#the worst part is that they're doing it wrong way too often

[ikamigami]

Latest sams episode was interesting..

I know that some people may think that Sun was nosy and a bit bossy with this Moon.. but you need to remember that this Moon was angry killer before he separated with his Sun. He probably also hated being stuck in Sun's head. But the difference between him and our Old Moon is that he decided to take responsibility for his kill code..

We can see though that this Sun and Moon don't have much motivation to change even more from their basic code.. which wouldn't be that bad if not for a fact that Moon is still killing and he's still an ass and Sun even if he may have more freedom is coerced to not oppose the killings..

Our Sun has a reason to be worried about this Sun and him saying that Sun may not be able to grow up forcefully is reasonable cause he himself had to grow up forcefully..

I'm glad that this Moon told Sun that he's depressed (because it points out something to fans) - like Sun you can deny it all you want but we all know that's true. Also it just really cements for me that Sun doesn't realize the full extent of his mental state - that he most probably has a mental disorder..

Also this Moon is right that what our Moon is doing is self-destructive cause even if Moon won't hurt himself, his mental state may worsen if he'll continue to act like that..

I'm also glad that this Moon confirmed that our Moon still deeply loves and cares about Sun cause that's true.. and this is something that I was trying to repeat for quite some time that Moon is doing all of this because he's scared that he may lose Sun forever..

I wish this Moon could take Sun's advice but Moon is always so stubborn..

It's bitter-sweet to look at this Sun being overall more carefree and happy..

I'm glad that our Sun was able to voice out that he hated Old Moon sometimes.. though it made me realize that Sun probably was talking to this Moon about past because he couldn't do that in his own home.. sadly this Moon didn't want to listen - unlike Solar who was willing to listen to Lunar (this episode reminded me of that)..

Though I'm glad that he gave some advice to Sun and told him to use force if needed..

I hope that this won't be the only time we'll see Sun addressing his trauma form Old Moon.. cause even if he opened up a little bit.. it wasn't enough imo especially to consider it a closure..

[foone]

why are printers so hated? it's simple:

computers are good at computering. they are not good at the real world.

the biggest problems in computers, the ones that have had to change the most over the time they've existed, are the parts that deal with the real world. The keyboard, the mouse, the screen. every computer needs these, but they involve interacting with the real world. that's a problem. that's why they get replaced so much.

now, printers: printers have some of the most complex real-world interaction. they need to deposit ink on paper in 2 dimensions, and that results in at least three ways it can go on right from the start. (this is why 3D printers are just 2D printers that can go wrong in another whole dimension)

scanners fall into many of the same problems printers have, but fewer people have scanners, and they're not as cost-optimized. But they are nearly as annoying.

This is also why you can make a printer better by cutting down on the number of moving elements: laser printers are better than inkjets, because they only need to move in one dimension, and their ink is a powder, not a liquid. and the best-behaved printers of all are thermal printers: no ink and the head doesn't move. That's why every receipt printer is a thermal printer, because they need that shit to work all the time so they can sell shit. And thermal is the most reliable way to do that.

But yeah, cost-optimization is also a big part of why printers are such finicky unreliable bastards: you don't want to pay much for them. Who is excited for all the printing they're gonna be doing? basically nobody. But people get forced to have a printer because they gotta print something, for school or work or the government or whatever. So they want the cheapest thing that'll work. They're not shopping on features and functionality and design, they want something that costs barely anything, and can fucking PRINT. anything else is an optional bonus.

And here's the thing: there's a fundamental limit of how much you can optimize an inkjet printer, and we got near to it in like the late 90s. Every printer since then has just been a tad smaller, a tad faster, and added some gimmicks like printing from WIFI or bluetooth instead of needing to plug in a cable.

And that's the worst place to be in, for a computer component. The "I don't care how fancy it is, just give me one that works" zone. This is why you can buy a keyboard for 20$ and a mouse for 10$ and they both work plenty fine for 90% of users. They're objectively shit compared to the ones in the 60-150$ range, but do they work? yep. So that's what people get.

Printers fell into that zone long, long ago, when people stopped getting excited about "desktop publishing". So with printers shoved into the "make them as cheap as possible" zone, they have gotten exponentially shittier. Can you cut costs by 5$ a printer by making them jam more often? good. make them only last a couple years to save a buck or two per unit? absolutely. Can you make the printer cost 10$ less and make that back on the proprietary ink cartridges? oh, they've been doing that since Billy Clinton was in office.

It's the same place floppy disks were in in about 2000. CD-burners were not yet cheap enough, USB flash drives didn't exist yet (but were coming), modems weren't fast enough yet to copy stuff over the internet, superfloppies hadn't taken over like some hoped, and memory cards were too expensive and not everyone had a drive for them. So we still needed floppy disks, but at the same time this was a technology that hadn't changed in nearly 20 years. So people were tired of paying out the nose for them... the only solution? cut corners. I have floppy disks from 1984 that read perfectly, but a shrinkwrapped box of disks from 1999 will have over half the disks failed. They cut corners on the material quality, the QA process, the cleaning cloth inside the disk, everything they could. And the disks were shit as a result.

So, printers are in that particular note of the death-spiral where they've reached the point of "no one likes or cares about this technology, but it's still required so it's gone to shit". That's why they are so annoying, so unreliable, so fucking crap.

So, here's the good news:

You can still buy a better printer, and it will work far better. Laser printers still exist, and LED printers work the same way but even cheaper. They're still more expensive than inkjets (especially if you need color), but if you have to print stuff, they're a godsend. Way more reliable.

This is not a stable equilibrium. Printers cannot limp along in this terrible state forever. You know why I brought up floppy disk there? (besides the fact I'm a giant floppy disk nerd) because floppy disks GOT REPLACED. Have you used one this decade? CD-Rs and USB drives and internet sharing came along and ate the lunch of floppy disks, so much so that it's been over a decade since any more have been made. The same will happen to (inkjet) printers, eventually. This kind of clearly-broken situation cannot hold. It'll push people to go paperless, for companies to build cheaper alternatives to take over from the inkjets, or someone will come up with a new, more reliable printer based on some new technology that's now cheap enough to use in printers. Yeah, it sucks right now, but it can't last.

So, in conclusion: Printers suck, but this is both an innate problem caused by them having to deal with so much fucking Real World, and a local minimum of reliability that we're currently stuck in. Eventually we'll get out of this valley on the graph and printers will bother people a lot less.

Random fun facts about printing of the past and their local minimums:

in the hot metal type era, not only would the whole printing process expose you to lead, the most common method of printing text was the linotype, which could go wrong in a very fun way: if the next for a line wasn't properly justified (filling out the whole row), it could "squirt", and lead would escape through gaps in the type matrix. This would result in molten lead squirting out of the machine, possibly onto the operator. Anecdotally, linotype operators would sometimes recognize each other on the street because of the telltale spots on their forearms where they had white splotches where no hair grew, because they got bad lead burns. This type of printing remained in use until the 80s.

Another fun type of now-retired printers are drum printers, a type of line printer. These work something like a typewriter or dot-matrix printer, except the elements extend across the entire width of the paper. So instead of printing a character at time by smacking it into the paper, the whole line got smacked nearly at once. The problem is that if the paper jammed and the printer continued to try to print, that line of the paper would be repeatedly struck at high speed, creating a lot of heat. This worry created the now-infamous Linux error: "lp0 on fire". This was displayed when the error signals from a parallel printer didn't make sense... and it was a real worry. A high speed printer could definitely set the paper on fire, though this was rare.

So... one thing to be grateful about current shitty inkjet printers: they are very unlikely to burn anything, especially you.

(because before they could do that they'd have to work, at least a little, first, and that's very unlikely)

[bbokicidal]

Not A Want, But A Need - Perv!SKZ

A small series of Perv!SKZ Headcanons

Pairing: OT8 x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Sexual behavior (MDNI), Perverted behavior (obviously), panty stealing, up the skirt pics, one-sided masturbation, meandom!Seungmin (oops)

Chris :

Chris likes to consider himself a gentleman. He's respectful, responsible, kind to women and men alike - treats everyone with polite gestures -

But he really can't hold himself back when you wear that little pink dress that hugs your ass so right.

He swears he'll delete them later but he never does, taking quick pictures up the skirt of your dress when he stands behind you in the elevator.

You know why he never deletes them? Because he uses them as soon as he gets home - sometimes in the company bathroom if he really can't wait that long. Tugging his cock and whimpering as he bites down on the fabric of his shirt, staring through lidded eyes at the picture of your lacy black panties.

God, he's obsessed.

Minho :

He's going to have you sitting in his lap as often as possible. You're one of his best friends - who started as a backup dancer for the group - and he knows nobody finds it too suspicious that he has you in his lap often.

The worst they can think is that he's romantically interested in you - which, maybe he is.

But he really just wants you there so he can feel the way your ass pushes down against his cock in his sweats. He's in love with the feeling and if you move just right his head will roll back and his eyes will roll with them, slipping shut at the pushing right up against his length.

