#well it's probably my pc that couldn't handle them

[astrariums]

DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD

Exploration Across Thedas

[girlboss-enthusiast]

Please tell us how to get into IT without a degree! I have an interview for a small tech company this week and I’m going in as admin but as things expand I can bootstrap into a better role and I’d really appreciate knowing what skills are likely to be crucial for making that pivot.

Absolutely!! You'd be in a great position to switch to IT, since as an admin, you'd already have some familiarity with the systems and with the workplace in general. Moving between roles is easier in a smaller workplace, too.

So, this is a semi-brief guide to getting an entry-level position, for someone with zero IT experience. That position is almost always going to be help desk. You've probably heard a lot of shit about help desk, but I've always enjoyed it.

So, here we go! How to get into IT for beginners!

The most important thing on your resume will be

✨~🌟Certifications!!🌟~✨

Studying for certs can teach you a lot, especially if you're entirely new to the field. But they're also really important for getting interviews. Lots of jobs will require a cert or degree, and even if you have 5 years of experience doing exactly what the job description is, without one of those the ATS will shunt your resume into a black hole and neither HR or the IT manager will see it.

First, I recommend getting the CompTIA A+. This will teach you the basics of how the parts of a computer work together - hardware, software, how networking works, how operating systems work, troubleshooting skills, etc. If you don't have a specific area of IT you're interested in, this is REQUIRED. Even if you do, I suggest you get this cert just to get your foot in the door.

I recommend the CompTIA certs in general. They'll give you a good baseline and look good on your resume. I only got the A+ and the Network+, so can't speak for the other exams, but they weren't too tough.

If you're more into development or cybersecurity, check out these roadmaps. You'll still benefit from working help desk while pursuing one of those career paths.

The next most important thing is

🔥🔥Customer service & soft skills🔥🔥

Sorry about that.

I was hired for my first ever IT role on the strength of my interview. I definitely wasn't the only candidate with an A+, but I was the only one who knew how to handle customers (aka end-users). Which is, basically, be polite, make the end-user feel listened to, and don't make them feel stupid. It is ASTOUNDING how many IT people can't do that. I've worked with so many IT people who couldn't hide their scorn or impatience when dealing with non-tech-savvy coworkers.

Please note that you don't need to be a social butterfly or even that socially adept. I'm autistic and learned all my social skills by rote (I literally have flowcharts for social interactions), and I was still exceptional by IT standards.

Third thing, which is more for you than for your resume (although it helps):

🎇Do your own projects🎇

This is both the most and least important thing you can do for your IT career. Least important because this will have the smallest impact on your resume. Most important because this will help you learn (and figure out if IT is actually what you want to do).

The certs and interview might get you a job, but when it comes to doing your job well, hands-on experience is absolutely essential. Here are a few ideas for the complete beginner. Resources linked at the bottom.

Start using the command line. This is called Terminal on Mac and Linux. Use it for things as simple as navigating through file directories, opening apps, testing your connection, that kind of thing. The goal is to get used to using the command line, because you will use it professionally.

Build your own PC. This may sound really intimidating, but I swear it's easy! This is going to be cheaper than buying a prebuilt tower or gaming PC, and you'll learn a ton in the bargain.

Repair old PCs. If you don't want to or can't afford to build your own PC, look for cheap computers on Craiglist, secondhand stores, or elsewhere. I know a lot of universities will sell old technology for cheap. Try to buy a few and make a functioning computer out of parts, or just get one so you can feel comfortable working in the guts of a PC.

Learn Powershell or shell scripting. If you're comfortable with the command line already or just want to jump in the deep end, use scripts to automate tasks on your PC. I found this harder to do for myself than for work, because I mostly use my computer for web browsing. However, there are tons of projects out there for you to try!

Play around with a Raspberry Pi. These are mini-computers ranging from $15-$150+ and are great to experiment with. I've made a media server and a Pi hole (network-wide ad blocking) which were both fun and not too tough. If you're into torrenting, try making a seedbox!

Install Linux on your primary computer. I know, I know - I'm one of those people. But seriously, nothing will teach you more quickly than having to compile drivers through the command line so your Bluetooth headphones will work. Warning: this gets really annoying if you just want your computer to work. Dual-booting is advised.

If this sounds intimidating, that's totally normal. It is intimidating! You're going to have to do a ton of troubleshooting and things will almost never work properly on your first few projects. That is part of the fun!

Resources

Resources I've tried and liked are marked with an asterisk*

Professor Messor's Free A+ Training Course*

PC Building Simulator 2 (video game)

How to build a PC (video)

PC Part Picker (website)*

CompTIA A+ courses on Udemy

50 Basic Windows Commands with Examples*

Mac Terminal Commands Cheat Sheet

Powershell in a Month of Lunches (video series)

Getting Started with Linux (tutorial)* Note: this site is my favorite Linux resource, I highly recommend it.

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi Projects for Beginners

/r/ITCareerQuestions*

Ask A Manager (advice blog on workplace etiquette and more)*

Reddit is helpful for tech questions in general. I have some other resources that involve sailing the seas; feel free to DM me or send an ask I can answer privately.

Tips

DO NOT work at an MSP. That stands for Managed Service Provider, and it's basically an IT department which companies contract to provide tech services. I recommend staying away from them. It's way better to work in an IT department where the end users are your coworkers, not your customers.

DO NOT trust remote entry-level IT jobs. At entry level, part of your job is schlepping around hardware and fixing PCs. A fully-remote position will almost definitely be a call center.

DO write a cover letter. YMMV on this, but every employer I've had has mentioned my cover letter as a reason to hire me.

DO ask your employer to pay for your certs. This applies only to people who either plan to move into IT in the same company, or are already in IT but want more certs.

DO NOT work anywhere without at least one woman in the department. My litmus test is two women, actually, but YMMV. If there is no woman in the department in 2024, and the department is more than 5 people, there is a reason why no women work there.

DO have patience with yourself and keep an open mind! Maybe this is just me, but if I can't do something right the first time, or if I don't love it right away, I get very discouraged. Remember that making mistakes is part of the process, and that IT is a huge field which ranges from UX design to hardware repair. There are tons of directions to go once you've got a little experience!

Disclaimer: this is based on my experience in my area of the US. Things may be different elsewhere, esp. outside of the US.

I hope this is helpful! Let me know if you have more questions!

[elderscrollsconceptart]

This isn't Elder Scrolls Confessions (A great blog BTW check it out) but I have something to confess to all of you.

Oblivion's horrendous LOD, performance issues, and pop in are legitimately the reason I've only ever beaten the game a single time. I've played a bunch of Morrowind and Skyrim on PC with zero issues that couldn't be easily resolved. Open MW runs smooth like butter. Skyrim, even heavily modded, can run near flawlessly minus an occasional hiccup. But god oh god does Oblivion run terribly.

Even natively, Oblivion stutters regularly, and when I'm able to get it to run smooth, the draw distance and various other visual issues are so overwhelming to me that I can't play it without getting a headache from the FPS and my personal frustration. I don't want to be walking to Kvatch and see trees and grass literally popping into existence within my direct line of sight. I want to be able to actually see forests and ruins from the distance without having to install a bunch of janky mods from 15 years ago that just add even more stutters than before.

