#why are train people hard to design

[of-time-and-space-itself]

(chanting growing gradually louder) wheeeres conductor my boy conductor. wheeeres conductor my boy conductor. wheeeeres conductor my boy conductor. wheeeeres conductor my b

Ah...yes.

I knew the day would come where I would have to address the Conductor/Dj Grooves shaped hole in the blog feed.....

Sooo....where do I begin with this one...

Okay, so - something I haven't mentioned too much is the division of the kingdoms. I do plan to make a more in depth post about it, but the basic idea is that some characters are considered people of Time, and the others are people of Space. People of Time are usually more glamorized/dramatic with their outfits, and people of space are more nitty-gritty/neutral/casual with their looks.

I don't know if you can see where this is going, but uh-

The Conductor (and Dj grooves, but that's a topic for another day) is a bit of an interesting case.

Because, you see...The Conductor's design is kinda perfect as is. And I promise you I thought about this A LOT.

I-.......This man has given me a run for my money in the design department. The amount of internal turmoil he has inflicted on me is unreal.

At first I waited for something good to come to me. It didn't

So I thought, 'maybe I'll look at old train conductor outfits and something will click'. Didn't work.

Then I thought, 'steampunk conductor would be pretty cool, right?'. But then, that might be too glamorous for the people of space, so I threw the idea away.

Randomly, mid-plotting, I got struck in the brain by that old Disney choo-choo song thing(and that was like a really repressed memory), I don't fully know what that had to do with The conductor, other than after the fact I kept debating adding stripes to his outfit. na-da.

And all that to say, I got immensely distracted and started thinking about how many coats he has in his closet and if all of them are identical.

And then I think I realized(after I made this doodle), that my brain was slowly rotting and I wasn't getting anywhere. I find myself thinking that his core design is just perfect, I can't seem to think of anything unique or interesting that wouldn't over-exaggerate him.

If anyone has any ideas-

PLEASE. PLEASE TELL ME. IT HURTS SO MUCH, PLEASE-

The Conductor is currently in development hell, so you won't be seeing him for a little while.

Sorry. :(

[flyzzle]

The Miraculous leaders and their understudies? Teehee Scarabella and Kitty noire. I love to see people's ideas of Marinette training Alya to be the next guardian/ladybug if needed but I also like to include Adrien because yeah im one of those people <\3 The Adrien and Zoe friendship is under explored... Although Zoe as a character in the show is under explored so I get why it's hard to imagine her interacting with people. I just think the whole kitty noire thing was cool and I like kwami swaps. Was it too controversial to make Scarabellas hair black? Also pls appreciate me trying to do hero suit designs i struggle sooo hard with costumes I'm way better at normal clothes JSJJS

[returntosunder]

So, kinds nervous posting this for some reason, but I've been wantin to make my own interpretation of some different aus, but i wanted to do Ink first.

Sorry if it's not as creative as how some people design them, but i feel happy with how he came out

Some close ups and info under the cut

I have a hard time explaining my train of thoughts, so if it doesn't make sense I'm sorry I'm trying my best T-T

I was kinda inspired by the kidcore aesthetic and I wanted him to have a lot of saturated colors and paint smeared all over the place, just colorful chaos... I was also inspired by Sherbet ice cream. Don ask why idk it just came into mind while coloring :/

I didn't want to stray too far from their original outfit, but I just made alterations to fit my style a bit more and made it have some more round shapes. I also had a theme of stars and hearts in the outfit. The stars is somthin all the star sanses are gonna have as a theme (obviously), but the hearts is just in reference to his lack of having a soul.

They also have some stickers they stick on broomy that id like to think others gifted them. Same goes with the bracelets, he gets them as gifts from others and likes to traid some of them (I'm kinda projecting here lol). He's also got paint in his fingers cause I'd like to think that he finger paints a lot on random blank surfaces, especially blank white surfaces (again, projecting here)

Overall, its not much of a difference, and it's more of a self-indulgent thing i wanted to try. I hope that people can enjoy this as much as I enjoyed drawing it :)

Im planning on doing both Dream and Nightmare next <3

Ink!sans belongs to @comyet

[romerona]

Ethera Operation!!

You're the government’s best hacker, but that doesn’t mean you were prepared to be thrown into a fighter jet.

Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Awkward!Hacker! FemReader

Part I

This was never supposed to happen. Your role in this operation was simple—deliver the program, ensure it reached the right hands, and let the professionals handle the breaching.

And then, of course, reality decided to light that plan on fire.

The program—codenamed Ethera—was yours. You built it from scratch with encryption so advanced that even the most elite cyber operatives couldn’t crack it without your input. A next-generation adaptive, self-learning decryption software, an intrusion system designed to override and manipulate high-security military networks, Ethera was intended to be both a weapon and a shield, capable of infiltrating enemy systems while protecting your own from counterattacks in real-time. A ghost in the machine. A digital predator. A weapon in the form of pure code. If it fell into the wrong hands, it could disable fleets, and ground aircraft, and turn classified intelligence into an open book. Governments would kill for it. Nations could fall because of it.

Not that you ever meant to, of course. It started as a little experimental security measure program, something to protect high-level data from cyberattacks, not become the ultimate hacking tool. But innovation has a funny way of attracting the wrong kind of attention, and before you knew it, Ethera had become one, if not the most classified, high-risk program in modern times. Tier One asset or so the Secret Service called it.

It was too powerful, too dangerous—so secret that only a select few even knew of its existence, and even fewer could comprehend how it worked.

And therein lay the problem. You were the only person who could properly operate it.

Which was so unfair.

Because it wasn’t supposed to be your problem. You were just the creator, the brain behind the code, the one who spent way too many sleepless nights debugging this monstrosity. Your job was supposed to end at development. But no. Now, because of some bureaucratic nonsense and the fact that no one else could run it without accidentally bricking an entire system, you had been promoted—scratch that, forcibly conscripted—into field duty.

And your mission? To install it in an enemy satellite.

A literal, orbiting, high-security, military-grade satellite, may you add.

God. Why? Why was your country always at war with others? Why couldn’t world leaders just, you know, go to therapy like normal people? Why did everything have to escalate to international cyber warfare?

Which is how you ended up here.

At Top Gun. The last place in the world you wanted to be.

You weren’t built for this. You thrive in sipping coffee in a cosy little office and handling cyber threats from a safe, grounded location. You weren’t meant to be standing in the halls of an elite fighter pilot training program, surrounded by the best aviators in the world—people who thought breaking the sound barrier was a casual Wednesday.

It wasn’t the high-tech cyberwarfare department of the Pentagon, nor some dimly lit black ops facility where hackers in hoodies clacked away at keyboards. No. It was Top Gun. A place where pilots use G-forces like a personal amusement park ride.

You weren’t a soldier, you weren’t a spy, you got queasy in elevators, you got dizzy when you stood too fast, hell, you weren’t even good at keeping your phone screen from cracking.

... And now you were sweating.

You swallowed hard as Admiral Solomon "Warlock" Bates led you through the halls of the naval base, your heels clacking on the polished floors as you wiped your forehead. You're nervous, too damn nervous and this damned weather did not help.

"Relax, Miss," Warlock muttered in that calm, authoritative way of his. "They're just pilots."

Just pilots.

Right. And a nuclear warhead was just a firework.

And now, somehow, you were supposed to explain—loosely explain, because God help you, the full details were above even their clearance level—how Ethera, your elegant, lethal, unstoppable digital masterpiece, was about to be injected into an enemy satellite as part of a classified mission.

This was going to be a disaster.

You had barely made it through the doors of the briefing room when you felt it—every single eye in the room locking onto you.

It wasn’t just the number of them that got you, it was the intensity. These were Top Gun pilots, the best of the best, and they radiated the kind of confidence you could only dream of having. Meanwhile, you felt like a stray kitten wandering into a lion’s den.

Your hands tightened around the tablet clutched to your chest. It was your lifeline, holding every critical detail of Ethera, the program that had dragged you into this utterly ridiculous situation. If you could’ve melted into the walls, you absolutely would have. But there was no escaping this.

You just had to keep it together long enough to survive this briefing.

So, you inhaled deeply, squared your shoulders, and forced your heels forward, trying to project confidence—chin up, back straight, eyes locked onto Vice Admiral Beau "Cyclone" Simpson, who you’d been introduced to earlier that day.

And then, of course, you dropped the damn tablet.

Not a graceful drop. Not the kind of gentle slip where you could scoop it back up and act like nothing happened. No, this was a full-on, physics-defying fumble. The tablet flipped out of your arms, ricocheted off your knee, and skidded across the floor to the feet of one of the pilots.

Silence.

Pure, excruciating silence.

You didn’t even have the nerve to look up right away, too busy contemplating whether it was physically possible to disintegrate on command. But when you finally did glance up—because, you know, social convention demanded it—you were met with a sight that somehow made this entire disaster worse.

Because the person crouching down to pick up your poor, abused tablet was freaking hot.

Tall, broad-shouldered, with a head of golden curls that practically begged to be tousled by the wind, and, oh, yeah—a moustache that somehow worked way too well on him.

He turned the tablet over in his hands, inspecting it with an amused little smirk before handing it over to you. "You, uh… need this?"

Oh, great. His voice is hot too.

You grabbed it back, praying he couldn't see how your hands were shaking. “Nope. Just thought I’d test gravity real quick.”

A few chuckles rippled through the room, and his smirk deepened like he was enjoying this way too much. You, on the other hand, wanted to launch yourself into the sun.

With what little dignity you had left, you forced a quick, tight-lipped smile at him before turning on your heel and continuing forward, clutching your tablet like it was a life raft in the middle of the worst social shipwreck imaginable.

At the front of the room, Vice Admiral Beau Cyclone Simpson stood with the kind of posture that said he had zero time for nonsense, waiting for the room to settle. You barely had time to take a deep breath before his voice cut through the air.

“Alright, listen up.” His tone was crisp, commanding, and impossible to ignore. “This is Dr Y/N L/N. Everything she is about to tell you is highly classified. What you hear in this briefing does not leave this room. Understood?”

A chorus of nods. "Yes, sir."

You barely resisted the urge to physically cringe as every pilot in the room turned to stare at you—some with confusion, others with barely concealed amusement, and a few with the sharp assessing glances of people who had no clue what they were supposed to do with you.

You cleared your throat, squared your shoulders, and did your best to channel even an ounce of the confidence you usually had when you were coding at 3 AM in a secure, pilot-free lab—where the only judgment you faced was from coffee cups and the occasional system error.

As you reached the podium, you forced what you hoped was a composed smile. “Uh… hi, nice to meet you all.”

Solid. Real professional.

You glanced up just long enough to take in the mix of expressions in the room—some mildly interested, some unreadable, and one particular moustached pilot who still had the faintest trace of amusement on his face.

Nope. Not looking at him.

You exhaled slowly, centering yourself. Stay focused. Stay professional. You weren’t just here because of Ethera—you were Ethera. The only one who truly understood it. The only one who could execute this mission.

With another tap on your tablet, the slide shifted to a blacked-out, redacted briefing—only the necessary information was visible. A sleek 3D-rendered model of the enemy satellite appeared on the screen, rotating slowly. Most of its details were blurred or omitted entirely.

“This is Blackstar, a highly classified enemy satellite that has been operating in a low-Earth orbit over restricted airspace.” Your voice remained even, and steady, but the weight of what you were revealing sent a shiver down your spine. “Its existence has remained off the radar—literally and figuratively—until recently, when intelligence confirmed that it has been intercepting our encrypted communications, rerouting information, altering intelligence, and in some cases—fabricating entire communications.”

Someone exhaled sharply. Another shifted in their seat.

“So they’re feeding us bad intel?” one of them with big glasses and blonde hair asked, voice sceptical but sharp.

“That’s the theory,” you confirmed. “And given how quickly our ops have been compromised recently, it’s working.”

You tapped again, shifting to the next slide. The silent infiltration diagram appeared—an intricate web of glowing red lines showing Etherea’s integration process, slowly wrapping around the satellite’s systems like a virus embedding itself into a host.