After he figures out just how much he likes having you in his lap, he'll keep his hands on your hips often as well. Even when just standing next to you - maybe one occasion letting his hand drag over your ass on 'accident.'

Changbin :

There's little shame on his part.

He loves to stare at your tits.

He starts inviting you to the gym just so he can see how they bulge in your sports bra and push at the seams, the soft skin bubbling and making him want to touch so badly. And maybe he does on occasion, letting his hands brush the underside of your chest while you're doing box squats.

He swears he's just helping you with your form - you need to arch your back a little more. Push your chest into his waiting hands. Please. For him?

Hyunjin :

He's very sly with it.

He's so, so very sly with the way he steals your panties.

That precious white pair with the cherries on them were the first he knew he needed to have, shoving them into his pocket after you'd gone to the bathroom and given him at least three minutes of free time to roam around your room.

The lace pair he saw a peek of when you sat down at a party once were next.

And he won't return them. Not when they're covered in his cum and he'd feel dirty giving them back to you that way.

And washing them would get rid of your scent. So... He'll just keep them.

Jisung :

He's the only member who's a bit shy about his actions.

He feels wrong about it but he needs it so badly.

He just loves your hands so much. Touch him a little more, yeah?

He'll do things like sit too close so your hands will brush his thigh when you talk and move them around - or stand up abruptly beside you so that your hand will bump his hips.

Or he'll just straight up hold your hands whenever he can, refusing to let go until they're down near his hips and your knuckles brush his zipper as he drops his hold on you. It's always subtle - but definitely there.

Oh, and of course later he'll picture your pretty hands jerking him off instead of his own. He's embarrassed about it but he'll look at photos he's got of you two together as well - zooming in on your rings and bracelets to better picture how you'd look between his thighs and holding onto him.

Felix :

The most cocky mf.

He's the type to rest his hand on your thigh as much as he possibly can. At first it's gentle rubbing of his thumb or a brush of his knuckles here and there,

But then it's him squeezing the supple skin under his ringed fingers as he chats with you or others. His actions are all but second nature now, but he's definitely chubbing up in his jeans just at the feeling of your thighs under his palms.

If he's feeling real bold (or a little tipsy), he'll slap your thighs or maybe - if you're really lucky - bite them to leave little teeth marks.

He'd do anything to have them pressed around his head while he eats you out, but he knows right now it's only a dream. So instead he'll just keep his subtle touches and rubs going until that day comes.

Seungmin :

So sly about it but also extremely bold and straightforward.

He passes it off as playful fighting.

The type to slap - Yes, I said slap. - your tits and ass whenever you pass by him or are bugging him. He's use to you slapping his arms or chest and laughing in annoyance at his antics, so he thought he could get away with doing the same to you. And he was right.

It's perceived as play fighting and just two best friends fucking around with each other - but he's secretly getting so hard it hurts in his jeans at the way your tits and ass jiggle when he hits them.

On a couple occasions he's taken sneaky videos of him slapping your ass while you walk together so he had it for later use.

And of course there were the few select times he full on spanked you while the two of you were bickering.

Jeongin :

Shy about it - but if he's all dressed up or just performed or the likes - he's a looooot more bold.

Jeongin won't admit it out loud, but he likes your lips. A lot.

He has so many pictures of the two of you together just because he loves the way you purse your lips all cute-like.

And he's grown a habit of touching them, too. Wiping sauce off of them when you eat meals together, brushing off crumbs or even just shushing you with his index against your bottom lip so you hush up all pretty. (And he loves seeing you obey.)

And he'll never forget the time he was drinking with you and when he shushed you, you took his finger into your mouth to suck over it. He'll cherish that memory forever - the way his cock tented in his sweats and he had to go to the restroom to jerk off so hard it hurt. He's never come so fast in his life.

[andyoullhearitagain]

Every Starfleet Uniform Ranked By How Annoying The Sleeve Is To Sew, Part 2

Part 1

6. TOS Men's Uniform:

Here we have 1. Quite a severe curve 2. with a zipper in it 3. an invisible zipper at that 4. with pattern matching through the zipper at the collar

5. in velour (slippery). Woof.

7. Disco:

OK we've got two points of pattern matching, but they don't have to be too precise because they've got this round shiny striped piece between them. Of course that piecing means we're basically setting a sleeve in twice, but I will concede that the stretch will be more forgiving than a woven would be. Add in the piecing on the bicep and two different sticky rubber-y fabrics for further difficulty. 

8. TNG Version 2B and Voyager:

All the work of a tailored sleeve with an added inverse corner in an intersection of four seams.

PLUS two points of pattern matching, which is very tricky in an armsyce because you're trying to get the pitch right. You can see in TNG they often have trouble with it and have either a jog in the pattern matching

or too much ease in the wrong place to force the pattern to match.

They seem to have figured it out by Voyager though. I'm also fairly certain they have raglan shoulder pads in them instead of regular ones, which isn't really harder I guess but is a bit odd (no shade, they're incredibly flattering).

9. DS9/ TNG Movies:

All the difficulties of the TNG armscye and now we've added trim, meaning we really have four points of pattern matching instead of two. I could be persuaded that the contrast pieces are applied over the upper sleeve piece instead of pieced, which is easier than what TNG is doing.

10. Enterprise:

I think this is regular raglan sleeve and not some kind of half raglan/half set in sleeve like we see in TNG. Either way it's a bit easier than the TNG sleeve because the trim and yoke are applied on top and top stitched. But we've still got that mitered corner in our bias trim and our four points of pattern matching on the shoulder seam. And then we've also added like four zippers!!!

11. Picard:

What did the stitchers do to this designer? FOUR inverse corners (I guess at least it doesn't intersect a seam this time) PLUS the piecing at the cuff, PLUS all the pattern matching at the armscye, and all in stretch (I think). The only reason it's not the most difficult sleeve is because it looks fairly flat and I bet if you do a nice tight hand baste you can get everything lined up on the first try. Also this is not strictly speaking part of the sleeve but those little corners in the yoke? Good grief.

12. TNG Version 2A:

Never in my life have I seen an armscye like this. What is this even called? How do you construct it? I suppose I would sew the sleeve pieces together, set them in the armscye, then sew the raglan/yoke pieces together at the shoulder seam and then stitch them all the way across the front and then all the way across the back. But good grief. The ONLY other sleeve I could find remotely like this is this 1940s Simplicity pattern (it's on ebay if you want it).

With a few added seams you can imagine what these pattern pieces must look like.

13. TNG Version 1:

All the malarkey of 2A except you've got to do it in spandex. I'd pick wool any day. We also have a second yoke (?!) so now we have to do that little inverse corner TWICE and also add piping. Never in my life have I done an intersection of piping correctly the first time.

And then on top of all that it's ugly. Terrible sewing experience. Worst sleeve in Star Trek *bangs gavel*.

[blackbirdsblackberries]

I Hate The New Hero!

Pt 5: What?!

Pt 1 - Pt 2 - Pt 3 - Pt 4 - Pt 5 (You're here) - Pt 6 - Pt 7 - Pt 8 - Pt 9 - Pt 10

Finally getting home from your patrol you sneak through the window of your bedroom and collapse onto your bed. After the call you decided that your patrol was done.

Frankly you're still coming to terms with the fact that Batman and his protogese are the same people who are essentially praying on your civilian self's downfall yet adoring your vigilante persona like it's the greatest thing in the world.

Though, now that you really think about it, it makes sense. Bruce Wayne is the richest man alive, he'd be able to afford to do this, they have the same amount of members as the heroes, same builds and heights, actually... Basically everything matches up.

Not to mention the fact that your senses goes off around both group members!

From outside your small room door you hear your parents arguing again - more like your mother yelling and your dad breaking things and stomping his foot. It was probably your dad's fault again. Don't get you wrong, you love your family! It's just that they're dysfunctional.

Your dad has a massive drinking problem that landed him working as a goon for Black Mask, he's struggled with his temper for years after he got hit a bit too hard in the head by Batman. Pair that with the fact that he's mute and he's a force to be reckoned with.

Your mom is always busy and rarely ever home, when she is she couldn't be bothered to interact with you unless you got into trouble. She grew up rich, often talking about how she went to the same school as Bruce Wayne and how she was a popular cheerleader before her life fell apart. She doesn't talk much on the topic but it's clear she holds distain for your father and, by extension, you.

You sigh to yourself, you need to shower. That means you need to get past them without them bringing you into it. Or you just don't shower for the night and have one tomorrow...

Your mom screams something out about not throwing knives and you decide to just shower tomorrow morning.

You change out of your costume and hide it safely under a loose floorboard, you change into your pajamas and get into bed. Today was a massive mental drain and physical drain.

...

You awake to a knock at the front door. Your parents usually ignore it and make you answer when someone knocks because "you're dispensable" as they say. Looking at the clock on the wall of the kitchen you see it's around 7am.