I've seriously tried everything I can to get that game to both run smoothly *and* have solid visuals/LOD/draw distance. I've tried every mod and LOD Gen method I can and nothing works. Even if I'm able to get the LOD fixed, the LOD fix causes horrendous stuttering issues that are even worse than the native performance.

IDK what Bethesda was doing with Oblivion's engine but boy oh boy did they goof on it bigly. I have an immensely powerful PC rig and still can't get that game to look and run right on modern hardware.

I beat Oblivion on the 360 and really enjoyed it back in the day, but when I got into PC gaming and tried replaying Oblivion for the first time in years...woof. It was a rough experience. I only got like halfway through the game before I couldn't handle the performance and visual issues anymore. I've tried probably half a dozen times since then to get back into the game and fix the issues, but I never can and it makes me immensely sad.

Maybe PC gaming ruined me and my expectations of visuals and performance, but its so hard trying to replay Oblivion with all its performance issues. I haven't been able to get back into it playing the game despite absolutely loving the game itself and the story.

I suppose this post is my last cry for help on this. I'd love nothing more than to get Oblivion fixed and running well. There's no reason Morrowind and Skyrim should run so well on my PC while Oblivion cannot.

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Maybe someone else with similar frustrations will find this post and your advice could help them too.

[luigiblood]

GoldenEye 007 & The Future of Nintendo Switch Online

I wanna talk a little bit about the rerelease of GoldenEye 007, the little context and also something I noticed during my research.

GoldenEye 007 has finally got rereleased on January 27th 2023 on both the Nintendo Switch Online service, Xbox Game Pass and as a digital Rare Replay update.

See more after the break.

Emulation quality

Both the Switch and Xbox versions are confirmed emulated and not based at all from the leaked XBLA version, which I'm probably certain will never see a release ever, possibly due to the rights holders which are... very messy if I rely on the copyright info: FIVE. Nintendo, Rare Studio (Microsoft), Danjaq LLC, MGM and Sony Music Publishing.

Welcome to rights hell.

The emulation of it is... kinda complicated because it is mostly fine, like it is playable for certain, if you play it I think it is sort of reasonable. Both versions have 16:9 support (which by the way, was part of the original version on N64) and are 30 FPS with some framerate dips.

The Xbox version has tons of hacks to just change the controls, copyright info, and upscaling (up to 4K!) which honestly, is the imperfect part, with the slight but very visible texture warping and seams, which while Code Mystics claims it is technically accurate to the N64, and I do actually believe them about that, I don't know if we can really talk about accuracy the moment you just upscale the graphics way beyond what the original console could do.

Personally this problem would definitely bother me a lot, but from what I can see the Xbox version is still emulating fine.

The Switch Online version has not many hacks, they do exist, but not really a lot, the graphics emulation is slightly worse than Xbox with mostly too much fog than intended, repeated textures that shouldn't repeat as much, but it makes up for not having the texture warping issue in the slightest, only having less visible seams at times, as it is also upscaled in HD.

Just to talk about the specifics of the Switch version as I datamined it: The base ROM is different, and was modified to remove the face textures for Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. This is actually kinda the first time they hacked a base ROM like this before, especially only for parts that are fully unused, they really wanted to make sure it's not there.

I also noticed tons of texture replacements that seem to be related to explosions, maybe muzzle flashes as well.

The major thing that people will talk about are the controls, which by result of the Nintendo Switch Online service being more about playing the original games as is, which I do respect personally, in fact let me say this: the default control scheme is dated but it's fine to play, but there's one thing that I really dislike: The stick sensitivity is way too high. I think this makes it almost unplayable in certain aspects, because current sticks are definitely not like the N64 sticks which I think are way more precise due to their inner workings and form factor, it does not adapt 1:1 to newer sticks.

So when you just wanna use the aiming mode in Goldeneye, it's way harder to aim properly than on an N64 controller. It's doable, but it's harder.

The online, exclusive to Switch due to the N64 emulator already supporting it, I couldn't try it but after seeing footage it is very sad that it still can't handle online with players from two different regions when on PC it is not as much of a problem.

If you ask me which version is emulated better, I'd say Xbox at first glance, but both versions are totally playable, good enough but imperfect. Code Mystics' work for their N64 emulator is I think respectable, and iQue's work on the N64 emulator for Switch is also much better than we originally anticipated with the trailers and other official footage.

And yes I mentioned iQue and not NERD because their official involvement with Nintendo 64 NSO seems to be purely on the UI integration, possibly a bit more, but the major developer is iQue.

A lot of the disappointment I noticed are on the fact that 360 XBLA port is not used in any way, and it is certainly a bummer when that version showed promise.

N64 Switch Online Issues

But I also do hear a lot of complaints about the controls, but I think it's more of a quality of life debate, I think it's playable except for the stick sensitivity on Switch. But everyone does point out the need for a way to remap controls. Instead we just use the Switch OS controller remap feature in an attempt to fit our needs, which, personally, is only a bandaid and is not a real fix.

Personally one of the most annoying thing is the fact that B and A are horizontal instead of vertical just like the original N64 controller.

WHY IS THIS NOT A FEATURE YET?

I also hate how the ZL is always Z, and the L button is always L, when most games' L button equivalent is Z since we put our left hand on the stick part.

iQue and NERD really needs to implement control remapping, PER GAME, or possibly ways to register presets per game or something, it getting urgent.

...what's the deal Japan? (Theory)

Now, if you're in Japan, you might have noticed GoldenEye 007 hasn't rereleased on Switch there yet...

Nintendo's website says that the game would be released in other regions on the 27th, as planned, but the game would be out in Japan only later in 2023, while mentioning the game's rating: CERO: Z.

This is kind of important, because this is the highest rating. Japan have strict laws about this, and you can't let kids access this game easily.

Aside from the very weird rating, this means a lot, this means Nintendo has to do something about Parental Controls about this game, there's two ways they could deal with this:

Either they just make a 18+ N64 NSO app with the game, rated 18+ instead of Teen or 16+ like in other regions.

Or they do add some parental controls check inside the app, preventing access in a dynamic way per account.

The thing is, I've seen how the application manages the game library user interface: it's very flexible in what it can show/hide, just see how it manages European games or the case of region locking, applied in Korea to hide Magical Drop2 (SNES) and F-Zero X (N64).

For me, this seems like the kind of thing that could have been implemented easily in a few months? Though I'm speaking as someone who hasn't been in a big company managing these things in some way.

The funniest part is still how the apps can access the Parental Controls OS service the entire time.

So my theory is the following: I expect a sort of refresh of the NSO retro apps in the near future, downgrading the NSO retro app age rating to a minimum, instead putting every single age rating info for each game individually, trusting the parental controls to provide information to the app to hide games that shouldn't be played by the user.

I can see the possible logic of implementing this fully for every possible age rating from Nintendo, because while you're at it, you could just as well manage it for the entire library of games, which, currently, is almost 200 different titles in total.

