and the public tags are empty.

WHAT does this have to do with digital editions lol

The idea was, a thing that helps set KC apart is the webcomic thing where you're not only checking a site regularly as a routine, but you're building some impression of the author as well. My little news posts are bundled with the pages, the site gives a sense of Environment in way static editions don't. In return for offering nearly a thousand pages of completely free content the reader has to Encounter Me at some point, and be made aware that this is an operation being run by a single person, and that its survival is entirely dependent on other people reading it and supporting it. Going to the site ALSO at least lets people know a comment section /exists/, and there COULD be a community to participate in. You don't get that with the books as much, but the books are almost exclusively going to folks who already read the comic, I don't think they're floating around out there to many people who didn't buy them directly from me after reading it online.

It is objectively easier for people to binge an archive they can carry around offline with them, I completely get it. But I've watched SO many new readers fall in love with this thing in real time as they leave comments behind them through the archive, and even just forming the habit of checking the site regularly really goes a long way towards forming enough of a connection with a reader for them to stick around for the long haul. If you just read it all isolated on your phone, it stops there; it's easy to forget it's an independent operation that desperately needs your support, /I/ have no idea whether you liked it or if people are even reading, and when you're finished you'll move on to something else because there's no visible fandom to engage with.

I don't WANT to think this is what will happen, but it's already been happening here for years even without proper channels. I sort of feel like this would just be facilitating my own demise lmao. All the comics who run the way I do were ALREADY popular back before the landscape shifted to fast-fashion sensibilities, so Girl Genius offering digital editions doesn't really harm them, you know? By the time forums died their community was already so stable and self-sufficient they could quit updating the main story for a whole year and not even feel it. Gunnerkrigg is signed on with fuckin Dark Horse now. People doing the things KC does got in early and stabilized before I even got started, fandom is a different world now and I'm already barely keeping this train running on my own as it is.

But on the other hand: accessibility!! HOW many times have I wanted to engage with something but they WONT LET ME PAY THEM FOR THE THING I WANT so I just leave!! The alternative here isn't "oh if i FORCE THEM to read it online they'll stick around" it's "if i can't read it how i want then i'm skipping it". That makes total sense, /I/ do that! What about people who want the extra content in the books but can't pay international fucking shipping!! It's also an Archival issue, which absolutely kills me, but that's a whole other post lmao. There are extremely good reasons to offer another option for reading my work, but I am so anxious this would just be putting a nail in this stupid coffin I've been building already.

I've been having this conversation a lot, mostly with Lee, but it came up again this morning in an email and regardless of my own feelings: this is a thing people want, a very reasonable thing, and if I fail to provide it that's just bad business. Do y'all here have any thoughts about all this? I would like to give the people what they want and y'all are The People.

Anyway buried way down here so far I'll make another post about it: I /am/ going to offer the specials as digital downloads, permanently in the shop. They're old books by now, I'm having issues keeping them in stock anyway, and they DON'T exist online anywhere, so this isn't technically any skin off my back outside of piracy issues, which. would be a stupid thing to fret about lmao

thanks for reading all this! I'm gonna go sort through pdfs for a while

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aurummarie · 1 year ago

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Sunday Reset Routine for Busy Content Creators

This routine is designed to help you recharge creatively and prepare for a productive week of content creation:

Step 1: Wake Up and Mindfulness

Wake up at a consistent time to establish a routine.

Start your day with a few minutes of mindfulness or meditation to set a positive tone.

Step 2: Morning Pages or Journaling

Dedicate time to morning pages or journaling.

Write down your thoughts, ideas, and any creative sparks that come to mind.

Step 3: Visual Inspiration

Spend time browsing visual platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, or art websites.

Gather visual inspiration that aligns with your content style and future projects.

Step 4: Review and Planning

Review the content you created during the past week.

Plan your content strategy for the upcoming week, including ideas, themes, and platforms.

Step 5: Creative Learning

Invest time in learning something new related to your content niche.

This could involve watching tutorials, taking online courses, or reading articles.

Step 6: Brainstorming Session

Set aside focused time for brainstorming new content ideas.

Let your creativity flow without self-judgment, and note down any exciting concepts.

Step 7: Outdoor Break

Take a walk or spend time outdoors to refresh your mind.

Nature can provide a new perspective and inspire fresh ideas.