Groggily making your way to the door you look through the peep hole and see Tim standing awkwardly on the other side with a guy next to him, the guy next to him being so big and tall that you could only see a small part of his chest and arm.

You curse to yourself quietly, this is by far the worst luck you've ever had.

You open the door and look at the two. Now seeing the other guy the thing that stands out is a stripe of white hair on his head. Instantly you know it's Jason Todd.

You aren't an idiot. He's the only one in the family built like how he is - not including Bruce.

"What do you want?" You ask, annoyed. Tim chuckles weakly, as if nervous. "Wayne Enterprises wishes to give your mother her letter of departure." You blink once, then twice. "Huh? Letter of departure? The fuck does that mean?" You mutter, genuinely confused.

Jason scoffs, "it means your dear mother is losing her job, kid." He states uncaring of how blunt he's being. Tim elbows him and hisses something about being more considerate.

You don't listen, all noise becoming white noise. Why is she being fired? She works hard, she dedicates her time, she does her best! Is this because you have beef with Tim? That's not fair!

She's the only stable source of income, without that job you all would be living on the streets. You've heard AND seen so many horror stories about teens living on the streets, it's something you'd pray never happened to you. But now it's entirely probable.

So, in a moment of desperation you grip Tim by his shoulders "Please! You can't fire her! We'll end up homeless! She works all the time, she tries! My mother will improve if you ask, she needs this job. The whole family does!"

Tim seems shocked by this, his posture stiffening. Jason looks on guard, as if assessing whether he should step in, though he doesn't seem fond of the idea. You wouldn't doubt that he was made to accompany Tim as a body guard.

Tim opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. Clearly he wasn't expecting you to beg for your mother to keep her job.

"Uh... Look, I don't mean any harm by it, it's just that we need to make way for brighter minds..." He stumbles slightly over his words as if making the excuse up on the spot.

You won't back down however. "Tim, please, I desperately need you to realize this. I. Will. Die. On. The. Streets." Probably not true because of your mutation but the fear remains. "Please, I'll do anything for you to not do this! I already promised Bruce to stop talking bad about Aranea!" You please desperately.

Tim glances to Jason who quirks a brow and shrugs. The sound of movement from behind you makes your eyes widen and behind you you see your dad approaching, you were probably too loud.

He glares at you before yanking your hair so you move away from Tim and remove your clutches on him. You hiss in pain at the feeling but bow your head down.

Your dad eyes the two boys before looking to the paper in Tim's hands. He instantly knows what's going on and storms down the hallways of the complex to do who-knows what. That scares you. Your dad is unpredictable.

After some silence Tim speaks up. "Are you okay? Your dad pulled your hair pretty tightly..." You look down, ashamed. You couldn't even bother putting your walls up and defending your pride. Your life is basically falling apart at the seams.

"... I'll do anything for you to not fire my mother..." You mutter meekly, a far cry from how you usually act, something Tim notices immediately. He sighs to himself, he debates the odds. Maybe if he doesn't fire (Reader)'s mother then they can be even. The feud can end, it was pointless on your part to begin with for hating someone so sweet and kind, then hating him who defends the innocent.

"Fine. Your mother can stay, but, it may not be permanent. I suggest she find elsewhere in the mean time." Tim states before walking off. Jason takes a second to stare at your relived form, the slight smile of disbelief and look of relief in your eyes. He then leaves with Tim.

You close the door to the apartment and sink to the floor. That was terrifying. You'll have find a way of telling your mother the news before she goes into work in two hours.

You're officially having the day off from school and patrol today.

[self-winding]

I've heard some takes that far right/manosphere/redpill/anti-SJ spaces are attractive to young men because they treat them more kindly than leftist SJ-spaces typically do, and other takes that, no, actually, those spaces aren't kind at all, they are just as toxic and rife with bullying as a lot of leftist/SJ spaces, if not more so. And I think both of these things are partly true but also beside the point.

How kind and welcoming a community is really depends on the sub-community you're talking about. But I don't think those spaces are attractive to men because they're "kinder," exactly, but because they provide a narrative which helps them make sense of the world (and in which they are the protagonists) and, in some cases, concrete advice about how to get what they want, whether that's sex, status, a more meaningful and fulfilling life, whatever. Whether that advice actually works is another question.

Leftist spaces are often unkind to men, yes, but they are frequently not kind even for the women and marginalized people they are allegedly made for; there's no shortage of infighting, weaponized callouts, policing of members' language, etc. But people keep gravitating to them for the same reasons that some men gravitate to anti-SJ spaces.

Human beings in general are very susceptible to narratives that promise to give them answers about, "this is why your life sucks, this is why you don't have power or status or control over your situation, this is why you have always been haunted by the feeling that something is wrong. It's not you, it's Society."

No matter who they are messaging to, communities that message in this way are always going to be more seductive than communities which tell you, "Actually, the problem is you, the problem is that you're too entitled, even if you feel powerless the problem is actually that you have too much power, you should just stop wanting whatever it is you want and instead try to derive your sense of purpose by helping these people over here."

It's hard to talk about what the solution is because I think this is part of the broader problem of ever-increasing polarization fueled by the Machine that feeds us ragebait and validation of all our worst fears because anger and fear is profitable. Unless we actively push back against it, we are all pushed into ever more specialized communities tailored to our own ethics and worldview. I can give an old person take like "the solution is for everyone to spend less time online and go to big neighborhood parties where we all grill together" but this doesn't strike me as realistic.

[fyxestroll]

Whose Problem Is It When the Primarchs Fall in Love? Pt.1

note: this was meant to be crack-ish but I sniffed some angst powder so some of these came out angstier than expected. also for anyone who sent requests, I'm working on them family problems and school are just getting in the way <33

Lion - It’s his problem. On the outside nothing is wrong everything is fine but on the inside everything is wrong and everything is NOT fine but you wouldn’t notice anything is going on. For Lion, falling in love involves a lot of self-discovery and constant repression. It’s all internal and his resting bitch face isn’t helping.

Unnamed Primarch #2 - You got erased out of existence too.

Fulgrim - On everybody’s soul, especially Ferrus Manus’ it’s EVERYONE’S problem. Not even the Chaos Gods and Empy are safe! This man right here has so many unaddressed self-worth issues that he constantly feels the need to have someone to validate his acts of courting before even doing the thing. 

Perturabo -  Its everyone’s problem. Not unlike Fulgrim, Perturabo has so many unaddressed self-worth issues and feels the need for validation but unlike Fulgrim, its all out in the open. He’s already bitter about a lot of things and if he falls in love it wouldn’t be surprising if he’s already given up on pursuing that person. You’d be something he deems out of his reach, someone not even worth reaching because the rejection is in his mind guaranteed. He’s bitter towards you, loving hating everything you do and say. If you express any sort of positive reaction towards any of his gene-sons his ire towards that specific astartes worsens. The worst part? If your feelings towards Perturabo are reciprocated you’d have difficulty reaching him with him practically pushing you away. Please be patient with him, his heart is fragile.

Jaghatai Khan - Problem? There’s no problem! Genuinely, if this guy falls in love there wouldn’t be an issue because he’s in tune with his emotions and doesn’t have a penchant for skinning people alive (sorry Konrad). The closest thing this man would have to a problem when falling in love is the issue of courting. Chogoris courting norms involve matchmakers, families and of course bride-prices and dowries. If you aren’t from Chogoris he’ll try his best to follow the equivalent of/mix Chogorian traditions in courting. Either way, it’s less of a problem and more of a brief logistical headache at most. 10/10 would marry him tbh

Leman Russ - It's your problem.  He's enthusiastic about it and so is his entire legion. Thats a lot of wingmen and they're probably singing the Fenrisian equivalent of kiss the girl every chance they get. It's very endearing to be honest but the eagerness borders being overbearing.

Rogal Dorn - Dorn falling in love only affects 3 parties, you, him and his Iron Fists. Out of the 3 parties, Dorn falling in love is only disastrous to 2, the Fists and him. Dorn’s acts of affection are quiet, and if you aren’t aware of his affection these acts are easy to miss. It doesn’t help that a painted brick has more self-expression than this man. Pair that with not wanting to be improper this results in what he deems romantic and not lacking in proprietary  (He helped you landscape and design your garden). Now, the Fists come into play here by being Dorn’s feedback loop of ideas and internal turmoil that more often than not involves building things. The Fists don’t really mind but they are a bit miffed about fortifying your house or something when they could be something that they believe is more effective.

Konrad Curze - Its your problem and his problem. Look, this man is a murderous mess that's haunted by the visions of the terrible future if he falls in love he’d hate himself for doing so because it feels wrong. Positive emotions and experiences are foreign to him, so for Konrad love is something he feels he is entirely undeserving of and is just waiting for the ball to drop. In all honestly, he expects you to die or be the subject of his terrible visions so he immediately expects the worse and resigns himself to watching you from a distance. As this is all internal no one knows what’s going on with Konrad other than his usual Konradness so imagine the terror of being constantly watched by the Night Haunter with no clue on what drew his attention in the first place. 