And this, I can see this taking time to do, because you'd need info from every single rating boards in every region, which all games have been assumed 16+/Teen just because the app is that way. I can see some logistics required and could potentially take months to make sure everything is all right.

Now I don't know if they could see this as an opportunity to refresh the UI in a way, possibly even adding new features (like custom controls, please), and maybe this is the reason why Game Boy Color NSO hasn't launched yet, I could see this as a reason to just have feature parity everywhere as a saner base.

I don't know if I'm being reasonable on my theory, but I feel like it'd make sense? We'll see how it goes, really.

[arthotsglasses]

Olympia Soiree Office Room

So, yk that project I planned like a year ago about making otome environments in 3D and intractable?

After a year of my game dev college program and a load of extra knowledge from Youtube and Twitch, I made it happen. Here is my first room built out of sooo many more to go, but damn I'm finally good enough to start doing this!

Here is a video of me running around in play mode (using wasd and mouse) in Unreal Engine 5:

Comparison photo: original Olympia Soiree Switch screenshot (left), my Unreal screenshot (right)

Modelling process: Modelled and UV unwrapped in Blender, textures painted in Substance Painter:

Exported texture maps (in order of textures, normals, OcculsionRoughnessMetalic, and emissive):

TO WATCH ALL THIS HAPPEN, CHECK OUT MY TWITCH CHANNEL! THANK YOU

Now, rambles as usual:

Jesus Christ that took long and lot of work... even had to get a new pc cuz old one couldn't handle Unreal5 and Substance paint, had to upgrade...

Had to learn sooo many new things, before this I only knew how to model 3D objects. I had to learn how to UV unwrap, entire process of Substance Painter, and Unreal Engine 5.

In modelling, I had to learn the low to high poly workflow, and edge shading settings. That's the only new stuff I learned.

UV Unwrapping learning wasn't too difficult cuz the UVs didn't have to be perfect. Substance was gonna be good enough to handle them. Textile density and all that is still new and I'm still trash haha but it did the job for now.

Substance Paint tho.... had to learn all from importing low poly mesh, baking the high poly into texture maps, how to paint, masking, allllll of that, and finally export to get the 4 textures above.

Unreal 5 intro was a solid few days of pain. Starting from navigating the interface, dealing with importing meshes, textures and making them into materials, landscape & foliage generation (that I didn't use for this project yet), lighting settings, colliders, bit of blueprint.... yep but thank god I knew some Unity so it wasn't terrible.

SO... ik a lot of things still need work and missing. The books on the shelf are unfortunate cuz they weren't properly baked in Substance Painter. Some little props like books and stuff are not yet made either. There's a lot of weird edges and shading issues on the model. The lighting and stuff still needs a bit of work as well, it's not right on yet.

But,,, damn I'm soooo happy for what I was able to achieve, I didn't think I could do it this early! When I played it in the engine for the first time, it felt soooo real, I felt like I was in the game universe. I'm very excited to keep making more, and getting better with this stuff!

In the far future, I'll export it as an exe so you guys can try it out as well!

Next up in future again is probably rooms in comte's mansion, Sakamaki's house rooms, some piofiore rooms, and continuing with Olympia Soiree. Those interiors seem the easiest to start with.

comment to be tagged in future updates of this project!

tagging:@pettyval @h34rt1lly @dark-frosted-heart @vampiresruinlives @h34rt1lly @bespectacledbun

also if any has any questions or suggestions plz feel free to comment or dm me! Any feedback is appreciated!

[intercal]

yesterday I got in the mail:

arduino nano every

rotary encoders (basically a dial that you can keep turning and doesn't have a start/stop)

plastic knobs that DON'T FIT THOSE ROTARY ENCODERS REEEEEE

some new, different EEPROMs that aren't single-wire and are clock-driven instead

I found an addressable RGB (well, BGR) LED strip that I bought like 6 years ago and hey presto it still works!! back in 2018 I had it hooked up to a Teensy, and the Teensy would take commands over serial to display colors on the LED strip, and I would have a Python program watching pulseaudio on my PC and change the colors based on something that @earthnuker wrote (that I'm trying to decipher again) so that bass would show up as red and high notes would show up as blue. ish. I have a video on tumblr of this from that point but siikr is still down so I can't find it. this is all to say that I bought the Nano for this purpose, or at least prototyping putting this into a compact package so it Just Werks (TM). I am remiss about using an entire breakout board to do this though, I've got a handful of STM32F030 chips sitting around and they may be better suited for this idk. it'll probably be good for a prototype so I can reuse the Arduino at a later date since that sucker was $20 and the STM32 chips are like $1 (but are literally just the microchips that you have to solder on to a PCB yourself)

Rotary encoders are for that dumb Arcblip game that I want to turn into a device. I want to use that as the peripheral to control spinning the little circle around, rather than using buttons to do that. I also discovered that it has a push-to-click functionality too, so I don't even need an external button if I go this route. looks cool, datasheet is horrible. the knobs I bought for the encoder have the D-shaped holes, rather than a knurled circle - they didn't fucking have this on the mouser.com page, you literally had to LOOK AT THE DATASHEET FOR A PIECE OF PLASTIC. I am still salty about this. so they're basically useless, I will take them to canada for @party-slug to use instead.

finally the EEPROMs are 24AA02IDs, they are clock-driven instead of single wire. the AT21CS01 device I was trying to get working previously was really cool but it depended on microsecond precision, some operations literally needed to last 1-2µs maximum which the STM32F030 couldn't quite handle. it felt very loose and I couldn't ever get it to work, so I think I needed a faster processor (also, it would start in "high speed mode" instead of the lower "standard" speed, wtf). so now I'm going to try out using this device where I define how fast the clock goes, it can handle ranges from 100khz-400khz which is a lot easier to manage. it's not quite I2C, but it should be more reliable than the stupid time-and-edge based chip I was using before.

thanks for reading my blog

[tiredassmage]

Re your tags on one of the screenshot posts: I’d love to hear your thoughts on tech blade based stuff 👀 stabby stabby my beloved

Teehee, you're in LUCK because I started WRITING ONE. @eorzeashan you, too. Get over here, you enablers.

I preface this entire post with I have no experience in designing combat, naturally (or game design at all, yet. soon, hopefully, if my degree path pans out how I'd like, lol), but I do have loads of bullshit experience rotating the idea of Tyr swinging a sword around in my head. xD Think it'd be pretty hot for him, ngl, but anyway.

SO. Tech-based blade-wielding class. My beloved. I do not know why this does not exist when NPCs can run around swinging swords being discount Jedi. If you’re going to make my poor gun-toting agent fight all these lightsaber swingin’ bastards, at least give him something to actually block with. xD

And I just think it’d look cool. Anyway. The reason this took me so long to actually post about is I wasn’t sure how to handle weapon specialization. Because my idea blade wielder would be able to pick freely between a single-handed blade and something like the spears, staffs, etc. They have made a lot of cool blade and staff weapons. And, personally at least, I’m not usually willing to sacrifice cool lightsabers to indulge in them. Which is a shame. So! Tech-based blade wielder! Win-win!