Step 8: Declutter Digital Space

Organize your digital files, including photos, videos, and graphics.

Decluttering makes it easier to find assets when you're creating content.

Step 9: Content Creation

Spend a dedicated chunk of time creating content.

Whether it's writing, filming, designing, or editing, immerse yourself in the creative process.

Step 10: Technology Detox

Set aside a specific period to disconnect from devices and screens.

Engage in analog activities like reading a physical book or drawing.

Step 11: Review and Edit

Review the content you've created during the day.

Make any necessary edits or improvements to ensure your work meets your standards.

Step 12: Self-Care Break

Take a self-care break that aligns with your preferences.

It could be a bath, a hobby you enjoy, or spending time with loved ones.

Step 13: Social Media Engagement

Engage with your online community by responding to comments and messages.

Building connections with your audience is an essential part of content creation.

Step 14: Planning Tools Check

Review your content scheduling and planning tools.

Ensure your content is organized, and your posting schedule is set.

Step 15: Reflection and Gratitude

Take a few minutes to reflect on your creative journey.

Express gratitude for the progress you've made and the opportunity to create.

Remember, adapt this routine to your own preferences and creative process. The goal is to create a rejuvenating and inspiring Sunday routine that supports your content creation journey.

#black femininity #black luxury #leveling up #femininity #blackwomen #selflovemovement #pretty privilege #self care #self love #black girl luxury #hyperfemininity #hyper feminine #hypergamous #self care sunday #sunday reset

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months ago

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Someday, we’ll all take comfort in the internet’s “dark corners”

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

Platforms decay. Tech bosses, unconstrained by competition; regulation; ad blockers and other adversarial interoperability; and their own workers, will inevitably hollow out their platforms, using ultraflexible digital technology to siphon value away from end users and business customers, leaving behind the bare minimum of value to keep all those users locked in:

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/23/evacuate-the-platforms/#let-the-platforms-burn

Enshittification is the inevitable result of high switching costs. Tech bosses are keenly attuned to opportunities to lock in their customers and users, because the harder is to leave a platform, the worse the platform can treat you – the more value it can rob you of – without risking your departure.

But platform users are a heterogeneous, lumpy mass. Different groups of users have different switching costs. An adult Facebook user of long tenure has more reasons to stay than a younger user: they have more complex social lives, with nonoverlapping social circles from high school, college, various jobs, affinity groups, and family. They are more likely to have a chronic illness, or to be caring for someone with chronic illness, and to be a member of a social media support group they value highly. They are more likely to be connected to practical communities, like little league carpool rotas.

That's the terrible irony of platform decay: the more value you get from a platform, the more cost that platform can extract, a cost denominated in your wellbeing, enjoyment and dignity.

(At this point, someone will pipe up and say, "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product." It's nonsense. Dignity, respect and fairness aren't frequent flier program perks that tech companies dribble out to their best customers. Companies will happily treat their paying customers as "products" if they think those customers can't avoid other forms of rent-extraction, such as "attention rents")

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

Now, consider the converse proposition: for younger users, platforms deliver less value. Younger users have less complex social lives on average relative to their parents and grandparents, which means that platforms have fewer ways to sink their hooks into those young users. Further: young users tend to want things that the platforms don't want them to have, right from the first day they sign up. In particular, young users often want to conduct their socializing out of eyesight and earshot of adults, especially parents, teachers, and other authority figures. This means that a typical younger user has both more reasons to leave a platform as well as fewer reasons to stay there.

Younger people have an additional reason to bail on platforms early and often: if your online and offline social circles strongly overlap – if you see the same people at school as you do in your feed, it's much easier to reassemble your (smaller, less complex) social circle on a new platform.

And so: on average, young people like platforms less, hate them more, and have both less to lose and more to gain by leaving one platform for another. Sure, some young people are also burning with youth's neophilia. But even without that neophilia, young people are among the first to go when tech bosses start to ratchet up the enshittification.

Beyond young people, there are others who tend to jump ship early, like sex-workers:

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

Sex-workers' technology changes are only incidentally the result of some novelty-seeking impulse. The real reason to change platforms if you're a sex-worker is that the platforms are either absolutely hostile to sex-workers, or profoundly indifferent to the suffering their policy changes rain down upon them.