“This is where Ethera comes in,” you said, shifting to a slide that displayed a cascading string of code, flickering across the screen. “Unlike traditional cyberweapons, Ethera doesn’t just break into a system. It integrates—restructuring security protocols as if it was always meant to be there. It’s undetectable, untraceable, and once inside, it grants us complete control of the Blackstar and won’t even register it as a breach.”

“So we’re not just hacking it," The only female pilot of the team said, arms crossed as she studied the data. “We’re hijacking it.”

“Exactly,” You nodded with a grin.

You switched to the next slide—a detailed radar map displaying the satellite’s location over international waters.

“This is the target area,” you continued after a deep breath. “It’s flying low-altitude reconnaissance patterns, which means it’s using ground relays for some of its communication. That gives us a small window to infiltrate and shut it down.”

The next slide appeared—a pair of unidentified fighter aircraft, patrolling the vicinity.

“And this is the problem,” you said grimly. “This satellite isn’t unguarded.”

A murmur rippled through the room as the pilots took in the fifth-generation stealth fighters displayed on the screen.

“We don’t know who they belong to,” you admitted. “What we do know is that they’re operating with highly classified tech—possibly experimental—and have been seen running defence patterns around the satellite’s flight path.”

Cyclone stepped forward then, arms crossed, his voice sharp and authoritative. “Which means your job is twofold. You will escort Dr L/N’s aircraft to the infiltration zone, ensuring Ethera is successfully deployed. If we are engaged, your priority remains protecting the package and ensuring a safe return.”

Oh, fantastic, you could not only feel your heartbeat in your toes, you were now officially the package.

You cleared your throat, tapping the screen again. Ethera’s interface expanded, displaying a cascade of sleek code.

“Once I’m in range,” you continued, “Ethera will lock onto the satellite’s frequency and begin infiltration. From that point, it’ll take approximately fifty-eight seconds to bypass security and assume control."

Silence settled over the room like a thick cloud, the weight of their stares pressing down on you. You could feel them analyzing, calculating, probably questioning who in their right mind thought putting you—a hacker, a tech specialist, someone whose idea of adrenaline was passing cars on the highway—into a fighter jet was a good idea.

Finally, one of the pilots—tall, broad-shouldered, blonde, and very clearly one of the cocky ones—tilted his head, arms crossed over his chest in a way that screamed too much confidence.

“So, let me get this straight.” His voice was smooth, and confident, with just the right amount of teasing. “You, Doctor—our very classified, very important tech specialist—have to be in the air, in a plane, during a mission that has a high probability of turning into a dogfight… just so you can press a button?”

Your stomach twisted at the mention of being airborne.

“Well…” You gulped, very much aware of how absolutely insane this sounded when put like that. “It’s… more than just that, but, yeah, essentially.”

A slow grin spread across his face, far too entertained by your predicament.

“Oh,” he drawled, “this is gonna be fun.”

Before you could fully process how much you already hated this, Cyclone—who had been watching the exchange with his signature unamused glare—stepped forward, cutting through the tension with his sharp, no-nonsense voice.

“This is a classified operation,” he stated, sharp and authoritative. “Not a joyride.”

The blonde’s smirk faded slightly as he straightened, and the rest of the pilots quickly fell in line.

Silence lingered for a moment longer before Vice Admiral Beau Cyclone Simpson let out a slow breath and straightened. His sharp gaze swept over the room before he nodded once.

“All right. That’s enough.” His tone was firm, the kind that left no room for argument. “We’ve got work to do. The mission will take place in a few weeks' time, once we’ve run full assessments, completed necessary preparations, and designated a lead for this operation.”

There was a slight shift in the room. Some of the pilots exchanged glances, the weight of the upcoming mission finally settling in. Others, mainly the cocky ones, looked as though they were already imagining themselves in the cockpit.

“Dismissed,” Cyclone finished.

The pilots stood, murmuring amongst themselves as they filed out of the room, the blonde one still wearing a smug grin as he passed you making you frown and turn away, your gaze then briefly met the eyes of the moustached pilot.

You hadn’t meant to look, but the moment your eyes connected, something flickered in his expression. Amusement? Curiosity? You weren’t sure, and frankly, you didn’t want to know.

So you did the only logical thing and immediately looked away and turned to gather your things. You needed to get out of here, to find some space to breathe before your brain short-circuited from stress—

“Doctor, Stay for a moment.”

You tightened your grip on your tablet and turned back to Cyclone, who was watching you with that unreadable, vaguely disapproving expression that all high-ranking officers seemed to have perfected. “Uh… yes, sir?”

Once the last pilot was out the door, Cyclone exhaled sharply and crossed his arms.

“You realize,” he said, “that you’re going to have to actually fly, correct?”

You swallowed. “I—well, technically, I’ll just be a passenger.”

His stare didn’t waver.

“Doctor,” he said, tone flat, “I’ve read your file. I know you requested to be driven here instead of taking a military transport plane. You also took a ferry across the bay instead of a helicopter. And I know that you chose to work remotely for three years to avoid getting on a plane.”

You felt heat rise to your cheeks. “That… could mean anything.”

“It means you do not like flying, am I correct?”

Your fingers tightened around the tablet as you tried to find a way—any way—out of this. “Sir, with all due respect, I don’t need to fly the plane. I just need to be in it long enough to deploy Ethera—”

Cyclone cut you off with a sharp look. “And what happens if something goes wrong, Doctor? If the aircraft takes damage? If you have to eject mid-flight? If you lose comms and have to rely on emergency protocols?”

You swallowed hard, your stomach twisting at the very thought of ejecting from a jet.

Cyclone sighed, rubbing his temple as if this entire conversation was giving him a migraine. “We cannot afford to have you panicking mid-mission. If this is going to work, you need to be prepared. That’s why, starting next week you will train with the pilots on aerial procedures and undergoing mandatory training in our flight simulation program.”

Your stomach dropped. “I—wait, what? That’s not necessary—”

“It’s absolutely necessary,” Cyclone cut in, his tone sharp. “If you can’t handle a simulated flight, you become a liability—not just to yourself, but to the pilots escorting you. And in case I need to remind you, Doctor, this mission is classified at the highest level. If you panic mid-air, it won’t just be your life at risk. It’ll be theirs. And it’ll be national security at stake.”

You inhaled sharply. No pressure. None at all.

Cyclone watched you for a moment before speaking again, his tone slightly softer but still firm. “You’re the only one who can do this, Doctor. That means you need to be ready.”

You exhaled slowly, pressing your lips together before nodding stiffly. “Understood, sir.”

Cyclone gave a small nod of approval. “Good. Dismissed.”

You turned and walked out, shoulders tense, fully aware that in three days' time, you were going to be strapped into a high-speed, fighter jet. And knowing your luck?

You were definitely going to puke.

Part 2???

[lezbians]

i have so much beef with she-ra and the princesses of power cause it's a good premise just not well written at all

[10yrsyart]

a long tf sketchdump i started after watching Transformers One last year, which was great btw! (also Soundwave is one of my faves but he somehow didn't make it into this, RIP my guy 🥺 to be fair, most of these are the beginnings of ideas that don't reach conclusion so -shrug-)

also also, i watched TFA for the first time, and i CANNOT believe they really just squished my boy Blurr into a cube while still alive and left him like that 😤 i know the show got cancelled and they had plans to bring him back, but like, hotdang! SO of course i decided to slap some claustrophobia on that sucker. y'know, as a treat ✨

transcript:

(Chitty Chitty Bang Bang design) -Neutral non-combatant

-Came to Earth early, joined the races

-Lost most of her memories after the Crash

-Forgot to act non-sentient around the family who adopted her

(Wander Over Yonder designs)

Hatertron: UgggHH! That STUPID, orange Autobug, GAH, I could just wring his ne-

Peeperscream: SIR!! FOCUS!

-Wander is a Neutral Autobot sympathizer

-Sylvia is an Autobot, but protective of Wander

-Hater messes up so many plans, Peepers is the only reason Megatron hasn't figured it out

-Peepers admires Starscream's intellect, but avoids him at all costs

(TFA comic)

Rodimus Prime: Uhm, Agent Blurr? ..You good?

Agent Blurr: Rodimus-Prime-sir! There's-nothing-wrong, why-would-anything-be-wrong? This-is-a-party; a-celebration-for-the-Autobots'-GRAND-victory-over-Megatron, which-we're-all-overjoyed-about-so-there's-really-no-reason-to-be-worried-about-the-amount-of-mechs-and-femmes-in-this-room-of-which-there-is-a-perfectly-normal-number-for-a-celebration, and-it's-not-as-if-we've-reached-max-capacity-so-I'm-SURE-the-space-is-NOT-too-small-even-if-the-walls-are-getting-closer-and-closer-and-no-one-seems-to-care-that-it's-too-small-in-here-and-can't-vent-I-can't-I-I-c-I-ca-

Rodimus: Whoa, hey! Ok, ok, let's go outside for a bit, yeah? I'm tired of people asking it I'm “still infected” anyway... Like, obviously. It's Cosmic Rust.

Blurr: ...This-is-humiliating, completely-pathetic-behavior. I-am-a-professionally-trained-intelligence-agent-of-the-Elite-Guard, THEREfore-I-should-not-be-losing-my-composure-whenever-I-enter-a-room. But-I-begin-to-feel-trapped-and-I-I-I-I-can't-...

Rodimus: ..Yeah. Sometimes, I just- freeze. It feels like ice is crawling up my arms and legs and chasiss.. it hurts. I mean, I know it's not happening, but that's how I feel. It sucks. But we made it, we survived. It's still hard, but there's gotta be something to that, right? The effort and struggle is worth it, or whatever.

Blurr: With-all-due-respect, I'm-quite-sure-you-are-terrible-at-this-sir.

Rodimus: Dang. Alright, fine, that's fair. But do you feel better?

Blurr: Marginally, thank-you-Rodimus-Prime.

[milkingtonthethird]

BATBOYS’ reaction to you asking to paint their nails

WARNINGS: fluff, gn!reader, but you wear nail polish

NOTE: DUKE IS HERE. EVERYONE SAY HI DUKE

Bruce Wayne:

- You’re doing your own nails when he walks in.

- Clearly you’re bored, or something, because he can easily pay to get them done professionally.

- He approaches you, gently lifting your hand to inspect.

- “Pretty,” he murmurs, followed by a kiss to your knuckle.

- You grin. “Can I do yours?”

- He considers, even though there’s already a denial on the tip of his tongue. But, it doesn’t come out, because you look really excited at the thought.

- He agrees. And it’s lame.

- A clear top coat. That’s all he’ll let you do.

- Bruce Wayne can’t be seen with sparkles on his hands, even if he doesn’t care what the media thinks.

- He believes it’s too feminine for him.

- They’d probably be chipped immediately given how handsy his nighttime life is, anyway.

- Still, it’s something—you’ll take what you can get.

- He actually comes to you every few days so he’s able to keep it on.

- He does try on black at some point. It looks odd on his large, calloused hands. That’s just him, though.

- The top coat is too unnoticeable for anyone to comment, but his kids are smart, observant.

- “Why are your nails shiny?”

- “Because it makes them happy.”

Dick Grayson:

- He really likes watching you do your nails and is very satisfied when you do a color he recommends.

- Said color most of the time is blue.

- You’re waiting for the polish to dry when you ask, “You want me to do yours?”

- Grayson is open-minded, but he’s also utterly in love with you, so obviously he agrees.

- You’d both have black on your thumbs and pinkies, with that iconic vivid blue on the rest.

- Unfortunately, colliding his fist into jaws and his training does get in the way of keeping them nice.

- Which means he gets spoiled with your attention even more as you fix them. Yay!

- He’s lowkey cocky when he takes down criminals with it on.

- “LOL I just kicked your ass with nail polish my partner put on” ahh mf.

- He’s incredibly defensive if anyone teases him.

- They’re basically insulting you, too.

- They eventually stop because he’s dead serious.

Jason Todd:

- “You look better with it,” he would say upon the offer.

- But he’s equally bored. He’ll agree.