So, I think one way I settled this was either build a single new class with one specialization into single-handed combat, another into staff/spear combat, and idk, third into tank, probably? Which means less building, I suppose, while maintaining the technical choice element of do you go one blade or really long pointy stick, but rip the unity of 4 to 4 and that’d drive me bonkers.

sO. Alternatively: mirrored classes, one specializing in one-handed weapons, the mirror on the long, pointy sticks. I hadn’t considered dual wielding two single-handed blades before I started writing, but that might also be neat. Specialization path, maybe? Idk. I’d probably bank specializations into tank, pure damage, and damage over time.

This is turning into a bit of a long ramble, so let me drop a cut before we carry on.

Okay. I’d imagine a staff/spear based class to be a bit heavier on aoe focus, but that might be by XIV support DPS class speaking because stars know I haven’t done enough actual group content to consider the actual balancing of it. This is about what would look cool/feel cool, lol. I think a staff/spear class could have a stun based on like, a leg sweep or low blow and uhhhh give the PC that smashes you in the face with the hilt of the blade thing with a single-handed weapon. Bludgeons you bludgeons you bludgeons you blud- Or maybe they get electro-darts, too, idk. There's a lot of cool abilities some of the NPCs run around with that I think could be blended together for a class of this nature really well because it kinda of feels like it already exists. I mean, you run into Regulators on Makeb or whatever running around with blades and only a few of those abilities are kind of mirrored to the Force-users and sans the Force, they have things like electrodarts. I'd also like to see uhm. Spinning Blades? I think it's called? Extract from dualsaber, plug onto spear/staff wielder, PC has aoe. Delighted Dot noises.

Tyr being my main and being an Operative, ofc this kinda all spawned from the idea of copying over some of Operative's poison-based motifs, but something building off the electrodart theme might also be pretty cool and maintain more of an individual identity for each class as far as visuals and naming conventions. Maybe swap out grenades for... oh, I couldn't tell you the ability name off the top of my head, but the Knight or whatever that you fight in KOTFE's Anarchy in Paradise drops like stun/slow puddles/nets, so something like that could be worked into this repertoire, too, I think.

Ahhem. And I call this sword vs like spear/staff or whatever, but obvs you’d have a wider variety of blades develop naturally from this inclusion, too. Though I’m now imagining the Havoc CO leaping over a barricade screaming furiously with a sword and it IS pretty funny akdfnlkdsflsdf. I’m a completely biased bastard that’d play the fuck out of this as a secondary combat style on agent because I’d like to think Cipher 9 learned a thing or twenty about dueling Sith in their... numerous experiences beating the shit out Dark Councilors and the like in their career and there’s something hot about the idea that select Intelligence agents may have undergone training specifically for tracking and combating Sith as a non-Force sensitive given their stealth enforcers position within the Empire that would add a lot of flavor to an already drenched in flavor class story, bUT I’M GETTING OFF TOPIC. Anyway, it’d also hella look good on the BH. Just sayin’.

I feel like I had more coherent and developed thoughts about specializations at some point, but since this is really just an “I think this would be cool huge eyes emoji @ SWTOR like a kid in the Toys R Us aisle” uhhhhh. I would've worried in the past about mirroring and which do you assign to which faction, but they did away with that when they updated Combat Styles, so the sky's the limit.

Spoodle line for 7.2 spoodle reasons because I naturally need to add a shitpost to this semi-coherent ramble.

Bonus fuckery: this all a bit further inspired by the fact that when I slowed down footage of Ruhnuk, I'm half-convinced Tyr was trying to block blows with his blaster pistol and like honey... honey that's noT HOW BLASTERS WORK

Babe I didn't even put you in your armored outfit for this outing, dON'T USE YOUR ARMS thAT'S WORSE. This is one of those sequences none of us are meant to stare at too long I'm so sorry, Just ignore the way he looks like he plans on taking an axe with his whole being kadnfldssfdadsf.

Cipher Nine, everyone. Decorated agent of the Empire.

So yeah. If they ever decide to do something like this, I'd wholeheartedly embrace it as a secondary combat style on some of my agents and I'd love to main it for a Bounty Hunter. Perhaps especially with Mandalorians so front and center in 7.2, we know the galaxy isn't a lightsaber vs blaster dichotomy no matter how funny that running thing is, lol, and especially with the Commander's level of combat experience at this point, I just think it'd be very delicious.

[myjunkisyuzuruhanyu]

How confident are you that shoma is gonna win nhk? That competition is stacked with talent and I'm a little worried...

Another anon sended this: I'm a bit worried about nhk now not gonna lie

Don't worry...or at least not about Shoma. I know y'all mean well but don't underestimate Shoma. It's his title to lose.

I am very confident that Shoma will win. 😊

Why? Look at Skate Canada, he wasn't exactly clean in either program and wasn't even judged that nicely (still questioning that UR on the 3A in the free) and he still safely won the competition. At Skate Canada he lacked some of his technical content and still scored higher than all the competitors he faces at NHK. Ok the others weren't completely clean either but - and this is important - none of them has Shoma's technical ability. Contrary to the other competitors he can allow mistakes to happen and still win. He has 5 quads and two 3As with if landed cleanly give him massive GOEs as well! The others have if at all 4 quads. None can compare in PCS either. His personal best scores top his rivals by far and even when he posted those scores for the free he still didn't skate a clean program, means there is still room for more points.

Let's look at the technical ability if the others: For the SP: Kazuki Tomono, Adam and Sota Yamamoto do two quads, but with lower BV than Shoma. Junhwan Cha and Matteo Rizzo do one quad. For the FS: Adam and Sota have 4 quads. Matteo and Kazuki Tomono have 3 quads. Junhwan Cha has 2 quads and a difficult Loop combo. So just from the technical content alone they can't win over Shoma unless Shoma bombs horribly, which I strongly doubt.

And another factor comes to play, sorry to say that but he also faces rather inconsistent skaters besides Adam, who is making less mistakes than the others so far this season. I think at IdF (as sad as I was about it) you could see that neither Kazuki (😭) nor Sota were able to handle the pressure. Both looked fine in practice, but couldn't manage to deliver a good free skate. I don't see how in a competition where there is the GPF at stake there is less pressure for them.

I don't think Shoma is beatable even on a bad day and that's not blind fan love. Shoma may not be the most consistent skater either, but Shoma has still a better success rate on his quads in competition than all of his rivals.

Also Shoma has a good track record for NHK. He entered the NHK two times and he won two times comfortably. He is Japan's top skater and the current world champion and this should play into his favor too. Another advantage is that he doesn't have to travel far for the competition that he doesn't have to deal with timezone change or different food or whatever.

And btw Shoma only needs a 4th place finish to get to the GPF (same for Adam btw) that should make him rather relaxed for the competition compared to the others who obviously know what technical content Shoma can deliver, so know that Shoma likely wins and see their chances of qualifying for the GPF being slim even if they medal.

(I would say all other previous GP medalists are rather on the same level. I would say Adam is a bit ahead as he showed very good results at IdF, but not by much.)