The same is broadly true of other disfavored groups, including those with out-of-mainstream political ideologies. Some of these groups hold progressive views, others are out-and-out Nazis, but all of them chafe at the platforms' policies at the best of times, and are far more ready to jump ship when the platforms tighten the noose on all their users.

This is where "dark corners" come in. The worst people on the internet have relocated to its so-called dark corners – privately hosted servers, groupchats, message-boards, etc. Some of these are notorious: Kiwi Farms, 4chan, 8kun, sprawling Telegram groupchats. Others only breach when they are implicated in waves of unthinkably cruel and grotesque crimes:

https://www.wired.com/story/764-com-child-predator-network/

The answer to crimes committed in the internet's dark corners is the same as for crimes committed anywhere: catch the criminals, prosecute the crimes. But a distressing number of well-meaning people observe the nexus between dark corners and the crimes that fester there, and conclude that the problem is with the dark corners, themselves.

These people observe that social media platforms like Facebook, and intermediaries like Cloudflare, DNS providers, and domain registrars constitute a "nexus of control" – chokepoints that trap the online lives of billions of people – and conclude that these gigantic corporations can and should be made "responsible" for their users:

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

From there, it's a short leap to conclude that anyone who isn't in a position to be controlled by these too big to jail, too big to fail, relentlessly enshittifying corporations must be pushed into their demesne.

This is a deal with the devil. In the name of preventing small groups of terrible people from gathering in private, beyond the control of the world's insufferable and cruel tech barons, we risk dooming everyone else to being permanently within those unworthy billionaires' thumbs.

This is why people like Mark Zuckerberg are so eager to see an increase in "intermediary liability" rules like Section 230. Zuckerberg's greatest fear isn't having to spend more on moderators or algorithms that suppress controversial subjects:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/instagram-users-outraged-by-app-limiting-political-content-ahead-of-elections/

The thing he fears the most is losing control over his users. That's why he bought Instagram: to recapture the young users who were fleeing his mismanaged, enshittified platform in droves:

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

A legal mandate for Zuckerberg to police his users is a legal requirement that he surveil and control those users. It's fundamentally incompatible with the new drive in competition circles to force Zuckerberg and his fellow tech barons to offer gateways that make it easier to escape their grasp, by allowing users to depart Facebook and continue to socialize with the users who stay behind:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

Remember: the more locked-in a platform user is, the harder that platform will squeeze that user, safe in the knowledge that the cost of leaving is higher than the cost of staying and tolerating the platform's abuse.

This is the problem with "feudal security" – the warlord who lures you into his castle fortress with the promise of protection from external threats is, in reality, operating a prison where no one can protect you from him:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#manorialism

Rather than fighting to abolish dark corners because only the worst people on the internet use them today, we should be normalizing dark corners, making it easier for every kind of user to find a cozy nook that is shaded from the baleful glare of Zuck and his fellow, eminently guillotineable tech warlords:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/15/normalize-dark-corners/

Enshittification is relentless. The collapse of the restraints that penalized tech companies who abused their users – competition, regulation, interoperability and their own workers' consciences – has inculcated every tech boss with an incurable enshittification imperative.

Efforts to make the platforms safer for their users can only take us so far. Fundamentally, these vast, centralized systems that vest authority with flawed and mediocre and frail human dictators (who fancy themselves noble, brilliant and infallible) will never be safe for human habitation. Rather than focusing on improving the platforms, we should be evacuating them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/09/let-the-platforms-burn/

Online communities that control their own moderation policies won't always get it right. But there is a whole host of difficult moderation calls that can never be adequately handled by outsiders overseeing vast, sprawling platforms. Distinguishing friendly banter from harassment requires the context that only an insider can hope to possess.

We all deserve dark corners where we stand a chance of finding well-managed communities that can deliver the value that keeps us stuck to our decaying giant platforms. Eventually, the enshittification will chase every user off these platforms – not just kids or sex-workers or political radicals. When that happens, it sure would be nice if everyone could set up in a dark corner of their own.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/23/evacuate-the-platforms/#let-the-platforms-burn

#pluralistic #online harms #interoperability #dma #interop #feudal security #switching costs #dark corners #web theory #darknet #platforms #enshittification #evacuate the platforms #bulletproof hosting #incentives matter #platform decay #shitty technology adoption curve

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