- Black. Pure black. Black hole black.

- He’d make an edgy comment about how it’s his “soul” or whatever.

- He actually kind of likes it. It fits his aesthetic.

- Beats people a little harder if they happen to chip it.

- He’ll let you add a small, red matching heart on a finger.

- Preferably middle. It’s his favorite one.

- He would make snide comments when he’s fighting.

- “They did my nails so pretty, don’t you think?” (Morseo his “fingerless gloves” era.)

- Not that they’d notice. His knuckles are being too personal with their face.

- He’d be like Dick. Why is simple nail polish just so fuckin’ funny?

Tim Drake:

- He won’t necessarily be interested in polish, but rather small designs.

- Like a little flower, or a heart.

- Super simplistic stuff that has him smile when he looks at it.

- You did, as cheesy as it is, a Red Robin one time.

- May or may not have taken forever.

- He’s genuinely sad if they get ruined. You worked hard on them.

- He’d probably apologize because clearly it’s his fault—heavy sarcasm, by the way.

- You remind him that it gives you an opportunity to do more.

- He probably would ignore whomever made comments that weren’t compliments until they apologize.

- He hasn’t talked to Jason in a while.

Damian Wayne:

- “Don’t you have your own nails?”

- You’ll offer to bathe Titus for the rest of the year, and suddenly he’s sitting on your floor while you put a tacky hot pink on him.

- He lets you do whatever, because he doesn’t keep it long. He’s just not into it.

- But if he isn’t doing anything, he won’t take it off until he has to.

- Him texting Jon about how stupid he is with cunty ass nails.

- No one finds out. It’s his little secret.

- And then Bruce forgets to knock one time during a session.

- “Father,” he greets flatly, not looking up.

- You’ve never seen the Batman so…confused.

Duke Thomas:

- He’d be in the same boat as Tim—simple designs.

- Ones that make something with both of your nails together. Like a heart.

- He let you do acrylics one time for shits and giggles.

- “How do people…do things?”

- He’s been trying to open a can of soda for the past ten minutes.

- He keeps the designs absolutely pristine, somehow.

- He’d avoid doing certain things, but he also has crazy luck.

- He’ll bring you new ideas.

- He wears it with pride in public.

- If anyone brings it up in a mocking manner, he’d say, “I think you’re mad because you’re single and I’m not.”

- The time Jason did it, he’d sulk, because Duke’s right. He is mad.

doing their makeup

[wosospacegirl]

Sweet girl - Alessia Russo (+18)

Summary: Request-> Alessia and Y/n have a quicky in the morning after an argument and Alessia is late for training. Good thing Y/n has a motorcycle.

Warnings: +18!!!; smut; little bit of angst (happy ending); fingering alessia receiving.

Word count: 2.8k

MASTERLIST

..

Alessia was the sweetest girl you could ever meet in your life. She was caring, kind and gentle; sometimes she was too kind to people who didn't deserve it. Everyone who met Alessia fell in love with her right away, that’s how joyful she was.

Y/n often used the words ‘soft’ and ‘tender’ to describe Alessia’s personality as well. Sadly for Y/n, none of these qualities were shining through in her girlfriend at the moment.

Alessia’s week had been a mess– two days of splitting headaches, her period had ended days ago but she still felt bloated and sensitive. All of this affected her training, and therefore her performance in Arsenal's last game. As a result, the team lost 2-1 to Liverpool.

Y/n tried very hard to explain to Alessia that the defeat was caused by the whole team, not just her, but she was upset and wouldn’t listen. Whether Arsenal won or lost, it was never the fault of one player. Alessia knew this, of course, but she was upset nonetheless.

It was one of those days when frustration would linger around her and no one could take Alessia away from it. The match had been three days ago, but she was still upset about it, and an upset Alessia was rude Alessia.

“I just don't understand why you didn't buy the eggs when I asked you to!” Alessia said, slamming the fridge door. “You always forget to buy the groceries, and then I'm late for training because there's nothing to eat!”

Alessia was standing in the middle of the kitchen, wearing Arsenal’s training kit, her blonde hair was down her back, and she had a hair tie on her wrist. She had to be at practice soon, and it looked like that was Y/n’s problem, too.

Y/n listened to Alessia’s complaints as she sipped her morning coffee, sketchbook in hand, drawing tattoo designs for a client.

Y/n prided herself on being a decent girlfriend– she tried to look after Alessia as best as she could. The couple had been together for two years, so Y/n had been by Alessia’s side through a series of injuries, wins and losses.

It was hard to be an athlete's partner; their life was always full of adrenaline, and they were always busy with national and international chronograms.

Alessia was very mindful, considering she wasn’t dating someone from the football world, but unfortunately, when Alessia was frustrated, she seemed to forget that Y/n had a real life outside of being her girlfriend.

Y/n was a tattoo artist. She had opened her own tattoo studio in a corner of North London years ago. Alessia and Y/n had met after the player came into the shop wanting a tattoo on her feet; after their meet-cute, they’d become inseparable.

Y/n took a sip of the black coffee, the rich and bitter aroma filling her nose. Coffee always helped to calm her down, and she certainly needed to be calm, as it was early in the morning and Alessia was looking for a reason to argue.

Y/n sighed and put down the cup in her hand. “Baby, you were the one who had the car this week.” 8 am, it was 8 am and they were talking about fucking eggs. “And Lamar got sick, so I had to take in his clients.”

“I know, but I had a lot going on so I asked you to pick the eggs up,” Alessia said, clenching fists resting on either side of her body.

“And I said I couldn't because I was overbooked with customers, love.” Y/n leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. “How about I make you a fruit salad? We have strawberries and blueberries; I can make you something to eat.”

“I don't want fruit, I want an omelette! I always have an omelette in the morning. Alessia groaned and rolled her eyes. Am I supposed to keep up during training today?”

“Alessia, come on, baby–”

“No! This whole week had been shitty and you’re not even helping me!” Alessia continued to carpet.

And that made it for Y/n.

Y/n stood up. “Room, now.” Was all she said before disappearing into the hallway next to the kitchen.

The girl opened the bedroom door and sat down at the end of the bed with her legs spread open. She heard footsteps in the hallway and soon after Alessia entered the room.

“Come here,” Y/n beckoned to Alessia.

“You haven’t been very nice to me the last few days, have you?”

“No” Alessia shook her head.

“And why is that?” Y/n asked. “Look at me, sweet, I'm talking to you.”

“Sorry. I told you I haven’t had a good week,” she mumbled, playing with her hand. Embarrassment radiating from her.

“I understand you’ve had a bad week, what I don't understand is why you’re going out of your way to make sureneither of us can have a good day today.”

Y/n had always been a very straightforward person. She didn't like drama or didn't like unnecessary arguments. If she could fix something, she would. Since Y/n had earned the autonomy to do whatever she wanted in life she focused on opening her tattoo shop.

At the moment, Skin Deep Studio was her pride and joy. Y/n treated the studio with respect and expected Alessia to do the same, just as she did with Alessia’s career.

“I told you I had clients from 9 am to 9 pm, didn't I?” Y/n continued, her eyes fixed on Alessia. “Did you expect me to cancel on them? Especially knowing that they were booked months ago?”

Alessia listened to Y/n, tears slowly forming in her eyes. “You told me you had clients. I’m sorry.”

“You weren’t being very considerate with me,” Y/n explained reassuringly. “You know it’s not fair to ask me to drop everything to go out and do something you want me to do, I’m busy too.”

Y/n wiped a tear from Alessia’s cheek, “I'm just very stressed with everything,” Alessia cried.

The footballer put her legs on Y/n’s lap and rested her head on Y/n’s shoulder.

“There's this big game this week and I can't seem to play it right.” She continued. “But I shouldn't be mean to you just because I'm stressed. I'm very sorry.”

“It's okay, sweetheart,” Y/n said, hugging Alessia's body. “Just talk to me next time, yeah? You always talk to me. I don't know why you didn't this time.”

“I don't know either,” Alessia admitted, breathing in and out slowly, she was calming down bit by bit.

Y/n kissed her cheek, feeling the saltiness of Alessia’s tears on her lips. “It’s alright, just breathe…f do you feel better now?”

Alessia smiled shyly and nodded her head. “Thank you, I love you,” Alessia said before kissing Y/n's mouth.

The kiss was gentle at first, but it quickly became intense.

Alessia slid her tongue into Y/n's mouth. Her hands were on Y/n's shoulder, trying to balance herself while the other girl put her hands on Alessia's lower back, trying to pull Alessia closer.

“I missed kissing you like this,” Alessia said, placing soft kisses on Y/n's neck. “I missed it a lot.

Y/n squeezed Alessia’s hips. “If you hadn’t been so moody this week, we could have kissed a lot sooner.” Y/n said teasingly, holding Alessia’s hips so that she was straddling her.

“Sorry,” Alessia whispered, slowly beginning to grind herself against Y/n's black trousers.

“Is that why you were so grumpy too? You wanted some kisses and didn't know how to ask for them?” Y/n asked, scratching Alessia’s back.

“I think so,” Alessia agreed, rubbing harder, trying to create some friction.

Y/n cupped Alessia's cheek and kissed hard, tugging at the girl's shorts.

“Take them off,” Y/n said against Alessia’s mouth.

“We can't love, I have training” Alessia whispered, still moving her body against Y/n. “And I'm already late.”

“I’ll be quick, just wanna make you cum,”

Alessia blushed deeply. She was always very shy with dirty talk, So Y/n always lowered it down as much as she could.

“Come on, get up,” Y/n tapped her body, urging the girl to stand up, and she did.

Alessia stood in front of Y/n, who quickly pulled her shorts down. The blonde girl was now standing in only her underwear and Arsenal t-shirt.

What a sight.

“So pretty,” Y/n murmured, kissing Alessia's chin, then her cheeks and finally pressing her lip to her mouth. “I want you to ride my fingers, do you think you can do that? Be quick?

“Yes,” Alessia moaned.

Y/n slipped one finger inside Alessia’s soaked underwear “You're gonna cum real nice because you are already so wet, baby,” Y/n said as she sat further away from the bed, to give Alessia more room to get into position.

Alessia already knew what she had to do. She placed her knees on the mattress, each one next to Y/n’s body. The blonde met Y/n's lips and moaned into her mouth as Y/n pulled her underwear aside and gently played with her clit.

“I’m gonna put them in, yeah?” Y/n said, gently playing with Alessia’s hole before penetrating her with two fingers. “Feels nice?”

Alessia purred in her ear, telling her all she needed to know.

“Ride my fingers, baby,” Y/n told Alessia, easing the girl down until her fingers were properly buried inside her pussy.

“Like that, just like that,” Alessia moaned, sinking deeper and deeper into Y/n’s fingers.

Y/n loved watching Alessia being fucked. She was always so sweet when she wanted to cum, so good. Knowing she was the one doing it made her chest rise with pride. She was the only one to touch this pretty girl, the one responsible for her sweet sounds. They shared another kiss, this one was messier, and Alessia was getting eager.

“I need you to cum, love” Y/n whispered to Alessia, pushing her hips down and dictating the pace. “Or else we’ll be late.”

“Al-almost,” Alessia whispered with her eyes closed.

“Yeah? My love is going to make a mess on my fingers just before she has to go to play?” Y/n said teasingly, sucking on Alessia’s neck, but not enough to leave a mark behind. “Come on, let go for me.”

Alessia leaned forward as she came, losing control of her torso; her lips brushing Y/n’s ear. Alessia wasn’t vocal when she came, instead, she was silent, her mouth remaining open for a few seconds as her body trembled with bliss.

Y/n tenderly ran her fingers through Alessia’s blonde hair with her free hand, letting her come down on her own without rushing.

“I’m gonna take them out, okay baby?”

Alessia nodded, resting her head on Y/n’s shoulder as the girl lifted her hips. Y/n pulled her fingers out of Alessia’s warmth and cleaned them against the blanket on the bed.

“Wow, I’m very dizzy,” Alessia breathed, shifting her body and cradling Y/n.