Tbh the one I mostly worry about is Kazuki. He really hardly ever gets it together when it counts. And I am very sad that probably neither of Jun and Kazuki who I root next to Shoma with all my heart will make it to the GPF...*sigh*

[tripably]

Yesterday I reorganized my house plants in a way that made me really happy

Like I'm So Proud

But also So Disappointed because it's not like literally anyone will ever notice :-D I had to physically drag my partner around our living room and dining area to quiz him about what used to be where and where is it now and what has changed pots and why these changes have been excellent etc. He did good but it's like with all compliments - it doesn't quite feel the same if you have to ask for it.

So let me give you* a litte tour because I really want to talk about this some more 🥰

Now here we have most of my Pothos collection. The pale one on the far right, 'Lemon Lime' or something, used to be next to our tv and most probably didn't get enough light there, but definitely was always in the way when doing laundry. I don't have the energy to explain it in detail but we need to hang our washed clothes to dry next to our tv and though the pothos looked really pretty there it was unpractical as all hell. It's also not at the prettiest health of its life but I mean it was only just moved here, so it's not really set yet. Anyway I love that it has darker green at the edges of some leaves but is mostly a neon colour. Really pretty 🥰

The one in the middle is not doing well. It never has. I'd like to say that I don't know why but I've been neglecting it its whole life so that's probably why :-D I think it's an Epipremnum pinnatum so not a golden pothos but it's in the same family and I think of it as one anyway. It keep growing leggy stems with no leaves, and I keep cutting them off. Once I've got back to watering it appropriately, and if it still keeps doing that, I'll have to figure out the real root cause. For now, I'll try to just give it more love.

The one on top right is really pretty on the other side but I'd like it to be pretty on all sides so it was high time to turn it around to encourage more balanced growth. I'm pretty sure it's a 'Pearls and Jade'. It's a really good girl.

The one on bottom left is, to the best of my knowledge, a 'Manjula'. It's doing surprisingly well considering it also has been neglected nearly all of it's life. Perhaps I gave it good enough care in the beginning, or perhaps it has developed Stockholm syndrome. Good for him, I guess. Yes it's s he. No, I couldn't say why.

This one is a sweetheart, a 'Marble Queen'. It used to be next to my pc and got neglected severely in a really bright spot, so it lost nearly all of its leaves near the bottom of the pot. As of yesterday, it is now the first and only pothos I have that is encouraged to grow the way all vines are supposed to - upwards along a "tree trunk". We'll see what happens. She's a beauty on a good day. Don't tell the others but it's a bit of a favourite. I hope I handled it with enough care and didn't damage it when wrapping around the pole. I want to take cuttings of it to make sure it survives but I also don't want to do too much at once, so I'll have to do my best to stay patient and hopeful.

These are a bit of an odd bunch. The emerald palm (also known as zz plant) is one of my biggest successes in the sense that it can barely fit anywhere because it just keeps on growing. It's so pretty. I love it.

The cathedral cactus was a gift from an ex-colleague of mine as a cutting, and is prized for that reason specifically. I'm not the biggest fan of where it is right now, but the emerald palm is making my life difficult and my house just isn't big enough. Anyway, I love the purplish hue on the plant <3

Then in the corner we have my experimental greenhouse/closed environment. On top of the jar we have a common orchid, the substrate of which is made of bark and some green moss from my backyard. Inside the jar we have some more moss from my backyard, and the plant in there is a silver vine. It is thriving!! The orchid "bowl" on top is a new addition though, we'll see what happens from now on. The bottom of the bowl has holes so i'm thinking that while the silver vine transpires moisture through its leaves, it will help the orchid to have just enough water in the substrate to keep growing and staying alive without the risk of overwatering. But that the bowl and the orchid still work as a kind of a lid, meaning that most of the water will stay in the system, keeping humidity high and the silver vine thriving. And then every once in a while I'll need to add more water into the system, and I can do it just by watering the orchid from on top. As said, we'll see what happens. Side note: this is the longest-surviving orchid I've ever had; usually they flower for a while and then slowly start dying on me due to a mix of overwatering and neglect. This one has been in my care for months and is still alive. A modern day miracle, really.

Now this dracaena I got as a stem cutting at school in like 2019 or something. It used to be where the 'Marble Queen' is now, but it had definitely outgrown the spot. It's an easy one to keep alive.

Behind it we have two more pothos. The first one, I think, is another 'Pearls and Jade', so severely neglected that it probably won't survive. I honestly completely forgot about it, as it was buried behind a pile of books on my pc table. Next to it we have a plain but beautiful 'Jade'. I got a cutting of it from my grandma in like 2017. It's been with me through quite a few periods of neglect and pests and general shit, surviving mostly because I've had the foresight to take cuttings in time 😅 It is my most prized house plant and more important than many of my other possessions. All my friends have received potted cuttings of it as housewarming gifts, so I should be fairly safe in terms of keeping it alive one way or another. Decentralized investment or some shit.

Now here we have five saint paulias, all with pink flowers. They are at the moment doing their best to recover from anthropogenic drought. They're used to it, and I think they flower almost all the time as a result of it. Flowering, after all, is often induced by the plant realizing its own mortality and jumping at the last chance to produce heirs. I got them from my mom a couple of years ago when she and my stepdad sold my childhood home and didn't have space for them at the new place. According to her, some of them are as old as me. I used to neglect the poor bastards already back when I lived home and was occasionally in charge of caring for them.

The money tree at the far end of the window sill is leggy and unstable and ridiculous and precious. <3

Here we have some more saint paulias, plus some placeholder pots for future saint paulias. These are also from my mom. I'm really happy with this area in our home right now, with the spices and dried chilis and dried mushrooms at the back and the blue-flowering fuzzy leaved beauties in front.

This here is my cuttings station. It would be a perfect place for so many plants if it weren't for the dining table that's way too close to it. We might have bought a table that's a smidge too big for the space 😅 so far I'm the only person who's ever knocked a pot down from that windowsill, but I'm not willing to have guests live through that experience at my house. So, only cuttings it is. This is also the place where problems are created and purposefully ignored. You'll see.

Off to the right of middle of the picture we have some more saint paulias forming roots so that they can be repotted. They'd grown so uncentered that I decided to just cut them out, remove some of the lowest leaves, and stick them in water. It's going extremely well; the first one was cut a few months back and would be ready for potting any day, I just need to defrost my potting soil first. The second one was cut yesterday. There's also one more saint paulia hiding, already in a pot (the white one) that I got as a leaf cutting from my partner's grandma. It has very pretty, multicolored leaves and cute pink flowers, and it's not doing well. I'm trying to first aid it into a bit of a better health before repotting it, and I haven't really thought much further than that.

There's also a bunch of pothos cuttings that I don't know what to do with - I should probably give them to someone as it's clear I don't have any room for new pots. But it's winter so I can't send them by post, and my local friends already have what they want from here. And, I always keep safety cuttings on hand in case my neglect kills one of them. At the moment, I only have the classic golden pothos as a cutting - the one furthest to right. I'll need to figure out a place for a pot once the cuttings have rooted. In the future.