Sanguinius - It’s his problem but he like all his problems its ignored and repressed. Sanguinius tries to deny the fact that he’s fallen in love for numerous reasons, including The Red Thirst and his impending doom. Also, a part of Sanguinius fears rejection, or at least a form of it. He’s beloved and he knows it but to be loved in the way that someone seeks to know all of him feels impossible. He is loved as an idol, a figure of all that is and could be good and that he’d come to accept. Being truly loved is a dream to him, a dream he holds close to his heart and something he’d take to his grave.

 Ferrus Manus - It's your problem because this man is like a rock. Feelings? What’s that? It’s not that Ferrus is unfeeling, in fact I feel like he’s one of the Primarchs who fall in love the easiest but when he falls in love he doesn’t know how to categorize that person exactly. He is fond, sure, but he can’t put a finger on how fond he is so he puts you in the my-favorite-people box with Fulgim. Basically,  he shoots himself in the foot early on by putting you in the friend zone without realising it. Good luck falling first with this guy, its slow-burn pining with a metal wall for you.

[sleepyangelkami]

I'm posting this from my phone so please bare with me guys.

"ew, you write y/n as a baby."

okay, so. I understand that the way I write might not float everyone's boat which is so okay !! But yk what you could do...? Scroll !! There's no need to hate. I really apologize if the way I've written my readers in x reader fics is harmful in any way. However, I'm not going to stop making the character they're with baby them and look after them. The beauty in all of this is that none of it is real. Life can be hard and life can be way toooo much and at the end of the day you might js wanna read ab getting babied. People baby their partners all the time whether you're male female any other gender none of this matters. I write female y/n and if you have a problem with the characters babying her but at the same time you're posting matt sturniolo (I apologize if I spelled that wrong) and saying omg cutie baby 🥺🥺 it's the same thing !!! It's so normal and people are making it weird. If you want to read badass!y/n then write badass!y/n. People get so hung up on writing shy readers and saying it's weird. It's how a lot of people feel and I'm personally really shy irl which is why everything on my account is fake !! Kami isn't even my real name ! You guys need to stop spreading hate towards people and if you don't like their work whether it's cringe or even a little weird then please just scroll

"ew innocence kinks are for p*edos."

Oh my. More often than not innocence kinks are usually submissive people loving the chase and getting dominant people to spell it all out for them. Not only that but sometimes people suffer from childhood trauma (me !!) and they read things that make them get to relive the part where their 'innocence' was 'taken' from them in a gentle way and not by abuse of power. Also, some people just have innocence kinks !! And that's okay as long as you're two consenting adults. When did everyone get so judgemental !! I've seen stepcest, ACTUAL incest and more prominently pain kinks and knives kinks guys innocence kinks really are not the worst problems out there ! I understand that some people take them too far which is not okay and under no circumstances would I ever support someone taking advantage of someone else who doesn't fully comprehend what's going on. But yk what this is?? Mere fantasies. They don't exist, it's just what people like to read so please leave us alone 🩷

And finally, "why is y/n such a pushover omg?"

Wanna start off by saying I don't condone cheating ever !! And I would never write a fic where the reader gets back with the character after they cheat. With that being said, the only fics I have ever seen of that (very VERY few) they have put trigger warnings at the beginning to let you know what you're reading. And for the people who say that the reader shouldn't go back because their partner yelled at them... Guys PLEASE !! I understand that yelling isn't something that should be excused, you should never put your partner in a position where they are scared or feel uncomfortable. However, I also know for a fact that everyone reading this has at one point in their lives yelled at someone. Being loved isn't about loving someone with happy rainbows there's gonna be bad days which I find realistic enough. Partners argue, sometimes relationships even take breaks and people get petty and people yell but you know why?? Cause we're human !!! It's in our nature if we're angry or annoyed or whatever it may be. Of course this behavior shouldn't be excused if it's constantly on show. Although denying the fact that you'd ever get back with someone after they yelled at you during an argument is a little bit childish. I don't mean hate to anybody whatsoever I'm just saying that you're dating a human (hopefully) not an alien (you'd be surprised on Tumblr I actually can't rule that one out) they have emotions and while sometimes they can be misplaced... It doesn't mean they're a bad person for it.

This isn't meant to harm or send hate to anyone !! I've just seen so much hatred spread across Tumblr and it's really upsetting. People should learn to support one another and if you don't like the content, scroll ! Once again this is hate to nobody enjoy ur day/morning/evening/night lovelies !!! 🩷🩷

(sorry for the ramble angels)

[crybabyddl]

Balcony Cigarettes

Eddie Munson x Reader

Warning: swearing, miscommunication/cluelessness, friends to lovers, kissing, smoking

Author’s Note: I’m at work and this popped into my head. I wish I had a whole story behind this, but I don’t. I was just thinking about the sunsets at the college I went to, and how it would’ve been cool to smoke there. Now I’m here, writing a random thing and making it about a fictional character that I’m in love with. Second Note: I'm home now and really want to publish this, so I'm forcing myself to finish it one way or another. I apologize if that makes it end up sucking, but I just need to get this finished or else it will sit in my drafts for eternity. I'm considering just posting what I have in my drafts even if they're unfinished because I have like, 80 drafts and I think at least 70 of them are actual pieces of writing and I feel selfish holding onto them bc some of them are not too bad. Most of them are from 2021, but that was when I was writing like a fiend and had a bunch of motivation, so they might not be terrible, probably a tad cringey though.

—

God, what you wouldn’t do to be smoking a cigarette right now…

Almost as if the universe heard you, the sliding door of the balcony swishes and shuts. Without needing to look, you know it’s Eddie—the sound of heavy bootsteps tipping you off.

“Mind if I join you?” He asks softly, just shy of mumbling. He mirrors you as he rests his elbows along the railing.

“Not at all,” you keep your head forward, too entranced by the flow of cars passing by on the streets below. “By any chance, do you have a pack of ciggies on you?”

Eddie can’t help but laugh.

“What kind of question is that?” His tone is lighthearted, but not energetic enough to disrupt the mood. It was a stupid question, Eddie was rarely ever seen without a cigarette between his lips.

He fishes a half-used box of Newports and a lighter out of his pocket. You turn to watch as he pulls two cigarettes out of the pack, putting both between his lips. You feel the corners of your mouth turn upwards as he brings the lighter closer, igniting your vices before handing one to you. You take the cigarette from between his index and middle fingers.

From the first inhale, you can feel the menthol working its magic. It wasn’t something you did often—smoking. You knew it was a nasty habit, but you figured if this was the worst thing you did tonight, you’d be okay with that.

“Do you ever miss Shores Hollow?” Eddie poses the question casually, but it still causes the nervous pit in your stomach to sink like a stone.

“All the time. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here,” you take another drag. “But nothing compares to those sunsets.”

It’s silent between the two of you as you finish your cigarettes, getting lost in the swirls of smoke that float around you. The logical part of your brain blames the cigarette for the uneasy feeling that starts to reside in your stomach and leaves pitter-pattering knocks on your temples, but the sentimental part of you wins and blames it on the man keeping you company.

You dare to look over at the culprit of your mixed feelings, his eyes fixated on the cloudy night sky. You want to say something, you want him to say something, but no words seem to fit in this moment. It’s like torture—having the one thing, the one person you want the most right in front of you, in addition to the weighted memories that come along for the ride, but it’s all just out of your grasp.

Your lips part, no ammunition loaded on your tongue. Eddie’s head turns rather quickly, as if he too was waiting for you to say something. He’s staring at you through windows of deep brown, like a wooded forest just before snowfall. You wish you knew what was making his mind turn, because the hopeless romantic in you looks into his eyes and reads

Tell me you want me the way I want you.

It’s too much of a risk to interpret a simple look in such a way. Maybe if you were a more confident person, you’d be willing to take that risk. But you’re not, and it seems neither is Eddie. He’s turning on his heel to leave, dropping his cigarette butt into the ashtray that sits near the folding chairs along the exterior wall. You realize this is the last time you’ll ever see him if you don’t do something, anything.

“Eddie,"

His name is all you can force yourself to say, but it’s enough. He turns around and something about the look in your eyes lets him know you need him to come back over, so he returns to his previous position, at your side, leaning over the railing.

Another minute of silence is shared between the two of you, and throughout its duration, your mind is plagued with the possible outcomes of all the different things you could utter to the patient man beside you. Just when you felt your brain was about to explode, you mentally scream fuck it and decide to express what you’ve wanted to for the past couple months.

"Please stay here."

It wasn't exactly what you were trying to convey, but it didn't fully matter. It seemed as though Eddie understood, or at least to the best of his ability--he wasn't a mind reader.

"I'm here." his voice was soft, reassuring.

He places his hand over top of yours, an unexpected gesture you welcomed fully--albeit flustered.

"I really need to get better at articulating my thoughts." you were thinking out loud, but it was something Eddie deserved to know as well.

"Is there any way I can help you with that?"

"Maybe."