Y/n chuckled, and kissed her cheeks “Is that because of the orgasm or because you haven’t had your omelette yet, huh?”

Alessia nudged Y/n, a shy smile in her eyes. “Stop it, I’m not the same person I was ten minutes ago.”

“Of course, you aren’t,” Y/n hugged Alessia. “My sweet girlfriend is back, now.”

Y/n playfully peppered Alessias’s face with kisses while the girl giggled, squirming against Y/n’s body whenever Y/n kissed a particularly ticklish part of her.

“Okay, okay,” Y/n said, planting another kiss on Alessia’s chin. “I’ll get you cleaned up and I’ll drop you off at training on my way to the tattoo studio, how does that sound?”

Alessia’s eyes widened. She had completely forgotten about training, too absorbed in the bubble of love they had created.

“Bloody hell, I'm going to be so late,” Alessia gasped, as she broke free of Y/n’s grip and ran to her bathroom, Y/n was close behind.

When Y/n got to the bathroom, Alessia was in front of the mirror trying to fix her hair so she didn’t look like she’d had sex with her girlfriend when she should have been at work.

“Renée’s gonna make me do suicide drills just for the fun of it.” The blonde complained, pulling her hair into a messy ponytail. “She hates it when one of us is late– do you think that’s a Dutch thing?”

“Probably, they do enjoy punctuality in the Netherlands,” Y/n said, handing Alessia’s short back. The girl put it on quickly and started brushing her teeth. Y/n gently pushed Alessia to the side so that she could use the sink too.

“Okay, I think I'm good,” Alessia said more to herself, looking at her reflection in the mirror and fixing an unruly strand of hair. “What do you think? Do I look like a mess?”

She and Y/n made eye contact through the mirror. “You look pretty,” Y/n said with a grin, making Alessia blush. “Now let’s go, I'm gonna get our helmets.”

Alessia stopped in her tracks. “Helmets? What do you mean? We’re using my car today.”

“Nope, we’re using the motorcycle.” Y/n pushed Alessia gently out of the bathroom, closing the door behind them.

“No, we aren't,” Alessia stated, turning around to look at Y/n.

Alessia wasn’t terrified of Y/n’s motorcycle, she genuinely thought it was cool. She just didn't like being the one to ride it.

“Baby, you have to be at Arsenal in…” Y/n looked at her watch, “...six minutes, do you think London’s traffic will allow that?”

Alessia thought for a moment, arms crossed. “ Hmph. Alright,. Well, I don’t have much choice,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Whatever, let’s go,” she added, grabbing her training bag while Y/n picked up the helmets.

“I won’t go too fast,” Y/n said, putting an arm around Alessia’s waist as they walked out the door. “Just enough to get you there in time without Renée biting your head off.”

“You know I need to breathe to ride, right?” Y/n said as they rode through the streets on London, rain pouring down on their riding jackets. Yes, her riding jackets because Y/n had bought one for Alessias as well.

Alessia clung to Y/n, her head pressed against Y/n’s back.

“I’m scared,” Alessia murmured, barely audible over the wind.

“Why baby? I’m a good biker.”

“Too fast,” was all Alessia could manage.

Y/n had already slowed down to a safer speed, but she let the motorcycle ease down even more. “There, how’s that? Better?”

“Uhun, thank you,” Alessa finally breathed, loosening her grip but still holding onto Y/n’s hips gently.

Alessia had a love-hate relationship with Y/n’s motorcycle. She liked it because Y/n liked it, and she knew it was almost like a lifestyle to her girlfriend. But sometimes, in her deepest thoughts, she wished Y/n would sell it. Alessia was just too anxious whenever Y/n rode it, afraid of a possible accident.

The motorcycle was undeniably cool and honestly, Y/n looked hot when she wore the black leather jacket that came with it. Alessia just wasn’t cut out for this lifestyle. That’s why she preferred her car–more safety, less wind.

When they finally arrived at Arsenal’s training grounds, Alessia got off the motorcycle, and handed her helmet to Y/n, feeling dizzy.

“You okay?” Y/n asked, catching Alessia’s arm. “You’re green.”

“I honestly think I’m gonna throw up,”

“No you’re not, it was an eight-minute ride,” Y/n smiled softly as she opened the motorcycle trunk and grabbed Alessia’s bag.

“Eight minutes was long enough,”

“You’ll have to ride with me more than that, get used to it,” Y/n leaned against the motorcycle and checked her watch. “Your training’s starting, you should go, baby.”

Alessia moved closer to Y/n and kissed her. “Thanks, love, I appreciate the ride, even though I think my insides are turned upside down.”

“Thank you, It’s always a pleasure to have a pretty girl bear-hugging me while I ride,” Y/n winked. “Also, let me know when you get your lunch break. We can get something to eat around here.”

“Okay,” Alessia smiled. “Will you pick me up when the training is over?”

“Yep, I can do that.”

“Can you take the car, though?” Alessia asked, giving Y/n her best doe eyes.

“Baby–”

“Please? The feeling of having something around you when you drive is nicer than having wind scratching on your face”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree there, love,” Y/n said, putting her helmet back on, and sitting down on the bike. “I’ll grab the car and pick you up.”

“I love you,”

“I know.”

..

Notes: Please like, share and let me know what you think! Feedback is important and makes me want to write even more. :D

Notes//2: my smut writing is shitty.

Read more of my work here -> Masterlist

[veryintricaterituals]

When I was in school I went to a friend's house to work on a project on a Friday afternoon. At about 6 or 6:30 when the sun was about to set her mom called us over to the livingroom. She lit two candles with my friend and then they proceeded to put the lit candles inside of a little cupboard so no one could see them. Me, a young jewish teenager asked her, my catholic friend, why they did that and she shrugged, said it was a family tradition to bring peace and prosperity, that the women of the family did it every friday evening and then hid the candles. They were very catholic, so I bit my tongue and we went back to her room to study.

This is just one of many, many, crypto jewish traditions that still exist in my hometown of Medellín, Colombia and I want to share a little bit about them with you.

Medellín is the capital city of a region called Antioquia and it is currently the second biggest city in my country. Now the weird thing about my region and my city more specifically is that it is in the middle of fucking nowhere, like we are in a valley in the middle of the andean mountains and it would take over two weeks by river, horse and river, and dunkey and mule to even get here before the invention of cars or trains.

Now Medellín was founded over 400 years ago, and families had been coming to the region for way before then, so that means that for centuries getting to my city from the sea or from the other big cities in the country was incredibly hard. This was by design, because Medellín itself was founded by about 28 families and we know for a fact that alteast half of them were crypto jews hidding from the Spanish Inquisition, and both before and the foundation more and more jewish families arrived to the region.

This is a known fact, the DNA of the people from the region has a lot of sepharadic jewish mixed in there. Early Colombian literature dating up to the 1845 would call the people of my region the Neogranadine Jews or the Colombian Jews. But because they were crypto jews the religion and most of the traditions were lost during the 400 years that have passed, now over 90% of the population is catholic and don't really know about their origins.

But some things stuck. And I want to tell you about them.

On the 7th night of December there is this pre-christmas festival called "El día de las velitas" or the little candle night that started and was unique to Antioquia. It's supposed to commemorate the candles that people had in the streets and the windows on the night Jesus was born and that helped Mary and Joseph to find their way. Do you know how this unique festival is celebrated in my city? People take to the streets to light candles, small colorful candles that they put in wooden planks or directly on the streets, it's the night that people decorate and turn on the christmas lights and it is so important and popular that we have an actual day off on the 8th of december.

Let me show you a few pictures

I don't think I need to explain this one. Even most goyim will know about Hannukah. But it is the weirdest thing when the dates coincide and we are all lighting candles together.

My dad was in the Jewish community board and we needed to rent a place to put our jewish daycare. They found this beautiful old house that had belonged to a family in colonial times but needed a little TLC. We had them remove some wooden floors because they were too old and rotting and found a huge Magen David made out stones in the center of the floor. The house also happened to have two separate kitchens and a mikveh or immersion bath in one of the rooms. These a very traditional things that colonial houses have in my region.

My grandmother converted to Judaism so I have a side from my family that is 100% from here and didn't arrive during the 20th century. I had the pleasure to meet both of my great grandparents from that side though they died when I was young. My grandma tells me that my greatgrandmother used to have one of these immersion baths in her house when she was growing up. Women were supposed to bathe in them after their periods had ended, my catholic great grandmother respected the mikveh traddition more than I ever have.

(I wish I had photos from that specific house but this happened over ten years ago, I'll show you some immersion baths from a different colonial houses that are also in my city)

Now how about we talk about traditional clothes. I'm sure most of you have heard of Ponchos, which are traditional in the Andean region, well the one from Antioquia is a little different and it's always supposed to be worn with a hat. Let's see if you can spot what I mean.

A few years ago Spain decided to grant citizenship to the descendants of the Jewish people that they had exiled in 1492. To get it you had to prove through family trees that your family had been Jewish. My city got the most ammount of passports out of everyone in the world, more than Israel. I could have applied from both my family that came from Egypt in the 20th century (we still have the keys to our house in Spain) or through my catholic side, as both of my grandmother's last names applied. I didn't but I could have.

I don't really know why I decided to finally write this post. I have so many more stories. I just think it's both incredibly sad that so much Jewish culture and people were lost but also it's a little heartwarming to see what survived even centuries down the line.

[elodieunderglass]

Hey bestie whats a narrow boat? I saw you tag that on something you reblogged and I'm pretty curious now!

- Terry Darlington, Narrow Dog to Carcassone

A narrowboat (all one word) is a craft restricted to the British Isles, which are connected all over by a nerve-map of human-made canals. To go up and down hills, the canals are spangled with locks (chambers in which boats can be raised or lowered by filling or emptying them with water.) As Terry says above, the width of the locks was somewhat randomly determined, and as a result, the British Isles have a narrow design of lock - and a narrowboat to fit through them. A classic design was seventy feet long and six feet wide. Starting in the 18th century, and competing directly with trains, canal “barges” were an active means of transport and shipping. They were initially pulled along the towpaths by horses, and you can still see some today!

Later, engines were developed.

Even after the trains won the arms race, it was a fairly viable freight service right up until WW2. It’s slow travel, but uses few resources and requires little human power, with a fairly small crew (of women, in WW2) being capable of shifting two fully laden boats without consuming much fossil fuel.

In those times the barges were designed with small, cramped cabins in which the boaters and their families could live.

During its heyday the narrowboat community developed a style of folk art called “roses and castles” with clear links to fairground art as well as Romani caravan decor. They are historically decorated with different kinds of brass ornaments, and inside the cabins could also be distinctively painted and decorated.

Today, many narrowboats are distinctively decorated and colorful - even if not directly traditional with “roses and castles” they’ll still be bright and offbeat. A quirky name is necessary. All narrowboats, being boats, are female.

After a postwar decline, interest in the waterways was sparked by a leisure movement and collapsing canals were repaired. Today, the towpaths are a convenient walking/biking trail for people, as they connect up a lot of the mainland of the UK, hitting towns and cities. Although the restored canals are concrete-bottomed, they’re attractive to wildlife. Narrowboats from the 1970s onward started being designed for pleasure and long-term living. People enjoy vacationing by hiring a boat and visiting towns for a cuter, comfier, slower version of a campervan life. And a liveaboard community sprang up - people who live full-time on boats. Up until the very restrictive and nasty laws recently passed in the UK to make it harder for travelling peoples (these were aimed nastily at vanlivers and the Romani, and successfully hit everyone) this was one of the few legal ways remaining to be a total nomad in the UK.

Liveaboards can moor up anywhere along the canal for 28 days, but have to keep moving every 28 days. (Although sorting out the toilet and loading up with fresh water means that a lot of people move more frequently than that.) you can also live full-time in a marina if they allow it, or purchase your own mooring. In London, where canal boats are one of the few remaining cheapish ways to live, boats with moorings fetch the same prices as houses. It can be very very hard for families to balance school, parking, work, and all the difficulties of living off-grid- but many make it work. It remains a diverse community and is even growing, due to housing pressures in the UK. Boats can be very comfortable, even when only six feet wide. When faced with spending thousands of pounds on rent OR mooring up on a nice canal, you can see why it seems a romantic proposition for young people, and UK television channels always have slice-of-life documentaries about young folks fixing up their very own quirky solar-powered narrowboat. I don’t hate; I did it myself.