At the other end we got some more money trees. One of them is an accidental cutting from the leggy one on the other windowsill. The other one is a cutting from Spain back when international travel with undocumented plants wasn't illegal within EU. I hope they don't start growing any faster, because I don't know where to fit them next.

Also, and it's not very visible in this picture, I've decided to give propagating an avocado yet another go. I don't know where to put it if it succeeds, other than in a bottom-watering pot with a tank. Let's not make that into a problem right now.

This here is another 'Pearls and Jade', I think. It's also very pretty, which is why I'm keeping both. This one's been here forever and I've tried to have it grow in a balanced way, but yesterday I decided to be done with that and embraced the one-sidedness. So I stuck in that beautiful, curly branch and some sticks to keep it upright, and we'll see where we go from here. I was told yesterday that we have a ps5 coming soon and that it might have to be placed on this very spot. I'm preparing notes for the negotiations.

And finally, the saddest little silver vine ever to live. I should have taken before-and-after pics yesterday before I cleaned it up, it was so incredibly ridiculous. Most of the vines were dead or dying, crumbling and saggy leaves everwhere, half of the branches dead st near the substrate. Now it's just small. This is the spot where the lemon lime pothos used to be btw; this dwarf of a vine should not become a problem during laundry time any time soon 😅 and I really love this pot, specifically here. I'm not expecting the plant to survive but of course I'm hoping <3

Ok thank you listening <3 If anyone actually did read through all of it, please let me know which plant or placement or picture or detail is your favourite <3 Mine is the half-broken wall clock in picture 6 👀 It's only half broken because it actually tells the time correctly if you just ignore the numbers and concentrate on the direction of the hands - like, clearly the picture was taken at 8:30 😁

[jenroses]

A lot of it can! I built a stupidly overpowered computer given that the game I played the most in the first month or two was Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri from 1999. Windows 11 actually does better with SMAC than Windows 10 did, it's only crashed once! I can also run Creative Suite CS2 which I OWN on this system. Photoshop from 2004 doesn't quite know what to do with multithreading but it's actually still really fast and the 64 gigs of RAM doesn't hurt. At the moment I have NMS running in the background while I have a gadzillion firefox tabs open and I could easily watch a video like this and be fine. One of the upsides of holding on to old software is that where it can take advantage of the new hardware, it really does run very well and you get actually uplift. The issue is that a lot of people lost the thread of Intel's naming scheme and haven't upgraded their computer or they bought something with stupidly little RAM (16g is probably okay but 32 g is what most gamers will be happier with and I bought a little word processing toaster of a netbook in 2020-ish or 2021 which had FOUR gigs of RAM but there was a huge tech shortage at the time and it can do what i needed it to do (run Scrivener) just fine. It cannot handle a lot of tabs open and still do, you know, the operating system. 8 gigs is Sluggish because of Windows bloat.

And yes, I have a fervent desire for two things in programming:

That programmers optimize their programs to run on a wide variety of systems with reasonable speeds

That programmers enable their programs to use things like multithreading and large amounts of available RAM *if there is excess capacity readily available* to speed necessary functions that take significant time. Like, oh, loading screens and transitions shouldn't take much time at all on my system but the cpu is sitting there at like 4% utilization while the framerate drops to 30fps on a LOADING screen because they just had to animate a gadzillion star systems through the gpu alone (looking at you NMS.)

What I mean by that is that, for example, in the gaming sector, there are a lot of companies who are like "How much eye candy can we stuff in here to meet our arbitrary (stupidly low) framerate goal" and most of the "eye candy" is stuff most observers wouldn't know or recognize from a hole in the ground. Yes, I'm talking about Starfield. I didn't understand why they'd accept a framerate of 30fps on console until I discovered they'd artificially locked both Skyrim and Fallout 4 ON THE PC to like 30 or 40 fps. And then tied the physics to framerate, completely unnecessarily (as in you can change this behavior with like two or three ini edits.) Then there's games like Baldur's Gate which was done thoughtfully and can run on a huge range of hardware. I had to return one Civilization game because they hadn't accounted for an aging fanbase and high resolution monitors and I flat out couldn't read the tiny text to play the game.

But yeah, we have this neverending leapfrogging bloat that goes on, where users try to upgrade to get things to work better and companies decide to fill in the new overhead with data mining background tasks and "user experience optimizations" that are a ridiculous rat race that in no way enhances the user experience.

Anyway, I'm not opposed to upgrades but like, do them sensibly and if you can, learn to build your own stuff so that you aren't beholden to the anticonsumer tactics most major computer system integrators (dell, etc.) use to get as much of your money as possible while giving you the least in exchange.

we should globally ban the introduction of more powerful computer hardware for 10-20 years, not as an AI safety thing (though we could frame it as that), but to force programmers to optimize their shit better

[cherryatiny]

𝙏𝙖𝙭𝙞 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙤𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙬 - 𝙅.𝙔𝙃

⩥𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝙩𝙖𝙭𝙞 𝙙𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧!𝙅𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙔𝙪𝙣𝙝𝙤 (𝘼𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙯) 𝙭 𝙛!𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧

⩥𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙧𝙚: 𝙨𝙢𝙪𝙩, 𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙨𝙩, 𝙣𝙤𝙣-𝙞𝙙𝙤𝙡 𝘼𝙐

⩥𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩: 3,0𝙠

⩥𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: 𝘽𝙤𝙩𝙝, 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙤𝙨𝙨'𝙨 𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖 𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠-𝙪𝙥 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙜𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙣 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙖𝙭𝙞-𝙙𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙚

⩥𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠 𝙪𝙥, 𝙖𝙡𝙘𝙤𝙝𝙤𝙡 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙥𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 (𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙄'𝙢 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜), 𝙘𝙖𝙧 𝙨𝙚𝙭, 𝙘𝙡𝙞𝙩 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮, 𝙨𝙞𝙯𝙚 𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙠, 𝙪𝙣𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙭 (𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙞𝙡𝙡), 𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙖 𝙫𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙖, 𝙩𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙮 𝙗𝙪𝙡𝙜𝙚

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

Salty tears already at the brim of eyes, from the harsh words that came out of her bosses mouth. All this only because she submitted a work, one hour later than she was supposed to.

As she sat down at her desk, her head fallen in her palms, trying hard to stop herself from starting to cry. No crying in front of her boss. She can’t show him how his words affected her, how it breaks her when someone doesn’t validate her hard work and shouts at her.

Turning off her PC and arranging her work for the next day, the young girl was prepared to leave work and go home where her loving boyfriend Hyunsoo was waiting, the sound of her phone’s notification stopping her actions.

Picking up her smartphone and opening it with her fingermark, she saw a notification from Hyunsoo, quickly opening it to see what he wanted. If he hadn’t burnt the kitchen while trying to cook, it should be okay. At least that’s what she thought.

HyunHyun: Y/N, let’s break up

HyunHyun: I know it’s lame to announce through a message

HyunHyun: I didn’t want to see you cry, it’ll make me regret my actions

HyunHyun: But I just can’t keep on pretending my feelings for someone, when I lost them a long time ago

HyunHyun: I’ve already taken my belongings from your flat, so you don’t have to bother with it

HyunHyun: I found a girl I’m really happy to be with

HyunHyun: And I hope you’ll also find someone, who’ll be the right one and make you happy

HyunHyun: But it’s not me

HyunHyun: Live a good life, Y/N, you deserve only the best

She couldn’t believe what she just saw. Her now ex-boyfriend broke up with her. Over a text. The incident with her boss already forgotten as tears spilt down her cheeks. Eyes redder than blood, mascara running down her cheeks, and the top of her blouse already soaked from the tears.