Eddie looked down, taking both of your hands in his now, giving them a comforting squeeze.

"Is what's on your mind something recent, or is it a thought you've had for a while that you've been holding onto?"

"The second one."

"Okay, that's a start," the smile that graces his features burns your insides like a shot of whiskey. How was it even possible for one man to be so effortlessly attractive? "Is it something you specifically wanted to tell me?"

You nod.

"Well, that makes this a lot more interesting. And to think I almost went back inside!"

You smile sheepishly, thankful that there were no bright lights to illuminate the redness of your cheeks.

"Hmm. Is it something positive or negative?"

"Uh, I think that would be dependent upon you."

"Well shit, Y/N. At this point you've gotta just tell me."

"Fucking hell," you whine. "Fine. But you can't hold it against me."

"No promises."

"I think I'm falling for you."

"Oh."

Eddie's face is pale, but his expression isn't one you can decipher. He's still looking at you, and as much as you wanted to tear your eyes away, look anywhere else but in his beautiful brown eyes, you were frozen. It wouldn't matter if you ran inside, you uttered the words out loud and he heard them--there was no coming back from this.

"Yeah." It was all you could offer, too scared to make excuses for making things unbelievably awkward.

"How long?"

"Hmm?"

"How long have you been feeling this way?"

That wasn't the direction you expected the conversation to go, not that you expected the conversation to even continue.

"A month... or two."

Eddie's quiet. You realize you probably just freaked him the fuck out and he was most likely planning his escape route, despite his only options being to walk through a door or jump from a third story balcony.

"I'd say you're pretty lucky. I've been going on five months."

Huh?

"Huh?" Your confusion was the first thought you didn't worry about expressing the entire conversation.

"I've been thinking the same thing about you for five months."

"Really?"

"Mmhm." he nods. Eddie was hardly ever one to be shy--seeing him like this was cute.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Probably for the same reason you didn't."

Fair enough.

"Now what?" you asked, not sure what to do with your hands, your face, or any part of you.

"I'm not sure. We could just stay here and take in our surroundings, or we could go back to my place and make out-"

"That one. The second one."

"Someone's eager."

"You don't seem eager enough!"

"I've had a lot of time to learn how to be patient. Five months to be exact."

"You say that like it's my fault!"

"Maybe it is! It's not like I was being subtle, I flirted with you every chance I got! I figured you were just too scared to flat-out reject me."

"You flirted with me?"

"A million times!"

"You're joking."

"Dead serious."

"When?"

"Remember your birthday party?"

"Yeah...?"

"I literally told you that you looked sexy!"

"I figured that was just 'cause I was the birthday girl!"

"Then explain why I called you a few weeks ago and told you all about this girl I couldn't get off my mind, and literally just described you!"

"You were talking about me?"

"Oh my god, Y/N! Seriously?"

"Well unless you say it's me, I'm not going to assume you're talking about me!"

"Jesus Christ. Okay, what about the time I brought you flowers at work?"

"Those were from you?"

"Uh, yes. I literally handed them to you!"

"I figured you intercepted the delivery guy and that they were from my parents! My mom texted me earlier that day and asked me if I had decorated my apartment yet, so I just assumed that she sent me flowers so I'd have something to put on the kitchen table."

"Just my luck, honestly."

"Maybe you should've left a note."

"God damn it," Eddie slapped his forehead with his palm. "What about when your car broke down and we had to stop in that diner and the waitress told us we were such a cute couple and she gave us free coffee while we waited for the tow truck?"

"What about that?"

"We played along! I gave you a kiss on the cheek and everything! Friends don't do that, Y/N!"

"They do when a sweet old lady gives you free coffee and you don't want to break her heart!"

"Okay this is getting ridiculous. Clearly, we misread some things, but now we know we both feel the same way. You like me, I like you, right?"

"Right."

"So can I kiss you, on the lips?"

"Please."

Eddie took a swift step forward, his hands reaching and grabbing either side of your head, his fingers tangling in your hair as he brought his lips against yours. The kiss was passionate, fervent with all the emotions the two of you had been withholding from one another for far too long.

You separated after a moment, looking at one another with blown out pupils, blushed faces, and a newfound tenderness that cleared away any doubt that threatened to tear you apart.

--

sorry the second half of this lowkey sucks. I just kinda ran with it. Sorry again.

[starlight-45]

Dating BLLK boys in school! (Part 2)

Featuring:- Hyoma Chigiri, Reo Mikage, Seishiro Nagi (Part 1 here with Yoichi Isagi, Meguru Bachira and Rin Itoshi and here's the masterlist )

A/n: again, don't know where this shit is set. It has their current personalities and they're still in blue lock. Maybe taking a break in off-season and go to school for a change. Idk.

~Hyoma Chigiri~

•Is pretty nonchalant about the whole thing actually he is about most things but gives in easily much to your suprise. he's unpredictable like that.

• To him school was just a place to showcase his talent on a low level before moving on to the bigger stage.

• Kinda really didn't have that many friends, despite being popular as hell because of his looks and talent.

• 'Cause no one really couldn't kept up with his actual sass and sharp personality. Well expect for you now, darling! Don't expect him to admit it though, you'll get only an eye roll out of him.

• But geuninely like there are situations where he has to reject like 5 people at once. 😭 You don't whether to be impressed or annoyed by it.

• Anyway.

• If Chirgiri isn't in class, you can find him in the library. Before you try to fight me, lemme remind it's in the egoist Bible so it's canon.

• He will binge read history novels honestly, and thinks in his free time how it could have been different and stuff. He thinks about the fall of the Roman Empire at least once a day.

• Won't ramble or blabble about it too much to you, but will share random titbits to you about, at the most random times.

• No seriously. At the most random times.

"Ugh trigonometry is the worst-"

"Christianity promotion must have resulted in loss of traditional values of Romans..."

"Huh?"

"You asked to study right?"

"YES. To study maths. Tommorow is the test!"

"...Oh."

• Also he's got a fair amount of complaints from teachers and other coordinators about his long hair. When they speak to him about it, he's judging then SO hard. He does it to almost everyone.

• If you blabble about your classmates stories, he will listen to it, asking questions actively. He actually is pretty interested in the gossipy stuff.

• Can I just rant about how much of a tease he is in denying you affection? Like don't get me wrong, of course Chigiri's gonna have some sort of physical contact like holding hands and stuff in front of other students.

• To show you guys are together and no he's not entertaining any confessions, that's what he tells you to just not get annoying interactions but you both know it's just not that lol

• But when you two do mange to get alone on campus, this guy is a cheeky little bastard. He intentionally leans a bit far than you, just to rile you up and make the first move.

"What? Why are you glaring at me, huh? I didn't do anything you know."

• By the way, this kind of situation doesn't really happen often. Only in school when alone. Still to this day you don't know why he gets like that during that specific time.

• You guessed it's maybe because he rarely can keep his hands off you in private, so this environment keeps him a but grounded and can act all cool. You saw right through it, but that's different story.

• Doesn't care what people think of him, rude, moody, arrogent hell even princess...because like whatever. But won't torelate any negetive comments about you.

• His demeanor doesn't change much, but his glare speaks for itself that the person currently should shut up if they know what's good for them.

• Because, despite all the ups and downs our princess truly loves you and will want the best for you. Amen.

~Mikage Reo~

• I'm guessing you already has a pretty good grasp at what to expect from him, huh?

• We all know, that while on the surface his school life is perfect with good grades, popularity, football...he gets really really bored there.

• But I think as his girlfriend, it's your job to not get him excited. And guess what? You're doing a great job at it!

• This guy is the type, that when in a relationship, you can talk on and on about golf most boring sport ever! and he will listen like it's the most interesting thing ever.

• So yeah... it's not really all that hard for ya to keep him busy lol. Others have a hard time to do so though.

• Though he gave up on studies since blue lock, he figured that it won't hurt to study a bit for a few months to keep up his reputation.

• And to impress you, but shh don't let him know I told ya. But yeah, when talking about studies he's more of a hard work type rather than being a natural. I'm looking at you, Nagi!

• Which is a blessing for you because you can literally just call him over whenever you wanna study. And like ACTUALLY study, he's the best at tutoring, teaching you everything patiently.

• I mean he was the best friend was Nagi. OF COURSE Reo gained a lot of patience from being around that baby.

• Still entertains the fan following he quickly gained at school I mean what did you expect? but not really too much like before.

• Kinda because of still having PTSD from blue lock. You know the the haunting feeling no matter what he does there are things he won't get. Yeah that's what he's afraid of deep down.

• And not just that, also because of you. He knows people can get a too overboard with the fangirling which might make you uncomfortable. So sweet! 😭

• Proudly shows you off as his, and damn he does get a bit of a smug look which is priceless to see. It's a good reminder for him that no matter what happens, you're always his side.

• Which suprisingly makes everyone immediately back off, because like it's just so evident that this guy is just too hooked up on you to even glance at their direction.