If you’re lucky, you might even meet some of the cool folks who run businesses from their narrowboats: canal-side walkers enjoy bookshops, vegan bakeries, ice-cream boats, restaurants, artists and crafters. There are Floating Markets and narrowboat festivals. It’s generally recognised that boaters contribute quite a lot to the canal - yet there are many tensions between different kinds of boaters (liveaboards vs leisure boaters vs tourists) as well as tensions with local settled people, towpath users like cyclists, and fishermen. I could go on and on explaining this rich culture and dramas, but I won’t.

Phillip Pullman’s Gyptians are a commonly cited example of liveaboards - although they were based on the narrowboat liveaboards that Pullman knew in Oxford, their boats are actually Dutch barges. Dutch barges make good homes but are too wide to access most of the midlands and northern canals, and are usually restricted to the south of the UK. So they’re accurate for Bristol/London/Oxford, and barges are definitely comfier to film on. (Being six feet wide is definitely super awkward for a boat.) but in general Dutch barges are less common, more expensive and can’t navigate the whole system.

However, apart from them, there are few examples of narrowboat depictions that escaped containment. So it’s quite interesting that there is an entire indigenous special class of boat, distinctive and highly specialised and very cute, with an associated culture and heritage and folk art type, known to all and widely celebrated, and ABSOLUTELY UNKNOWN outside of the UK - a nation largely known around the world for inflicting its culture on others. They’re a strange, sweet little secret - and nobody who has ever loved one can resist pointing them out for the rest of their lives, or talking about them when asked to. Thank you for asking me to.

[ecrivainsolitaire]

A summary of the Chinese AI situation, for the uninitiated.

These are scores on different tests that are designed to see how accurate a Large Language Model is in different areas of knowledge. As you know, OpenAI is partners with Microsoft, so these are the scores for ChatGPT and Copilot. DeepSeek is the Chinese model that got released a week ago. The rest are open source models, which means everyone is free to use them as they please, including the average Tumblr user. You can run them from the servers of the companies that made them for a subscription, or you can download them to install locally on your own computer. However, the computer requirements so far are so high that only a few people currently have the machines at home required to run it.

Yes, this is why AI uses so much electricity. As with any technology, the early models are highly inefficient. Think how a Ford T needed a long chimney to get rid of a ton of black smoke, which was unused petrol. Over the next hundred years combustion engines have become much more efficient, but they still waste a lot of energy, which is why we need to move towards renewable electricity and sustainable battery technology. But that's a topic for another day.

As you can see from the scores, are around the same accuracy. These tests are in constant evolution as well: as soon as they start becoming obsolete, new ones are released to adjust for a more complicated benchmark. The new models are trained using different machine learning techniques, and in theory, the goal is to make them faster and more efficient so they can operate with less power, much like modern cars use way less energy and produce far less pollution than the Ford T.

However, computing power requirements kept scaling up, so you're either tied to the subscription or forced to pay for a latest gen PC, which is why NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and all the other chip companies were investing hard on much more powerful GPUs and NPUs. For now all we need to know about those is that they're expensive, use a lot of electricity, and are required to operate the bots at superhuman speed (literally, all those clickbait posts about how AI was secretly 150 Indian men in a trenchcoat were nonsense).

Because the chip companies have been working hard on making big, bulky, powerful chips with massive fans that are up to the task, their stock value was skyrocketing, and because of that, everyone started to use AI as a marketing trend. See, marketing people are not smart, and they don't understand computers. Furthermore, marketing people think you're stupid, and because of their biased frame of reference, they think you're two snores short of brain-dead. The entire point of their existence is to turn tall tales into capital. So they don't know or care about what AI is or what it's useful for. They just saw Number Go Up for the AI companies and decided "AI is a magic cow we can milk forever". Sometimes it's not even AI, they just use old software and rebrand it, much like convection ovens became air fryers.

Well, now we're up to date. So what did DepSeek release that did a 9/11 on NVIDIA stock prices and popped the AI bubble?

Oh, I would not want to be an OpenAI investor right now either. A token is basically one Unicode character (it's more complicated than that but you can google that on your own time). That cost means you could input the entire works of Stephen King for under a dollar. Yes, including electricity costs. DeepSeek has jumped from a Ford T to a Subaru in terms of pollution and water use.

The issue here is not only input cost, though; all that data needs to be available live, in the RAM; this is why you need powerful, expensive chips in order to-

Holy shit.

I'm not going to detail all the numbers but I'm going to focus on the chip required: an RTX 3090. This is a gaming GPU that came out as the top of the line, the stuff South Korean LoL players buy…

Or they did, in September 2020. We're currently two generations ahead, on the RTX 5090.

What this is telling all those people who just sold their high-end gaming rig to be able to afford a machine that can run the latest ChatGPT locally, is that the person who bought it from them can run something basically just as powerful on their old one.

Which means that all those GPUs and NPUs that are being made, and all those deals Microsoft signed to have control of the AI market, have just lost a lot of their pulling power.

Well, I mean, the ChatGPT subscription is 20 bucks a month, surely the Chinese are charging a fortune for-

Oh. So it's free for everyone and you can use it or modify it however you want, no subscription, no unpayable electric bill, no handing Microsoft all of your private data, you can just run it on a relatively inexpensive PC. You could probably even run it on a phone in a couple years.

Oh, if only China had massive phone manufacturers that have a foot in the market everywhere except the US because the president had a tantrum eight years ago.

So… yeah, China just destabilised the global economy with a torrent file.

[maiamore]

PASS THE SALT, MR MILLER

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female!Reader - No Outbreak Rating: 18+ | W/C: 4.5k

Summary: Joel finds out the hard way that leaving a pretty girl with blue-balls isn’t the smartest.

Or, Joel fucks you in his garage.

Tags: christmas-y vibes, fucking on Joel’s car, implied age gap,unprotected p in v, grumpy!joel, lots of yearning, squirting, sexual games, brat taming, outdoor sex, creampie

A/N: merry christmas folks! tbh this is just a game of how many fics can I write that has to do with (a) joel's truck or (b) joel yearning. side note, looped Disease - Lady Gaga track on repeat while writing this oops

MASTERLIST | MAIN STORY

Holidays have never really been something you celebrated. Fuck it, your own birthday even. It just wasn’t a priority you considered worth fussing over. Admittedly, your lack of enthusiasm for these events was probably why you ended up avoiding them. You would do the most for the people you loved but never for yourself.

Take Halloween for example. Your friends from Columbia were begging you for a slutty girls' night out, but you’d opted to stay home to help chaperone your younger brother Oscar’s party. Even so far as to set everything up, you’d made sure Oscar had a shot at being the coolest damn guy in his school. Fret not, jobless big sis is there to help ya. 

Of course, it hadn’t gone unrewarded, to put it loosely. All that really happened was some broody hot middle-aged dad jerking off in front of your face. Nothing out of the ordinary.

You found yourself staring at the pale green piece of paper your younger brother, Oscar,  handed you when he came home from school that evening. Eyeing the morbidly cliche design that screamed of some bored old receptionists' handiwork, you tilt it to get a better read.

Oak Ridge High School Annual Christmas Potluck.

Great. Another one. You were often the stand-in for his PTA Meetings in place of your ever so busy parents. While you had your fun with the free buffets and whatnot, you were getting tired of people asking how old you were when you “had” Oscar. 

*Calling all Parent Volunteers. Please Contact Joel Miller at +1 (512) 555 XXX for details. 

Now that got your attention.

Joel Miller. The man who, after that night, weaseled his way into your glorious collection of mental spank bank. Evident in the plethora of stolen nudie mags your mom stashed underneath her mattress—you’d gone as far to dog-ear pages of men who had the slightest resemblance to him. 

You couldn’t get him out of your mind. By him, his dick. All eight fuckin’ inches of pent-up old man dick. 

The desperation in the way he thumbed his slit, coaxing his milky cum into your waiting mouth in your bedroom flashed in your mind like post-traumatic-sex-disorder. You were robbed of a good fuck.

The beeps of your dial-pad echoed embarrassingly loud while you dialled the number on the flyer before fully seeing the idiocy in this move. The line connects after a few rings. 

“Miller. Who’s callin’?”

A shudder runs down your spine. His voice hit you like a freight train, low and gravelly, cutting through the faint clatter of what sounded like construction work on the other end.

Fuck. Fuck fuck. Hang up. Hang–

“Hi.” You blurt out, forcing a higher register in your voice in a desperate attempt to disguise yourself. “I’d like to register. For the Christmas…thing.” There was a pause, followed by the clunk of something heavy and the sound of boots against a hard floor. 

“Right. You’re the parent of…?” 

You clutched your phone tighter when Joel’s voice rang clearer than ever, throat dry as you scrambled to speak. “Oscar.”

He repeats your last name when you offer it, slow and deliberate, like he was trying to place it–a flicker of recognition almost.

“Alright then,” he finally says, the faintest edge of suspicion still lingering.

 “Guess I’ll see ya there.”

—

Impulsiveness was something that fucked Joel over most times. 

Messing around with someone he’d consider uncomfortably closer to his daughter's age than his own settled within him like poison. 

It’d been two whole months since the incident at halloween and he was still hung up over you. He was certain that a pretty girl like you had far better prospects than a washed up crotchety shit like him. 

You plagued his mind every time his fist wrapped around his cock. Every time he’d tried to fuck the stress of working long hours of grunt work at the site. Your soft and sweet expression offered him instantaneous, sticky reprieve. 

Guilt, or something he should’ve been feeling over using your face as masturbation material didn’t quite blare the alarms in his head through post-nut clarities. 

He knew he had fucked up the second he had you on your knees that night. 

You parked your sedan in front of a navy chevrolet in the driveway. Hopping out of the car as you looked up at the quaint home, clean white siding, neatly trimmed lawn. 

You figured by the bustling noise from the backyard that a volunteer offered up their home and all. Generous, you thought. And then you catch it. The worn down navy mailbox that sprawled the letters–

M I L L E R

The swirl that was now your mind dragged painful throbs in your head. To be in his own backyard felt stalker-ish even for you. 

With a weary exhale, you click open the boot of your car. Worrying had to come later, you had to formulate a game plan for the boxes of fairy lights you somehow had to haul into Joel’s backyard.

With a heaving effort, you propped up two boxes into your arms when the shuffle of footsteps catches your attention, coming from beside the opening garage. 

“Hey! Sorry, could use a little help...” You call out instinctively. 

Only managing to catch a glimpse of a hand bracing against the rickety garage door to shove it all the way up with a loud metallic clang. 

The sound startles you, but not as much as the sight when one of the boxes lifts from your hold, revealing your apparent savior.

The both of you pause, staring at each other in slight shock. Well–for him at least. You had ulterior motives that came delivered to you all wrapped up in worn-out denim.

Joel’s expression was less than welcoming, which in his defense—he wasn’t quite expecting to see his ghost in his own yard. 

“What are you doin’ here?”

The curtness of his voice throws you, but it’s too late to think of turning tail and driving off.

“I’m…one of the volunteers.”

“Sweetheart,” Joel begins, lifting the last box out of your arms like they weighed nothing. “You signin’ up under your mama’s name just to come sniffin’ round’ me? That it?”

“What? No. She couldn’t make it,” you shoot back, a little too quick, a little too defensive. Joel wasn’t buying it, his unimpressed stare making you shift on your feet.

“Uh-huh,” he mutters, already stepping over to your car. With a grunt, he hefted another box from your trunk, the effort drawing a low sound from his chest. 

The bitterness (and arousal) pools in your mouth at the noise he makes. 

Yes. You’d admit. You sniffed out Joel’s trail like some stray, chasing after the smallest crumb of him. It wasn’t irrational for you to think that you deserved some sort of closure. 