This can’t be happening to her, not now, not today. She and Hyunsoo were meant to be, this must be some misunderstanding. She rushed home, only to find an empty flat, no more Hyunsoo’s dirty t-shirts, no sink full of unwashed bowls and plates, only his keys laying on the kitchen counter with a note.

„My keys.

When we run into each other one day, let’s not feel any hatred or malice. My feelings for you were sincere, unfortunately, they disappeared over the years, I still wish you the best.

- HyunHyun“

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

„Like... can you believe what he did, what a jerk. Break up with me through a message? He couldn’t even grow a pair and say it to my face, coward.“

Y/N has been babbling to her friend about her ex for over 2 hours now, still not understanding the fact how could he break up with her over a text.

„Look Y/N, I’m not going to comfort you with those stupid lines like ‘it is not your fault’, ‘it is his loss’, ‘maybe he was not the one’, but maybe just think of this as an opportunity to meet someone better, someone, who will love you and won’t meet other women behind your back.“

„I know, I know Sora, but I just, wasn’t prepared for this, he could have at least say it to my face and not act like he loved me for over three years. Today is really the worst day ever, my boss scolded me for nothing today, then Hyunsoo broke up with me, and now I’m probably going to throw up, from how bad this alcohol taste.“

Y/N sighed and kept playing with the straw in her drink, thinking about how hopeless everything was. She was about to lose her job and now she had no one who will comfort her after a bad day at work.

„Sora let’s go to a club, what do you think? Dance the sorrow away and hook up with some guys. You know, my sex life with Hyunsoo was disastrous, most of the time he couldn’t even get it up, and when he did, he came after a few minutes and left me with no orgasm. Now I’m finally free to get some good dick, without cheating on anyone.“

„Y/N aren’t you a bit tipsy? Let’s do this another day since you’re too drunk and afflicted, I don’t want you to do something stupid, you’ll regret it the next morning. I’ll call you a taxi to take you home, honey.“

Sora picked her phone up and dialled a phone number of a taxi driver, ordering the taxi to come pick up Y/N at the bar.

„The taxi was near, so it'll be here in 5 minutes, get your coat and try to not forget anything.”

As the two girls paid for their drinks, they went outside the bar to wait for the taxi. Autumn breeze caressing their cheeks, with coldness, colourful leaves falling on the path.

Soon after a yellow car with a 'TAXI' written on the side, was nearing the two figures. Sora opened the door, to talk to the taxi driver.

„Hey, um please take my friend Y/N to ***, she's a little bit drunk and afflicted, so if she starts babbling nonsense, don't mind her.”

The taxi driver smiled and nodded in understatement to Sora's words, as she pulled Y/N closer to her, to help her get into the back of the car. Y/N resisted and rather sat at the front

„Bye Y/N, call me when you get home and make yourself some good green tea to flow away the toxins and alcohol. And eat something, you'll get sober faster.”

Y/N waved her hand at her and closed the door, finally sighing and relieving after the hard day.

The car ride was quiet, the driver probably didn't want to make it awkward and force her to talk, since she was probably nauseous, but it had the opposite effect because of the awkward silence. The fact that Y/N couldn't get her eyes off the driver, didn't make it any better.

Dark piercing eyes, focused on the road, as his big, veiny hands with long and slim fingers tapped on the steering wheel. Occasionally twirling it to the right or left. His black hair with middle-part showing off part of his forehead making him even more attractive, if that was possible. She just couldn't take her eyes off the handsome man.

„Uhm, do you want me to turn on the radio or do you wanna talk maybe...?”

„You can talk, I'll just listen.. tell me something about you Mr. taxi driver”

„Well, I don't really have anything to talk about, but if that's what you want, your wish is my command I guess. Uhm... my name is Yunho, and I've been a taxi driver for two years, apart from that, my life is just pretty boring, when I don't work I usually go to the dance studio or am out with my friends, that's all I really don't know what to talk about.”

„Okay if you don't want to talk, then listen pretty boy, this is the worst day of my life, I was the whipping-boy for my boss today and then my boyfriend broke up with me after cheating on me... why did this happen to me? I did nothing wrong in my life, all I did was work hard and this is how society repays me. Can you believe it?”

„Well, look, I’m a single taxi-driver. I have no boss or a partner who’d cheat on me, so I don’t think I can give you any valued advice, but maybe try to be more positive? Think of it as an opportunity, to meet someone better I guess.“

'The sane shit Sora told me' thought Y/N. She lied back on her seat as the car stopped because of a traffic jam. With the alcohol banging in her head, she leaned a bit closer, her hand landing on Yunho’s muscular thigh to stabilize herself. Yunho could feel her hot breath on his neck as she just noiselessly stared at him.

„Y/N ehm.. what are you doing.“

„Just observing you. You know Yunho, you’re much more attractive than my ex, I would swap you two right away.“

„I think you’re too drunk, Y/N. Just wait until we get to the address your friend gave me, I think the traffic jam will go away soon.“

As Yunho said that, Y/N just moved her hand more up his thigh, close to his crotch, her fingertips fiddling with the material of his jeans. His breathing quickening, his legs shaking as he saw the traffic moving, leg accelerating the speed by stepping in the accelerator.

„Y/N-ah... you’re drunk.“

Yunho pulled the car over to the side of the road, in the middle of nothing. No cars, no people. Perfect. His hands fell and gripped her wrists. He knew this wasn't right, she was his customer after all, but he couldn't resist.

„Don’t start what you can’t handle.“

He turned to look at Y/N’s flushed face, leaning closer to her, lips attacking her neck and leaving kitten licks and bites. His hand going up to her thigh, slipping under her skirt, rubbing her clit through the material of her panties.

„Spread your legs for me, baby.“

Yunho pulled his seat down into a horizontal position, tapping his thighs, motioning for Y/N to straddle his lap. Y/N undid her seat-belt and sat on Yunho’s crotch, his bulge getting more and more visible as arousal filled the car.

Yunho let his hand do the magic, as soft and drunk moans left Y/N’s lips. Yunho connecting their lips, his tongue slipping into her mouth to suppress her moans.

As he broke up the connection between their lips a string of saliva dripping down their lips on the seat.

Her hips brushing and grinding on him, the material of his jeans stimulating her clitoris delicately. Leaning in to unzip his leather jacket. Yunho stripped of his t-shirt as Y/N did the same with her dress, leaving her only in her panties and bra, which didn’t last long as Yunho sat and adjusted himself, his chest pressing against her as he unclipped her bra, letting it fall.

„Are you sure you want to-“

„Shut up and kiss me.“

„Oh baby, you’re not the one to give commands.”

His hands wrapped around her, pulling her down to lay on top of him, his lips kissing her hungrily, his hands coming up to grasp her breasts.