• Will actually bribe the school authorities to get you in his class, and will deny any accusations made against him by you about that matter you JUST asked him casually but y'know this guy is dramatic as hell.

• "Why would I do that? You think that I'm the kind of rich person to throw money away just to get my way?"

"I love you Reo but that's exactly what you are."

• Always has an arm around you, suprising you during lunch break, pulling your cheeks even in front of everyone...you're just that cute!

• Is the type to distract you during class, then giggle when you get called out by the teacher for not paying attention. :P

• Don't worry much though, Reo doesn't do it that often, he knows his limits, despite being tempted to do more just to have your attention and your adorable mad face.

• Damnit, you're still just too cute for him to resist having you with him. He truly is blessed.

~Nagi Seishiro~

• Okay so, I think this scenario can go two ways, depending on what time you ask him and what mood he is in.

• 1. Nagi would just say "It's such a hassle" and drop his head on your lap, not wanting to think much but will relent with a bit of convincing because again, he doesn't wanna use his brain much.

• 2. Would just say okay on your first attempt, not seeing any reason to refuse. As you can see, both of these scenarios end up getting him back in school for a few months.

• We all know he's the type to just sleep and play games in class and get scolded by the teacher because of it.

• Lord knows how this guy manages to top every single time because I don't.

• "Hey Seishiro what did you get?"

"..98.."

"I just can't believe it, how do you do it every single time?!"

"I don't believe it either." said the teacher unamused, arranging the papers.

• You also feel lowkey jealous because of it, like can study for hours and hours and still get less than him I don't know about you ma'am but I would have given up a long time ago on academics.

• However, it has it's merits as well. He doesn't study but hangs around you when you do in the library or his apartment and sometimes kind of helps you understand stuff.

• "God this question is so stupid."

"...Hm? It's so easy..."

"Oh really? Why don't you tell me how to do it?"

"... don't convert the tan A into sin A/cosA, because it won't get divided on the final step..."

"Wow it worked, thank you!"

"... don't mention it."

• If you can't find him during lunch, you can find him in teacher's cabin getting scolded or sleeping/playing games on the stairs.

• And in extreme cases, on the water tank of the rooftop how the hell did does he get there?? basically everywhere expect the classroom, eating his lunch, y'know like a normal person in lunch break.

• So it's your duty to drag him to have lunch so to make sure he doesn't die. No I'm not exaggerating, this guy can be starving to death but still be playing call of duty.

• This guy is shameless around you, and the worst part that you can't even say anything about it because it's not his intention to annoy you. He is just is build different.

• Like, he'd just lean over your shoulder as you drag him to class you still won't give him the piggyback ride. Poor boy not really regardless of people giving him and you judgemental stares.

• On the rare days when he's not sleeping in class, he's still not paying any attention to the teacher. Yeah all the teachers hate him.

• Instead his focus is all on you, observing how you are trying your best to pay attention to whatever the hell the teacher's trying to explain, suprisingly intrigued.

• He doesn't know why but, he's not bored while doing even though he's just looking at you . This guy is just attracted to you so damn much.

• And his smol energy level won't allow him to fight that attraction either. However Nagi doesn't dislike that fact. He loves the attraction and you, even if he didn't realise it yet.

A/n: I think the quality is dipped in this one, I kind of rushed it. I apologise for it. (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)

[panickedscribbles]

I've been thinking about Star Wars discourse lately, and I think a lot of the reason so much of the fandom is constant back and forth arguments is because a lot of the time, two characters can be right simultaneously while also disagreeing completely with each other.

Take the whole "Too old, he is" thing.

On one hand, obviously wrong. Anakin is nine, he's at most a few years behind, and textually managed to catch up pretty well. Like, if Palpatine and the Sith Plan weren't constantly messing him up, there is every possibility that Anakin could have become a well adjusted Jedi. Nine is by no means too old to learn a skill.

On the other hand, the council demonstrates perfectly in that scene that they are completely unequipped to deal with a nine year old who hasn't been raised in their culture, especially one from a heavily traumatized background. The pop-quiz they ask him would be perfectly acceptable for a nine-year-old youngling, but Anakin literally just walked in. They are giving an end-of-year exam to a kid who has never even seen a school. And they assume this is fine, because that's just what you do with nine-year-olds.

More to the point, they are completely failing to take into account the previous nine years of his life. They ask a kid, who up until all of about 18 hours ago had been enslaved since birth, to be open and honest about his emotions, in a room full of complete strangers, most of whom answer to "Master"! They have somehow engineered a situation so psychologically damaging that Palpatine is taking notes in the corner, entirely without realizing. When the council says they shouldn't take him in, they are one hundred percent right. Nine is WAY too old when you've spent that time as a slave, and are being entrusted into the care of people who have never had to raise a nine year old who wasn't raised like they were.

Or how about Anakin not being made a master. Was he right to insist he get the title, or was the council.

Well, Anakin should be made a master, you see, because,

He's one of the main Generals fighting and coordinating the war

And he's one of their most successful warriors. Like, he's the guy they call in whenever they need an impossible mission completed

He's more or less the face of the war effort, as "The Hero Without Fear"

As an ex-slave, obtaining the title of Master would be a huge psychological weight lifted off his shoulders.

Since they're making him part of the council for espionage purposes, making him a master as well serves as better cover

Giving him more reason to stay loyal to the Jedi after they just asked him to betray the trust of one of his oldest and closest friends wouldn't be the worst idea

Like, if ever there was a reason to give someone a promotion, those are some pretty good ones.

However, on the opposite side of the issue, literally none of that has any bearing on "Mastery" as the Jedi define it. Being a Jedi Master is all about mastery over oneself, having a deep understanding of the force, and a certain level of inner peace.

You'll notice that at no point does being really good at large-scale violence, being well known for being really good at large-scale violence, or wanting it a lot factor into being made a Jedi Master. Everything Anakin is good at, Everything Palpatine, and the war, and the council have pushed Anakin into being good at, do nothing to bring him any closer to Mastery, and in fact often push him further away from it.

In both of these examples, you can make a very compelling argument in either direction. Hell, you can make a compelling argument in both directions at the same time. And I think that's really neat.

[foone]

Look if there's one thing, just one thing, that I wish everyone understood about archiving, it's this:

We can always decide later that we don't need something we archived.

Like, if we archive a website that's full of THE WORST STUFF, like it turns out it's borderline illegal bot-made spam art, we can delete it. Gone.

We can also chose not to curate. You can make a list of the 100 Best Fanfic and just quietly not link to or mention the 20,000 RPFs of bigoted youtubers eating each other. No problem!

We can also make things not publicly available. This happens surprisingly often: like, sometimes there'll be a YouTube channel of alt-right bigotry that gets taken down by YouTube, but someone gives a copy to the internet archive, and they don't make it publicly available. Because it might be useful for researchers, and eventually historians, it's kept. But putting it online for everyone to see? That's just be propaganda for their bigotry. So it's hidden, for now. You can ask to see it, but you need a reason.

And we can say all these things, we can chose to delete it later, we can not curate it, we can hide it from public view... But we only have these options BECAUSE we archived it.

If we didn't archive it, we have no options. It is gone. I'm focusing on the negative here, but think about the positive side:

What if it turns out something we thought was junk turns out to be amazing new art?

What if something we thought of as pointless and not worth curating turns out to be influential?

What if something turns out to be of vital historical importance, the key that is used to solve a great mystery, the Rosetta stone for an era?

All of those things are great... If we archived it when we could.

Because this is an asymmetric problem:

If we archived it and it turns out it's not useful, we can delete.

If we didn't archive it and it turns out it is useful, OOPS!

You can't unlose something that's been lost. It's gone. This is a one way trip, it's already fallen off the cliff. Your only hope is that you're wrong about it being lost, and there is actually still a copy somewhere. If it's truly lost, your only option is to build a time machine.

And this has happened! There are things lost, so many of them that we know of, and many more we don't know of. There are BOOKS OF THE BIBLE referenced in the canon that simply do not exist anymore. Like, Paul says to go read his letter to the Laodiceans, and what did that letter say? We don't know. It's gone.

The most celebrated playwright in the English tradition has plays that are just gone. You want to perform or watch Love's Labours Won? TOO FUCKING BAD.

Want to watch Lon Cheyney's London After Midnight, a mystery-horror silent film from 1927? TOO BAD. The MGM vault burnt down in 1965 and the last known copy went up in smoke.

If something still exists, if it still is kept somewhere, there is always an opportunity to decide if it's worthy of being remembered. It can still be recognized for its merits, for its impact, for its importance, or just what it says about the time and culture and people who made it, and what they believed and thought and did. It can still be a useful part of history, even if we decide it's a horrible thing, a bigoted mess, a terrible piece of art. We have the opportunity to do all that.

If it's lost... We are out of options. All we can do is research it from how it affected other things. There's a lot of great books and plays and films and shows that we only know of because other contemporary sources talked about them so much. We're trying to figure out what it was and what it did, from tracing the shadow it cast on the rest of culture.