His voice cuts clean through your spiraling thoughts. “If you’re expectin’ somethin’, you best stop right there. I ain’t messin’ around.” You grimaced, fumbling for words. 

“I’m just here to help—” 

“S’enough outta you. Stay out of trouble.” He interrupts, not quite looking at you. 

Joel wills himself to flick his gaze anywhere but at you, one look at your face was enough to remind him of the fact, one look was probably enough to pop a damn boner. He sets the boxes down by the patio, knees cracking as he stretches back up with a grunt.

“Get someone to hang ‘em up. ‘Cause clearly,” he says, eyeing your sweater and skirt, “you ain’t dressed to actually help.”

He gives you a short, dismissive nod before turning away, leaving you standing there. Warmth pools your cheeks, feeling foolish to have gone this far for the attention of a man who made it clear that he didn’t seem to give a fuck whether you were here or not.

—

Joel spends the better half of the afternoon hovering around you. 

Approaching you normally was out of the question now that Sarah and the other kids began to flitter into his backyard to help with preparation. His daughter’s presence acted like a highly effective cock-block. Not that he had any business entertaining those kinds of thoughts in the first place.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

Risky didn’t begin to describe it, so he kept his distance. That resolve went straight out the window when he spotted you, half-balanced on a ladder, hanging Christmas lights along the edge of his roof. With candy cane printed panties peeking out from under your skirt—god almighty, Joel nearly doubled over.

You could feel Joel's eyes on you while attempting to hang the lights over the siding. Purposefully going against what he said, purposefully giving everyone a goddamn show. 

"You ever learn how to listen?" 

“I can do it myself.” You shot back. Coyly soothing the back of your skirt. A proper fuck you to him at his insinuation that you’d been here just to man-trap him. Not that the notion did much. 

You felt the ladder steady with Joel’s hold. Effectively blocking everyone else from seeing what you were flaunting. 

"For the love of christ, darlin’, get down." 

“For the love of christ, I’m almost fuckin’ done.” You parroted his words back to him with an annoyed huff. It was hard not to let Joel infiltrate your mind but lack of his attention was eating you up–making you do crazy things, evidently.

With a satisfied huff at the placements, you brought your arms down.

Why did that…feel heavy?

A sharp crackle and metallic clatter fills the air before you fully completed your thought, the chains of lights comes tumbling down. You froze. Lowering your gaze to see the single goddamn twine snagged onto your sweater that you’d effectively yanked down with you. 

The bulbs burst into chaotic pops as they hit the ground, shards of glass scattering like tiny fireworks across the patio, drawing everyone’s attention.

Joel doesn’t hesitate, his hands found your waist as he lifted you off the ladder and set you firmly on the ground to safety with a grunt, his eyes snaps to the shards of glass glinting in the light and the fresh scratches marring his freshly varnished patio.

"You gotta be shittin' me..." He mutters, the irritation sharp in his drawl.  

“Mr Miller…”

Joel held up his palm as a sign to get you to be quiet so he could speak. Damn if you calling him Mr Miller now of all times didn’t make him want to haul your ass up to his bedroom.

Which he might add, seemed conveniently close.

He closes his eyes for a few seconds, pinching the bridge of his nose. "D’you think before you do anythin’ at all? Or do you just act on impulse?" He asks in a sharp and biting tone, looking directly at you as he spoke.

You cock your brow at his words. Surely he wasn’t seriously reacting this way to a couple of broken lights. To mention, your lights.

“What? Think about being a decent person to help?”

"A decent person would've listened the first time when I told you to leave it the hell alone," he snapped, stepping closer. "A decent person wouldn’t have shot me attitude n’ thrown a damn temper tantrum when I told you to get down."  

“What are you getting so bent out of shape for?”

“For starters, you wrecked my patio, darlin’.” He grumbles. Rubbing the back of his neck in the slightest amount of awareness that he’d overreacted, though he’d rather chew rocks than admit it. 

You don’t answer him. Humiliated as is. Your pouty-ness showed in the way you stomped over to get the broom that lay in the corner. He watches you regardless, arms folded taut.

“Goddamned train-wreck.” He mutters under his breath after a long pause, not even giving you the chance to let an apology leave your lips before he turns his heel to leave.

—

You didn’t take it well when people spoke to you like you were stupid. 

An Ivy League degree hung the walls of your room for fucks sake. Who the hell did Joel think he was? As if that wasn’t humiliating enough, you’d tucked your tail between your legs to sweep it all up without a word. The embers that lay dormant were further fanned as time passed. You were pissed.

Joel, on the other hand, begins to feel guilt at the way he’d reacted. Even in the corner of his eyes, he sees you helping set up with the rest of the parents. It wasn’t the behaviour of some reckless nympho he imagined you to be when you stepped foot into his yard. 

You didn’t have to stand there to stand under the sun in the unforgiving Texas heat, refilling lemonade for the parent’s committee. Or entertain Sarah and the rest of the kids. You’d turned his backyard into a damned Christmas Wonderland by the end of the night.

You were a good girl, he figures after a long while of brooding.

And he tries. He tries to approach you to apologize but you didn’t seem to be having it. Going out of your way to swerve at the slightest sight of him near you. Which he gets.

You were over it, really. Chalked it up to his personality being generally the way it was. But what really helped you get over your humiliation? Seeing Joel Miller fucking grovel. 

Which you were acutely aware of with the way he lingered around you, waiting for an opening that you deprived of him.

—

The skies grew to a dusky violet, the backyard gently lit up with the soft twinkle of the fairy lights you’d painstakingly hung up (and re-hung). Lull of familiar Christmas classics playing by the speakers. 

The warmth of the chatter and laughter surrounding the table tugged at your edges, coaxing a reluctant smile to your lips. You weren’t ready to admit it, but the festive mood was infectious.

You sat near the end of the committee’s table, the seat next to you conspicuously empty. The kids–Oscar, Sarah, and their friends were huddled at their own table. You briefly wondered if you should join them instead, given that the current hot topic at your table being mortgage rates.

The thud of a melamine crystal glass landing next to your plate broke your train of thought. You flick your gaze up, your expression hardening the moment you caught sight of Joel dragging the empty chair over next to you and lowering himself into it with a creak.

Without a word, he slides the glass closer to you, taking a sip from his own. His movements were deliberate, careful, like a man trying not to step on a landmine.

Joel wasn’t quite well-versed in apologies, as evident by Sarah’s constant reminders that one of these days he was going to piss a woman he actually fancied. His hand stretches over your lap, unfurling the napkin on the other side of you to drape it over your thighs. 

“Could you pass over the salt, sweetheart?” 

You tilt your head, arching a brow, not moving a muscle. Instead, you shot him a pointed look.

With a heavy sigh and a muttered curse under his breath, Joel stands up, his knees popping audibly as he leaned across the table to grab the salt himself. He slumps back into his chair, setting it down with a huff. How could a little thing like you hold so much anger?

“Done torturin’ me yet?” 

A scoff leaves your lips. 

“Who said I was?” 

“I’m tryin’ to apologise, sweetheart.” You shudder at the manner he whispers the words out. As though it was a secret reserved for just you and him. 

You rest your cheeks on your palms, shooting him an uninterested look. Joel’s eyes darts down to your plate that you were pushing to him. He doesn’t hesitate, reaching over and starts loading your plate up again with generous portions of the dishes spread across the table. The sight of him doing so, quiet and almost reverent, made your chest sing.

Oh this. This you could get used to.

For the next twenty minutes, you’d milked Joel’s newfound contrition for all it was worth. Needed a refill? Joel was already reaching for your glass. Running low on napkins? He was up and grabbing a fresh one before you even asked. You’d even braced yourself for him to snap when you made a fuss over your creaky chair, but to your delight, he stood up and swapped it out without so much as a grumble.

Unfortunately for you, your luck does runs out.

The flutter of your napkin onto the makeshift mat spread across the lawn catches his attention, his eyes darting to the rogue square of fabric before slowly flicking back up to meet your gaze. You leaned back in your chair, looking at him expectantly, lips quirking just enough to toe the line between innocent and insufferable.

Joel’s jaw twitches.

“Fuckin’ pick it up on your own, sweetheart.” his voice was laced with just enough irritation to make your smirk widen. Still, you couldn’t resist one last little prod.

Your legs shifted, one crossing over the other, the toe of your shoe brushing lightly against the denim of his jeans. His eyes darted down to the motion before snapping back up, a muscle in his jaw tightening.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to apologise?” 

Joel shifts in his chair, arms crossing over his broad chest as he gave you a look that sent a shiver down your spine. “Think I settled my debts, crackles.”

You roll your eyes at his taunt, the warning laced in it only served to burn in your gut like uncontrollable lust. You felt yourself grow bored now that he’d ruthlessly cut you off from your only source of entertainment. 

The thrill begins to wane, you’d grown impatient at Joel’s lack of well, giving in. Though the idea, a possibly stupid one, that you might’ve needed to give him a little push crosses your mind. 

With a deliberate stretch, you rose from your seat, leaning over the table to reach for the salt shaker resting comfortably on Joel’s side with a hand placed on his thigh. It was perfectly positioned for him to hand it over to you–if you’d bothered to ask. But that wasn’t the point.

For a moment, he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. His jaw clenched so tight you could see the faint tick of his pulse. Slowly, you eased back into your seat, dragging your fingers in a slow deliberate curve as you went.

The sharp grip of his hand on your wrist came next, firm enough to make you gasp. Joel’s dark eyes locked on yours, his nostrils flaring as he tried to keep whatever storm was brewing behind them at bay.

You pressed your tongue against your cheek, a smirk tugging at the corner of your lips. He’d taken the bait all right. The unmistakable rise against where your hand was placed told you what you needed to know. Hook, line, and sinker.

It doesn’t quite matter to him whether you’d forgiven him anymore. 

With a sharp tug, Joel pulls you up with him. “S’cuse me. This one isn’t feeling too well.” 

The protest dies in your throat when Joel practically hauls you across his yard, away from the nosy glances from the rest of the parents. 

You frown at the dusty old garage he leads you to up front where you’d parked your car. A hand comes up the back of your head to force you to duck underneath the half opened door, cringing at the loud sound it draws. 

You tip your head up to watch Joel grab the edge of the half-opened garage door to full slam it down shut.

Fuck. You felt your cunt clench with the way his sleeves tightened around his forearms, wetting your lips subconsciously at the sight.

“This where you murder me, Mr Miller?”

His jaw ticks at that. There it was again. Mr Miller.

“Shut up.”

You mouthed the words wow as you looked to the side. As though there was a camera you were monologuing to. Joel approaches you tentatively. Backing you up until you feel sturdy metal stop your path. 

A firm slam against the hood you were backed up against causes you to jolt. 

“You’re fuckin’ with me.” He begins. Shifting closer until he had you snug against him and the truck. “You’ve been fuckin’ with me.”

You tilt your head up. Neck stretched uncomfortably to its limit. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Joel sighs. Looking towards the side, as though he might back off and run away again. 

“This ain’t right.”

You frown. Why was he getting cold feet now? You gaze darts to the side, following his line of vision. A frilly pink bicycle parked in the midst of the dusty old boxes stacked up against concrete walls. Some labelled with years of mementos of his daughter growing up. 

Joel groans when he feels a much smaller, soft hand cup against the growing strain on his jeans. “Judging by this, I think you’re full of shit.”

His restraint teeters on the edge. “Don’t.” He grasps around your wrists to stop you, though, he half asses it, barely with the amount of strength he could’ve used if he’d really wanted you to stop.  

You palm against his erection, feeling it quickly harden beneath. You suck in your breath at the way his brows furrowed in concentration, the slight twitch of his lips. A whimper leaves your lips at how receptive he’d been to your touch. 

“You’re trouble.” He manages. Finally meeting your gaze. You can tell he’s conflicted, but the way you cupped around his balls through the denim has him keeling over with a rough exhale. 

He finally gathers enough strength in him to force your hand away from his cock. Just as you were about to whine about it, he flips you over. You steady your palms against the hood of his truck. 