„Unzip my pants and fuck yourself on my big cock, as I suck on these pretty tits.“

Y/N clenched on nothing, his dirty words arousing her more than she expected, whimpering and adjusting herself on his much bigger figure. Her fingers unzipped his jeans and pulled them down along with his boxers to his knees. Subconsciously gulping at the sight of his erected cock, certainly the biggest dick she’s ever seen or had in her. How the fuck was it going to fit?

„Impressed? Get to work then. I’m sure your pretty little pussy will take it.“

She grabbed his member and slid it along her lips, wetting his tip with her slick, as she positioned his tip to her entrance. Sinking slowly to let herself adjust to his size, moans and whimpers left her swollen lips.

„Fuck baby, you're taking me so well, so tight and warm.”

Y/N let her hips sink up and down on Yunho's bottom, his hands found their way to cup her breasts. Fondling and caressing them. His fingertips rubbing and pinching her hardened nipples. Hands roaming all over her body, enjoying the view of Y/N fucking herself on his big dick.

Seeing the pleasure in her eyes and feeling the knot creating in his lower stomach, signalizing his climax, his fingers went lower and lower, down to where their bodies were connected, parting her folds which glistened from all the arousal.

His thumb pressing against her clit, Y/N’s walls clenching around Yunho’s length from the unexpected pleasure, sharp inhales were heard as the feeling of his thumb pressing against her nub added to the pleasure of his girthy dick hitting her g-spot. His thumb began to draw circles around her clit, bringing Y/N closer to her orgasm.

Her smaller frame spasming on top of him, hands gripping on the seat under them, juices spilling on his dick as her velvet walls clenched around him.

„Cu-cum in me Yunho, I’m on the pill“ blabbering leaving her lips, as Yunho thrust his hips into hers from below as he released his semen into her hole.

Yunho flipped both of them, so that he was on top, as he looked at her fucked figure, Y/N still breathing heavily from the intense session with him. His lips attaching themself to her neck and collar bones, licking and biting marks on her.

Moans left her lips at Yunho’s dirty words, nodding her head as she looked at the handsome man on top of her, his broad shoulders and muscular chest, covering her frame, feeling so small underneath him. His hands grabbing her legs as he bends them in knees, to help him position himself better in between her legs.

„Fuck, Y/N, you felt so good, I loved the way your tits bounced as you fucked yourself on me, so pretty for me.

Maybe I should be the one to fuck you this time, fuck the cum deep into your cunt, would you like that beautiful?“

„Put your legs on my shoulders.“

Y/N straightened her legs and laid them on his shoulders, Yunho wrapping his hands around them and leaving small kisses on them, going from her ankles up to her thighs. Detaching himself from her legs, he positioned his tip by her pussy, smacking it on her clit, and slipping into her.

Y/N shuddered as his girth stretched her hole, still not used to the feeling, stretching her far beyond what she was used to. Containing her whimpers as Yunho started to slam his hips into her, holding her by her legs to keep her in the place.

She held onto his shoulders, to stabilise herself, so she’s not bouncing too much on the seat, crying out from the position of Yunho’s hips, The angle hitting her g-spot repeatedly. Beads of sweat creating on his exposed forehead, their heavy panting filling the small space of the taxi car.

His eyes diverting down from her beautiful face, the bulge in her stomach catching his attention. Fingers going down to caress and press on it. Loving the way her small body couldn’t even take his dick.

„Aww baby, look at the bulge in your tummy, do you see how your small body can’t take my big dick, so small and fragile, I just want to wreck you and see you break apart on my dick.“

Whimpers leaving her mouth from the sight of the bulge in her stomach, pout forming on her lips, Yunho loved the way her eyes shut tightly.

„Don’t grit your teeth and let those sinful sounds come out, tell me how good I make you feel.“

Only blabbers leaving her mouth as she tried to say something.

„Oh so cute, is my dick making you feel so good that you can’t even say something coherent? Are you going to cum soon, baby?“

„Y-yes ah Yunho.“ Tears spilling out of her shut eyes from the endless thrusts of his hips into her bottom half. Feeling Y/N cum all over him, it took only a few more thrust of his hips to release himself into her, loud grunts falling from his lips.

When they both came down from their climaxes, their breath steadying. Kissing her lips and sitting down to dress himself and then dress Y/N.

„Yunho? Uhm, do you want to come over? You know... to clean yourself and maybe eat something, I’m a pretty good cook.“

„I’d love that, Y/N.“

„Uhm, I-I’ll get you a towel and something to get dressed in, so you can shower while I cook...“

As Yunho dressed her, Y/N sat down on the passenger seat, he pulled his seat up and drove to the final destination which was Y/N’s place.

As Y/N unlocked the door to her quiet and empty apartment, they both stepped in.

„No, either you go shower and I cook, or you shower with me and then we’ll cook together.“

„Shower together it is then.“

Y/N intervened her fingers with Yunho’s as she took him into the shower. Both of them rubbing off the dirt of each other as they laughed and smiled together. The smell of bubblegum and flower shampoo filling the air.

„Y/N stay still as I dry you.“

They both bundled each other into bathrobes soft and fluffy smiles on their faces. Putting on some underwear underneath those bathrobes, the two of them went to the kitchen to cook something to eat. Deciding to make some broccoli pasta with cheese, since broccoli was the only thing in her empty refrigerator.

„Eat Y/N, it’ll help you get sober faster, don’t make me feed you...“

Even though it might not be understandable for some people, the two of them felt like they’ve known each other forever and a day.

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

Y/N rubbed her eyes, quiet snores were coming out of the manly figure laying next to her, his strong arm wrapped around her waist, keeping her close to his bare and warm chest, his face snuggled into the crook of her neck. Maybe Hyunsoo’s idea to break-up with you wasn’t that bad after all...

[mypatchworkreflection]

I'm in my early 40s, for me it would have been a tape player.

Similar situation to the CDs, with the hand written labels, just a bag full of clattering tape cases instead of a tidy book of CDs. I remember in high school, I think freshman year, asking the only goth chick I knew what kind of music she liked because I liked her aesthetic. I didn't have a lot of friends and my parents didn't let me out much, so I had trouble finding music that I liked. She made me a copy of a Type O Negative tape she had, and that was like, life changing. I probably listened to that once or twice a day for months. CDs were around at that point, but it was much harder to make copies or your own mixes, especially if you weren't well off enough to have a good home computer. I think we'd switched over to CDs fully (and gotten a decent PC) around when I was 17..? I still remember handling CDs as if they were precious, delicate things. Then when iPods came out, I desperately wanted one but couldn't afford it for some time. When I finally got my hands on a cheap knock off, it was one of my most treasured possessions. So much music in one little thing! Still could only fit so much, but I remember methodically working through piles of CDs to rip them all to the computer, carefully choosing what music to load to my little player (and always wanting something else that hadn't been able to fit in....) And now I have it all in my phone, and more podcasts saved than I'll ever listen to, and it's still a wonderful thing when I stop and think about it.

What was your first source of portable music? Walkman? CD player with headphones? MP3 Player? iPod? Phone?