This is why archivists get anxious whenever people say "this thing is bad and should not be preserved". Because, yeah, maybe they're right. Maybe we'll look back and decide "yeah, that is worthless and we shouldn't waste the hard drive or warehouse space on it".

But if they're wrong, and we listen to them, and don't archive... We don't get a second chance at this. And archivists have been bitten too many times by talk of "we don't need copies, the original studio has the masters!" (it burnt down), or "this isn't worth preserving, it's just some damn silly fad" (the fad turned out to be the first steps of a cultural revolution), or "this media is degenerate/illegal/immoral" (it turns out those saying that were bigots and history doesn't agree with their assessment).

So we archive what we can. We can always decide later if it doesn't need preserving. And being a responsible archivist often means preserving things but not making them publicly available, or being selective in what you archive (I back up a lot of old computer hard drives. Often they have personal photos and emails and banking information! That doesn't get saved).

But it's not really a good idea to be making quality or moral judgements of what you archive. Because maybe you're right, maybe a decade or two later you'll decide this didn't need to be saved. And you'll have the freedom to make that choice. But if you didn't archive it, and decide a decade later you were wrong... It's just gone now. You failed.

Because at the end of the day I'd rather look at an archive and see it includes 10,000 things I think are worthless trash, than look at an archive of on the "best things" and know that there are some things that simply cannot be included. Maybe they were better, but can't be considered as one of the best... Because they're just gone. No one has read them, no one has been able to read them.

We have a long history of losing things. The least we can do going forward is to try and avoid losing more. And leave it up to history to decide if what we saved was worth it.

My dream is for a future where critics can look at stuff made in the present and go "all of this was shit. Useless, badly made, bigoted, horrible. Don't waste your time on it!"

Because that's infinitely better than the future where all they can do is go "we don't know of this was any good... It was probably important? We just don't know. It's gone. And it's never coming back"

[alexanderwales]

The Digital Corpse

I always read about what school shooters or wannabe assassins have to say. I read or at least skim through manifestos, most of which are really poorly written and usually just have badly misunderstood ideas that are copy-pasted from diverse places. I read social media posts and discord logs, where available. Some of this is morbid fascination that I don't endorse, but some of it is the impulse to understand how and why a thing like this happened.

So I've been following the news on Trump's would-be assassin, and to all appearances he was just a kid who was bullied at school and didn't have a lot of hobbies, skills, talents, or friends. He wanted power and control and had no way to get it, and I think there's something to the notion that a lot of white men think that their whiteness or maleness means they're owed something. When Trump came to town, it was opportunity falling into his lap. If you're 20 years old and feeling like the world cares nothing for you, then yeah, I can see why you'd take your shot. It's a way of being famous, of going out with a bang, and young men often feel invincible anyway. The shocking thing is that it almost worked, and that seems to be down to incompetence and complacency.

But if it had worked, and they hadn't immediately shot him to death, he'd have gotten all the worst parts of fame (in addition to what would probably be life in prison). In death he's got intense scrutiny of everything he's ever posted online. There are reports about how sad and lonely he was. If he'd succeeded, maybe there would be some on the left who would idolize him, but as it stands ... I can imagine wanting to be megafamous, but I cannot imagine wanting it to be like this. It was almost certainly different in his imagination though, a grand moment that would give meaning to his life and demonstrate that he did, in fact, have power.

And of course the whole thing will be forgotten in a week or two. A year from now you'll say the name "Thomas Crooks" and people will say "huh, that ... do I know that name?"

On the other side of things, there's Corey Comperatore. He was the other person to die that day, just a random guy who had attended a Trump rally and got hit by a bullet because from one specific angle he was standing behind Trump. If Thomas Crooks left almost nothing behind to make sense of his life, Corey Comperatore left behind what feels like a lot. The fame is more double-edged. He's lauded as a hero by some, even if the only thing he did was catch a stray. Generously, that's a way of making sense of things: just like it's not enough for Crooks to be alienated and dejected, it's not enough for Comperatore to just be someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But Corey Comperatore is also having his life torn open, or at least the parts of it that he put online. Posting online was something he probably did without thinking too much about it. The worst one, for me, was him saying that the Palestinians would "get over it" like the Japanese did. It's something I think about a lot in the social media age, the picture that people would get if they went looking through all our posts, if they were trying to make a picture of you from the things you've left behind. If you died in a very public way, what's the worst post you've ever made? What would people find ironic? But of course you don't need to die, we're in an era where anyone can get flash famous by random happenstance. And of course in the modern day we want the delicious little morsels, the worst thing you've ever said, the most ironic, most iconic, most infuriating sound bite that can represent a whole person. Anything more anodyne is pointless, even if that's the bulk of someone's life.

I'm probably a little unusual in terms of digital fingerprints. I'm active on discords, I've written some four million words of fiction, and my reddit comment karma is in the six figure range, which probably means that I've got something like fifty thousand comments. I talk a lot. But I do think about being torn apart like that, what would happen if I were famous for a day before the news cycle moved on, if there were hundreds or thousands of people trying to make sense of me.

When I die, if anyone has reason to go snooping through my history, I hope there's a good-looking corpse.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

what do you think Jack's flaws are? I believe that one of them is that he tends to idealize people like Leona he doesn't see the unpleasant sides of people.

Real quick, wanted to thank @/tinyfantasminha for taking the time to share their thoughts with me + give me some ideas on where to look for supplemental Jack lore ^^

I won't be going out of my way to make a list of all his flaws due to the reasons cited in this post. However, I'm going to discuss the idea posed by this anon. I don't know if I'd phrase it as "[Jack] doesn't see the unpleasant sides of people". I actually think the contrary: Jack is often suspicious and unwilling to trust others. This is particularly true for Octavinelle (see: book 3, Jack Labwear vignettes, etc.), but also extends to the general student populace, as he prefers to work alone. Jack does have more leniency towards his Savanaclaw senpais, Ruggie and especially Leona, but they're exceptions and not the rule. I think Jack would ideally like to have honorable senpai to look up to, but ideals are very different than what life handed him. Additionally, I don't think Jack has a habit of idealizing (like Kalim or Silver, who are oblivious to red flags and/or choose to think the best of their peers) or idolizing others (like Sebek does Malleus), at least not to the same extremes as some of his classmates do.

Back to Jack’s feelings about his Savanaclaw senpai for a moment. He first saw Leona on TV before ever meeting the guy, so it’s very possible that Jack formed a parasocial attachment to him and projected his own just ideals onto this stranger. That’s not uncommon or unexpected behavior for a preteen or teenager, who’s still trying to get a sense for their own identity and their place in the world. When he actually meets Leona, Jack is then taken aback by reality being totally different than his expectations.

Though Jack claims to operate as a lone wolf, he respects and adheres to pact hierarchy very strictly. In his own dorm uniform vignettes, he expresses that he believes Ruggie is Savanaclaw’s second-in-command and goes out of his way to try and earn Ruggie’s trust. Even when Ruggie says it’s annoying or acts suspicious of his junior, Jack persists like a wolf on the hunt. And that’s the thing about Jack: he is stubborn, and that can lead to problems, especially if others are involved. In his attempts to help out Ruggie, he’s being overbearing. By trying to do everything on his own, he’s potentially shouldering more work and shutting his peers out. That’s part of Jack’s brand of NRC pride—all the students have it to some degree.

Jack’s real fatal flaw is that he’s too judgmental. I already mentioned earlier how he tends to be very suspicious of others, but Jack also has a tendency to see things “as they are” and is inflexible with his thinking. Like… he sees things as very face value. He sees Leona ordering Savanaclaw mobs to injure other students? Automatically goes, “that’s wrong!!” based on his own moral compass, doesn’t ask himself “why might they be doing this?”. He also assumes Leona is acting out of cowardice or just isn’t “trying hard enough”. This is a behavior Jack exhibits in other situations too. For example, he laughs when Leona talks about the honorable lessons he’s supposed to grant to the Sunset Warriors (implying he doesn’t see Leona as honorable). He calls Vil an “old man” when everyone returns from S.T.Y.X. He expresses surprise when people he thought were twigs at a glance (Silver, Azul, etc.) are actually muscular or are at least making efforts to bulk up. This all makes Jack come off as blunt or, at worst (unintentionally) callous or insensitive.

I know this is technically a post about Jack’s flaws, but I think it’s pretty admirable that he consistently apologizes when he’s wrong and tries to learn or to make up for it. He willing worked in the Mostro Lounge to replace Jade’s wood ear mushroom that he accidentally disposed of (Labwear vignettes). He realizes townsfolk find him physically intimidating so he tries to take customer service training to be friendlier (Port Wear vignettes). He tries to protect child!Vil but learns that Vil can protect himself. There are countless other examples—and for a first year, he is remarkably mature in genuinely owning up to his mistakes and striving to be better next time.

I guess I’ll leave you with that ^^ just so we can end this post positively!