“Gotta be quiet. You understand me?” You nod quickly. Not daring to speak considering how his voice already echoed in the garage even at its softest.

Your elbows move to rest against the dirtied metal. Folding it so you could comfortably rest your head on it. 

Joel lets out a low whistle at the way you bend your hips. Hiking your skirt up slowly. “Fuckin’ hell sweetheart.” He mutters. Thumb swiping against the growing dampness of your panties. 

A dull noise from his zipper is the only other thing you hear when you feel him grind his clothed cock against you. 

“Mr Miller—please.” You breathed out. Your thighs tenses, wiggling your hips higher to relieve the ache you felt. Feeling his hardness prod against your folds. 

Joel sighs softly, thumbing against your clit before you curl into yourself. “Don’t need it.” You breathe out quickly. There’s a pause in his movements before you feel a thumb hook around the waistband of your panties. Dragging it down to your ankles. 

The sound Joel makes at the sight of your slick stringing down the gusset of it makes him wince out audibly. Two fingers gather the slick of your folds, messily dragging it up and down your clit in a repeated notion. His fingers dipping in and out of you with a squelch. You groan out. Hips stuttering at the sensation. 

“Hurry.” You urged.

You feel his other palm carefully twirl around the back of your hair. The breath knocks out of you when he heaves you backwards into his chest with a sharp tug. Fingertips entwined with your locks.

“Been patient with ya all fuckin’ day and ya think you got the right t’rush me now?”

Tears threaten to prick in the corners of your eyes at his tone. You grip around his wrist where he holds your hair. “…hurts” , you whisper, guiding his other hand back to your clit, “..here.”

Joel swallows thickly. He clenched his jaw so damn tight you audibly heard just how hard he ground them. How could he deprive you further when you were begging so sweetly? 

He shucks his jeans down further, guiding his twitching cock out from his boxers. A drawn out groan leaves your lips when he nudges the head of his cock against your soaking pussy. Your moan echoes loudly into the space around you both. 

He growls into your ears. Before you could apologise, your voice gets muffled around the heavy palm that comes to cover your mouth. You whine against it. “Told t’be fuckin’ quiet.” He grits, voice hushed against the side of your head. 

Your eyes nearly roll back at the way he begins to thrust into you with the tip in an effort to get you used to his size. But it didn’t matter. The way his cockhead stretched your pussy out stung. But it was quickly replaced by the nauseating need to be fucked full. 

Joel leans down to trace kisses up your neck before he fully sheathes himself into you. The muffle around your mouth grows tighter to suppress the loud moan. “Shh shh…you’ve got it.” He praises, breathing heavily into your ears. 

The tears trickle directly over his knuckles. He releases the grip he had on your hair, looping around your abdomen. Snapping his hips into you at a punishing pace. You babble incoherently, practically slobbering into his palms, whining about how deep his cock was pounding into you. 

The obscene slaps of where the two of you connected fills the garage, only spurring his need to fill you deep with his come. 

Joel lets out a groan when you clench around his dick like vice. “Fuck. Pussy’s chokin’ me.” His head drops to the dip of your neck. Pressing kisses onto your pulse point. 

“Don’t think I can last much longer.” He admits, dragging his hand–slick with your saliva down to your throat. His head flush against your shoulder blade. He takes a moment to breathe you in. Joel isn’t quite the man he used to be and coming this embarrassingly fast wasn’t on his docket. Least of all tonight. 

You squirm a little at the sensation of Joel’s stubble against your shoulder. A deep exhale leaving your lips. 

“M…me too..” You pant out heavily. Resting your head back against his chest. Joel’s free hand slides underneath your sweater, yanking your bra down. 

A rough palm kneads the softness, tweaking your hardened nipples in a circular motion. “Shit. Mr—…Miller.” You manage. Squirming at how his palm gropes your tits clumsily. You give yourself the final push you needed, your fingers coming down to rub against your clit. 

Joel’s hips stutter at the sensation of your pussy convulsing around his cock, following your orgasm soon after. But he doesn’t stop. He fucks you through it. Both his hands firm around your hips. 

Your hands hastily come up to grab around his wrists. “Wait—stop—…stop.” You gasp out. Joel doesn’t quite register your pleas with how his mind was whirring around wanting to fuck his come deep into you until he feels a warm splatter of your release trickle down his thighs. 

Your bated breaths fill the garage. Mortified, you watch the liquid drip from the radiator grill of Joel’s truck. 

“I’ll be damned.” He muses, earning a warning look from you. Joel shakes his head, a low rumble from his chest makes you feel a little less embarrassed about squirting onto his truck. He turns you around to press a kiss onto the apple of your cheeks. 

“Been meanin’ to get er’ washed. Guess I don’t gotta anymore.”

[contessaxchaos]

How Veilguard Handled Themes and Lost its Audience

This is tagged Veilguard-critical. I didn't set out to be critical (ie disparaging) of Veilguard, I set out to be critical (ie analytical) of one crucial aspect of its writing.

I reblogged a post by @meat-louse where I supported their premise ("this warped sense of history veilguard has") by pointing out how Veilguard can actually work to feel more integrated into the Thedas that we know from DAO, DA2, and DAI. Their conclusion is that:

"dragon age’s depictions of social issues were never spot-on, but at their best they encouraged the player to engage with those issues and ultimately seek to change society for the better. veilguard has no interest in changing society."

Here's my observations:

The issue is they want a game that’s simple and streamlined in its messaging. They want it focused on themes like regret and acceptance and teamwork and friendship. They hammered hard those themes, which, while it’s good practice to have strong themes, they overdid it to the point that we’re shouting “I GET IT!!!” They worked on those themes to the exclusion of nuance. To the exclusion of complexity.

Three games have trained us to look at the world and its problems, and look CLOSER because you’re not being told the whole truth. In fact there is no single truth. For every Anders, there’s a Cullen. You have the fearsome Arishok but you also have Sten, and for every hundred Sten who uphold their culture and beliefs unwavering, there’s an Iron Bull who knowingly subjects himself to reeducation in order to continue functioning in his society. And not far from him is an Adaar who is free from the Qun but faces the consequences of banishment and ostracization from their own culture and people. The game doesn’t say which side is right or wrong, you have to experience it for yourself to be able to have an opinion on the matter. My opinions on the Chantry were different when I played a Trevelyan versus as a Lavellan. Cousland has a different experience from a Tabris. That’s the point: your roleplaying changes depending on who you choose to be at the start of the game. The experience changes. The game is not interested in selling you a “correct” moral standpoint; it instead presents you a moral dilemma that unfolds through your questing, but it doesn’t give you an answer. It values a jerk Inquisitor, a stupid Warden, and a bloodthirsty Hawke as much as it values all the sarcastic, diplomatic, and traditionally heroic versions of our player characters.

But in Veilguard…

But in VG, all moral questions have already been resolved for you, either by signposting it, by not allowing you to interrogate these questions as Rook, or by completely ignoring it (no slaves, no tranquils, no alienages, no Circles, no cursed werewolves, no cults). They hyperfocused on their themes that they sacrificed nuance and complexity.

That’s why your companions and Rook only have low-impact conflict. Nothing will drive away your companions because they hold no strong convictions that clash with others. They serve the Themes. We can easily contrast this with companions from the other games: Vivienne gives you a closer look at the value of having Circles and the Chantry. Morrigan counsels expediency over do-gooding. Cassandra is has served all her life on the side of the "oppressors", but she questions the Seekers without letting it break her faith in the Maker. They have convictions. They were built from the ground up to be characters with their own agenda. They weren't built from the ground up to be your support system.

Which is what Veilguard appears to have done with their companions for the most part. I say the most part because there are three people with very clear themes, and Rook doesn't clash with them because their themes were designed to be very personal. The three are Emmrich (im/mortality and legacy); Bellara (something something preservation of the past, although I'm not sure what the point is because preserving the past at the cost of the present is not really very...cogent? Cultural/historical preservation is not exclusive to having a present and a future); and Taash (cultural and gender identity).

Talking to Taash made me reflect on my understanding of what it means to have a body you don’t agree with, perhaps even more than Krem did because with Taash, you can ask them. They will tell you. And that’s because Taash serves the Theme of Identity, both cultural and gender. BUT it’s also overdone to the point where those who don’t understand how it is to be trans feel like they’re being talked down to for not understanding.

What would have worked better is if they sparked the players’ curiosity and genuine interest in trans identity, and then allowed the players to engage with it as deeply or as shallow as they like. Instead everyone gets The Lecture as if we’re all uneducated on the matter. As if there are no allies among us. As if there are no shallow allies among us who are swayed by virtue-signalling. The Theme has swallowed what should be an invitation to talk and be curious and be enlightened.

Regret and sunk cost and redemption are also strong themes in the game. And you know they spent a long time and a lot of effort on that because the Team does a Talk Session after every piece of regret they uncover. Again: they’re made to serve the Theme to the exclusion of nuance and complexity. Yes, they raise good points, asked good questions, engaged with what we all saw. But I will argue that it’s US—the players—who should be having THAT conversation with ourselves or amongst ourselves. The companions should be there to give their point of view as a Mourn Watch, as a Grey Warden, as HARDING. But no—we don’t get that opportunity to absorb the regrets, to interrogate it ourselves based on what we know about Solas in DAI, or just to scratch our heads and say “okay but but but the game is always saying that history is not equal to the Truth and there’s always more to the story, so who can I ask / what other codices can I possibly find to shed more light about this?” Like…nada. You don’t make insights; the game already feeds you all the CORRECT insights so that you don’t ever have to be wrong about the Theme, because the Theme is Redemption or the Cost of Regret.

You don't need to engage your brain anymore because the game has already curated that for you. It has solved for you an equation that the past games would normally leave for you to solve through another playthrough. In DAO, if you only ever play Cousland, you will not grow your understanding of the plight of elves in alienages, or the injustice of the Dwarven caste system. You understand them intellectually because you are a person existing in a society that has poverty and injustice, but it doesn't hit the same until you play in the shoes of a Tabris or a Brosca.

Many of the writers who built Veilguard have been there in the construction of the other Dragon Age games. They were there when Veilguard was still Joplin. What we all wanted, they also clearly wanted to include in the game. They know it's not their role to dictate what players should believe by the end of the game, or to make the team generally harmonious and supportive of Rook. But their views and their skills were not valued.

Anyone who can write can write complexity.

Not everyone who writes can write nuance. That shit takes experience and skill. Writing is not just putting words on paper. This is especially true for massive collaborative writing projects such as videogames.

The writers failed because they were failed by the studio, first.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I try really hard to be a patient person but car owners really do get on my nerves sometimes.

No I’m not claiming that your specific city is easy to traverse without a car right now no I’m not telling disabled people that use cars to go die no most people don’t need cars when society is designed competently no I haven’t forgotten about the existence of rural areas how many times do I have to say these things over and over again just to make a post about corner grocery stores or something I just want it to be really easy to live without a car I just want streets to be nice I just want the trains to come back why do these basic ideas make people so mad

[tadc-harlequin-au]

God your designs are so fucking good bro, I'd love to know how the design process went

lmfao, I can give some insights

Caine's design was mostly an accident. In the scrapped initial intro animatic for this AU, he had a placeholder design until I could finalize him when I went to clean up the frames

which became this, then this, then...