[brainrot-jikan]

im not the biggest alhaitham/kaveh shipper (because im a rare pair ho) but it seems to me that in alhaitham/kaveh getting-together fics tend to be... unequal.

the beautiful thing about alhaitham and kaveh is that they're both equally right and equally wrong and equally dicks about it. but the writers for alhaitham/kaveh much more frequently seem to give alhaitham the burden change (the burden of the character flaw) instead of kaveh.

in any good character arc, the main character has a fatal flaw or misconception, and by the end of that arc they have addressed that flaw in some definitive way. scrooge was a scrooge and learned that being that way was detrimental; merlin from finding nemo was overprotective to a fault and had to learn that he couldn't (and shouldn't) control everything and to let go; the wolf from little red riding hood learns that you should stop while you're ahead.

stories centering around romance tend to lean heavily on character arcs, which makes sense. and since romance generally requires two individuals to be vulnerable and open and emotional with each other, it makes double sense that alhaitham/kaveh authors zoom straight into alhaitham's lack of emotional vulnerability.

this bothers me.

in society, individuals are expected to experience and present emotions in a specific way. if someone dies, you cry. if someone smiles at you, you smile back. if you're at a party, you're supposed to be having fun. if you don't do these things, you're seen as impolite at best and a inhuman freak at worst. when these behaviors are frequent it's often viewed as emotional immaturity, or a lack of ability to feel at all. the inability or lack of willingness to conform to societies emotional expectations of you is seen as a flaw and a reason for exclusion.

alhaitham is canonically disliked and avoided for being the way he is. he prefers it this way, but that doesn't mean the people perpetuating this avoidance are in the right. they are the societal pressure to conform that alhaitham blows off. alhaitham could be the way he is for a lot of reasons: avoidant attachment style, trauma, following someone else's example (eg. his grandmother), or just his base personality. it doesn't MATTER. he is the way he is. kaveh having to accept that should be part of the story.

putting the burden of the fatal flaw on alhaitham, making the way alhaitham treats kaveh and the people around him the problem, feels invalidating. it implies heavily that alhaitham's way of interfacing with the world, alhaitham's very SELF, is incorrect. my suggestion is to flip a larger portion of that burden onto kaveh. kaveh 👏 character 👏 arcs 👏

some examples/recommendations:

- make kaveh project his insecurities onto other people but especially onto alhaitham; he's overly reliant on other people for his own self worth, and he perceives alhaitham's lack of positive feedback as a direct reflection of how alhaitham feels about him. but learns along the way that alhaitham doesn't hate him, kaveh's actual struggle is with hating himself and being unable to his own self as worthy of love. maybe throw in how you are responsible for your own recovery, other people can help but you can't rely on them to carry you through self actualization.

- or, kaveh tries to make alhaitham behave more like a "normal" person, to be more pleasant and emotive and forthcoming, and then realizes he's in the wrong for trying to make alhaitham into something he's not, possibly for all the wrong reasons (not because he likes alhaitham better like that, but bc society says that's healthier and a better/more conforming way to be)

- or you could go ahead make alhaitham's issues the main problem but they're too complicated to overcome in a short period of time, so kaveh has to accept alhaitham is doing his best in his own way and not push for unrealistic and unhealthy changes. he could alter his own behavior to give alhaitham space and time and a safe place to land.

that got sappy so it's past time for me to dip out. go forth and ship things; but maybe consider letting alhaitham be a rude stone-faced bastard if he wants to be.

[cinnamonest]

Don’t worry about replying to this in any capacity. Just wanted to say that I read your most recent post and it was extremely helpful and informative for me. I was just talking to my dad earlier about really struggling to understand how anyone could support Trump when he is just a complete bumbling fool of a man at best and a piece of shit bigot and sexist at worst. (Not to say that Harris is some beacon in the darkness, not a fan of her either.) But the perspective you offered was really enlightening so thank you for it. and I hope you are doing well enough, all things considered, and that regardless of what happens in the coming days that things get better for you and your community.

Thank you, that's very kind. I'm very glad it was helpful, I was worried I was coming across the wrong way or didn't word it very well or could be misinterpreted.

If it helps, I had some more thoughts I think would expand upon that, specifically for women — since I see a lot of posts essentially asking how women can possibly vote for the guy, and I think I can explain that too, as I've been thinking and talking a lot about that with women who I know intend to do so.

1) I think for the upper class, they tend to focus more on social issues, because economic issues don't affect them as strongly.

But for some of these people, especially moms, the increased cost of living is literally a matter of "how am I going to feed my children, how am I going to pay electric AND water," etc. So it becomes a priority, especially as many families have lots of kids, and some are single moms. They don't really think as much about social issues, whereas when I went to college, most of the kids cared only about social issues. The more financially secure someone is, the less preoccupied they are with economy.

But for a mom, the safety of and provision for their kids is paramount above all else, so economy and crime will take priority.

But since we only have 2 major parties, people often assume that whichever you vote for, you must agree with ALL of the party's official stances, which is often not the case. That's part of why our bipartisan system is so divisive and breeds hostility, because it creates an "us vs them" mentality.

2) women in the area I talked about don't really even think about abortion/reproductive rights. They're not militantly anti-choice (like some of the more suburban moms of kids I went to school with), it's more that no one ever really thinks about it at all. Many of them have kids very young and lots of them, it's just normal. They also don't have careers to focus on in the way higher-class women do, and many have no chance of ever going to college, so there's less reason to hold off on it.

People do what's normal per their class/local culture — so here, if a girl gets unexpectedly pregnant (which is... not uncommon), they don't freak out or think about how it will affect their future, how they'll afford it etc, they usually just... shrug, drop out of high school, marry the guy, have the kid.

When we were 16, one of my good friends got pregnant, and she too did exactly that. She was unironically overjoyed to find out too, rather than panicked or dismayed. Like, when she took the pregnancy test, I was there with her, sitting on the tile floor of the church bathroom at 9 pm with the test we scraped cash together to buy from the gas station-pharmacy hybrid shop down the road, and she, as a 16 year old high school junior, was actively hoping, fingers crossed and smiling and everything, that it would be positive. She's now 24 and is about to have baby #5.

And part of the reason she was fine with it was... because her mom had her at 15. It's a very cyclic thing. The possibility of abortion would not occur to them unless someone else brought it up.

3) Moreover, when women vote, they focus on what affects them specifically as a woman — and prioritize what's most "real" to us as an individual woman, the hypotheticals one can most realistically see happening to them. But what that most realistic thing is, varies a lot from woman to woman.

For a woman living in, say, Maine or northeast California or even a safer rural place like Idaho, I can see how abortion is probably the most "real" thing to them, that they can see themselves being in a position to affect them.

Whereas for me, having experienced harassment and aggression, reading about these statistics and headlines, violence is something I am much more afraid of happening to me. I'm very careful to avoid an area where I was harassed before.

But for someone in a low-crime place, that isn't something that's going to be a priority.

I personally now realize that a lot of the misunderstanding and clashing is a matter of the fact that women in many blue areas simply don't think about this, because they've never had a reason to, and that's perfectly understandable.

But a lot of women in areas like my home do not realize that. Many women at home strongly believe that "them uppity rich white women out in California or wherever the hell" (quoth my 90-something year old neighbor), are aware of, but simply don't care about, the consequences women here/poor women face. I used to think so too, when I was younger, because that's what I was told.

As a result, they view their blue vote as a very "let them eat cake" heartless-rich-person sort of thing, as selfish and/or classism, in the same way that women in blue areas likely view their red votes as female-class betrayal, religious brainwashing, believe their husbands must be controlling them, etc.

Now, with greater life experience, I not only understand that it isn't like that at all on either side, but I can also see why many blue-area women dismiss our experiences as "not really happening" or "right-wing propaganda," simply due to the fact that it's very difficult for them to fathom it, because it's so different from the reality they live in, it feels like it can't be real.

4) it *is* true that these women are often demonized and gaslit for talking about the rapes, job loss etc, so that has shifted even more moderate women very rightwards over the last few years, because they feel silenced/censored.

Donald is a sort of savior figure — he acknowledges the issue they otherwise feel censored on, and moreover, has essentially promised to take away the men that hurt them, their daughters, sisters etc. They want to feel safe again, they want their husbands to get their jobs back, feel like they have a secure future, etc, and his platform is literally "make America safe again, make America rich again, make America great again."

That line you may have seen all over the internet a few days ago, where Donald said something along the lines of "I'm going to protect the women if they like it or not"? And you know how it earned disgust from the mainstream population of women?

That line was received extremely positively by women at home. I've already seen them sharing it around with my mom/aunts/grandma on facebook, in a positive light, ecstatic. It makes them feel seen and heard in a culture that otherwise puts a hand over their mouth, and they cling to those words in hope of a better future.

Tldr: it's women who are vulnerable and afraid and desperate, going for the only option that has promised to address their needs. Much conflict comes from the limited human ability to grasp things outside of ourselves, our tendency for solipsism — an unfortunate part of the human condition that has plagued our species from the dawn of time.