He literally got designed as the animatic went on, the coat on shoulders was a subconscious approach because I blame One Piece for making me a coat-on-shoulders whore. His final coat design is mostly taken from my own oc lol

up to this point, I had no idea how he would've been colored until I did this shitpost

Pomni's is weird too

She was partially inspired by both the Circus breach crack idea, Pauline from my Unexpected Reunion AU, and Mystery!Pomni because I do love women (in suits)

so if Caine was designed overtime within an animatic, Pomni's design spanned fucking AUs-

Ragatha was literally just me thinking, "hm. what if. hear me out. maid. but tattered skirt cus puppet revolution time"

this is her VERY first appearance and it hasn't changed much since leave me alone let me enjoy women being gay

Now, Kingr is actually the closest ANY design in this AU would come to it's base inspiration Lies of P, because AUGH King of Puppets my beloved

He started as a boss design from the get go then reverse engineered to look more friendly, because by the time I was designing him, I was already incorporating the idea of Pomni having to fight bosses so she could free them from these insane forms of theirs

This idea was recycled from my other AU for fnaf btw, the Eternal Eclipse AU where Freddy has to free the other Glamrocks from their "Primal forms" by fighting them WITH THE POWER OF ROCK AND ROLLLLLLLLLL (which are GIGANTIC and INSANE, sound familiar yet?)

back to the rest, I actually didn't really know what I wanted for Jax, aside from a Cheshire Cat motif from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland because love that mofo and Jax's constant smile reminds me of him

I guess that's why his initial design was so unnecessarily cluttered and so hard to draw, because all I knew was that I wanted it to be loose, flowy, bouncy and airy, like an actual cartoon. But, still respecting the laws of reality somewhat

and then I had to switch the outfit out, because at around this time, The Patriarch's design was finalized, and I didn't want people to start to think Jax was associated with him purely due to similar palettes. So I sneakily swapped it out with an explorer's outfit (since I was thinking of Jax as the team's scout), and tried to play it off as simply a "oh it was hard to draw"

He was even supposed to have goggles in the newer design, but I scrapped it because I'm repeating the same mistake of making him too cluttered again.

Z is a pretty straightforward one, although they diverged from the initial idea. My first thought was making them a brawler of sorts because they were initially going to be Pomni's training buddy, so I looked up "Victorian brawler" and yoinked the outfit I liked.

The concept of Z being the training dummy was then recycled to be Kingr's role instead because Kingr was more of a tank character than Z, and in turn, she became the weaponsmith

Each part of Z was also inspired by something that randomly came to mind when I was trying to wrack my brain with what parts should they have:

the hook peg is from Hiccup, the other peg is from A series of Unfortunate Events, the antler is a reference to Mystery!Zooble but combined with the Minecraft Warden's palette, spiked chokers were taken from my own sona's eel tongue. The flexible arms are very much Doc ock

Gangle... She was the hardest to design that my brain is blocking me from remembering the process because it was so traumatizing /j

I just know that like Caine, her design was also mostly an accident. Iirc, she wasn't meant to have cat ears/motif in the first place, but after I finished the mask with the <:3 face I went like "fuck it we ball" and went furry mode

I think she was also meant to have painted whiskers, and the only reason why she doesn't is I forgor 💀

There was no inspo for her outfit except maybe Disney Cinderella because I was only putting what worked and discarded what didn't (not recommended)

The double ribbon arms was literally just me thinking the ends are her little fingies, and her "feet" is just me wanting to make her ribbons look like a part of her dress and looking flowy because ew feet

anyways if you can't tell, there's a pattern here: recycle ideas, take inspo, look it up or fuck it we ball when all else fails lol

the lesson here is to not follow in my footsteps because I keep stepping on shit /lh

[jiuwaves]

Screams, Thrills, and You

❦ pairing ; choi seunghyun x reader 

❦ warnings ; none! entirely fluff! c:

You had one rule. One personal boundary that, until today, had gone unchallenged: Absolutely no amusement park rides.

But then again, no one said dating Seunghyun would be easy on your comfort zone.

He had begged you. Like, actually dropped to his knees in the middle of your apartment, hands clasped dramatically like he was praying to the gods of thrill-seeking.

“Jagi..” he whined, dragging out the syllable like a lovesick teenager. “Do you want me to die without ever experiencing joy with the love of my life on a rollercoaster?

You stared at him from the couch, arms crossed.

He shuffled closer on his knees, still in full performance mode. “Please, Pleaase..? Just once. Just one date. I’ll do anything!’’

You tried to hold firm. You really did but then he pouted, that ridiculous, unfairly adorable pout  and rested his head against your thigh like a wounded puppy and that was it. 

You sighed dramatically.

“Fine. One day. One park but I’m not going on anything that looks like it was designed by a mad scientist.’’

He shot up so fast he nearly headbutted you. “I love you.”

“I better not die..” you muttered, already regretting everything.

In fact, you did regret your decision.

Because as soon as you stepped through the gates of the amusement park, hand-in-hand with Seunghyun, reality hit you like a freight train on fire. Your smile twitched, faltered because the rides? They looked insane.

There were loops on top of loops, rides that swung like wrecking balls, and one that literally shot people straight up into the sky before dropping them back down like the world’s worst elevator.

“What the hell is that?!” you gasped, pointing at a ride that looked like it had been built in defiance of gravity and common sense.

Seunghyun turned to look and beamed. “That? That’s Sky Plunge! It spins while it drops while it drops!”

“Why?” you whispered, eyes wide. “Who hurt the person who designed that?”

But Seunghyun didn’t hear you or maybe he did and just chose to ignore it because he was already tugging you forward, eyes darting from one attraction to the next like he couldn’t decide which death machine to get on first.

“Come!” Seunghyun said, practically dragging you by the hand towards the ride, his excitement radiating off of him like a blast of energy.

You stumbled slightly, your legs moving but your heart was still firmly planted in ‘nope’ territory.

“Wait—WAIT!” you gasped, trying to plant your feet, but Seunghyun was relentless, already pulling you toward the massive contraption in front of you.

It looked like a twisted version of a Ferris wheel except this one was vertical, and there were people in it, upside down. You tried to imagine how that would feel. 

You couldn’t. 

Your stomach twisted into a tight knot. You should have known, but you weren’t prepared for this level of evil.

“What even is this?” you asked weakly, though you were pretty sure you already knew the answer. “This doesn’t look like a ride. It looks like something you’d see on a horror movie set.”

“It’ll turn you upside down and sideways. It’s legendary.” he said with far too much excitement, eyes sparkling with mischief.

“I don’t want to be legendary! I want to stay alive!” You almost pleaded, your hand tightening in his, pulling back slightly.

But Seunghyun was persistent, his grip firm, his face shining with a joy that was honestly hard to deny. You glanced at the towering contraption again and your brain just about shut down. 

“How do you enjoy this?” you muttered, half to yourself, but Seunghyun leaned in close, his breath warm against your ear.

“Because I get to be with you” he whispered, his voice low and playful.

Your heart skipped a beat. He always knew how to say just the right thing, didn’t he? You wanted to argue, but the look in his eyes that soft, genuine affection made it so much harder to back out.

“Okay..” you said finally, exhaling like you were signing your own death warrant. “One ride but if I pass out, I’m blaming you.”

Seunghyun smiled and pulled you toward the ride, that cheeky grin lighting up his face. “Deal. I’ve got you and if you pass out, I’ll carry you the whole way home.”

You let out a nervous laugh, but despite the terror knotting in your stomach, you couldn’t help but smile a little as you both got strapped into the ride.

The harness clicked into place, but it didn’t provide nearly enough comfort for your rapidly pounding heart. You swallowed hard, feeling the adrenaline rush through you, not in a fun way, but in a please, make this stop kind of way.

Seunghyun, on the other hand, was practically buzzing with excitement, his eyes wide, a grin stretching across his face. He leaned over, his voice surprisingly calm.

“Jagi you’re gonna love this. It’s all about the thrill”

You forced a smile, but it was shaky at best and then, before you could even process, the ride lurched forward. The ground beneath your feet vanished, and your stomach made a sudden, violent lurch as the ride shot up like a rocket.

You immediately squeezed your eyes shut, one hand gripping down to the safety bar and the other on Seunghyun’s arm like your life depended on it. (It probably did.)

“Oh my God!” you screamed, but the wind was so loud you barely heard your own voice. 

You were launched straight up, feeling the blood rush to your head, and before you could even process it, the ride twisted and flipped upside down, sideways, every direction at once.

Seunghyun was beside you, laughing uncontrollably, his voice swallowed by the wind. 

“This is amazing!” He shouted, looking over at you, but you were in no condition to look back.

“I’m going to die!” you shouted, unable to stop yourself.

“No, you’re not!” Seunghyun yelled back, eyes sparkling even as you both swung upside down. “This is the best part!”

The ride flipped once more, and you held your breath, your hand clenching tighter around the bar as your body was thrown this way and that. You were so sure you were about to fly off the track, but just as quickly, the ride began to slow down, and the ground began to come back into view.

Once the ride came to a complete stop, you were left blinking, trying to catch your breath, eyes wide as you tried to ground yourself in reality.

You stepped off the ride like a newborn deer. Your legs wobbled beneath you, moving in completely different directions, and your vision spun like the ride was still going.

“I’m never doing that again..” you mumbled, arms flailing slightly as you tried to walk in a straight line and failed miserably.

You stumbled left. Then right. Then kind of… diagonally? Your limbs didn’t feel like they belonged to you anymore.

Seunghyun, of course, was thriving. Practically glowing. His hair was wind-tossed, cheeks flushed, smile wide. He looked like he’d just had the time of his life instead of being nearly flung into the stratosphere.

“Jagi” he said, trying not to laugh as you zig-zagged like a malfunctioning Roomba. “You okay?”

You didn’t answer. Mostly because you were busy spinning in a slow, disoriented circle, trying to figure out where the ground went.

“Oh no” Seunghyun muttered through a chuckle.

You took another shaky step, accidentally veering off to the side and straight into danger of walking into a trash can and that’s when Seunghyun stepped in, hands reaching out quickly to steady you. His arms wrapped around your waist and pulled you back into his chest, grounding you instantly.

You froze, still swaying slightly, your face buried against his hoodie.

“You’re walking like a drunken toddler” he whispered, clearly trying not to laugh. “A cute one, though.”

“I’m dizzy..” you mumbled into his chest, holding onto his hoodie like it was the only thing tethering you to earth.

“I noticed” he said with a smirk, his hands not leaving your waist, thumbs rubbing gentle circles. “You spun yourself more after the ride than the ride itself.”

You sighed dramatically the kind of sigh that carried the weight of love, regret, and a faint prayer to survive the rest of the day.

“We aren’t done though!”

You blinked. “...What?”

Before you could even take another step in the direction of sanity, he had dragged you in his arms  towards a rollercoaster that looked like it was designed by someone with a personal vendetta against gravity. The track had at least three full loops, a corkscrew, and one drop that looked illegal.

You stared at it in horror. “That’s not a ride. That’s a cry for help.”

Seunghyun laughed, not even slowing down. “It’s called The Inferno Loop. Sounds fun, right?”

“No! It sounds like a warning!”

“Too late!” he said, kissing the side of your head as if that would somehow erase the dread bubbling in your chest. “You're already in line. Technically.”

You looked around. He was right. Somehow, probably thanks to your state of stunned shock you were already at the entrance, ride signs flashing red and orange like a portal to hell.

“I hate you..” you mumbled again, gripping him tighter.

He looked down at you with that boyish grin. “You say that, but you’re still in my arms. Doesn’t seem very hateful.”

You groaned. He’s lucky he is cute. 

He kissed your forehead gently, a quick press of warmth and affection before pulling you with him into the next circle of hell otherwise known as the rollercoaster loading area. The seats looked sleek and deadly. Like futuristic torture devices. You eyed them with deep suspicion as Seunghyun practically skipped toward the front row like he was boarding a first-class flight.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this again..” you muttered as you slowly, reluctantly took your seat beside him.

The staff moved quickly, lowering the thick safety bars over your shoulders. It locked in with a solid click, a sound that sealed your fate.

You stared at the bar, then at Seunghyun, who was already beaming like a kid on Christmas morning. 

“This is gonna be insane!” he said, gripping his own harness with excitement.

You didn’t respond. You just blinked at him.

Seunghyun looked over at you, his grin practically stretching ear to ear, the wind already rushing past as the ride climbed higher.

“Ready?”

“Absolutely n—!” you started to scream, but the words barely made it out before the ride launched forward with a jolt that ripped the breath right from your lungs.

Your scream got swallowed by the wind, your whole body yanked back into the seat as the rollercoaster plummeted down the first insane drop. The track curved into a massive loop and your brain short-circuited. Gravity didn’t exist anymore. Neither did your sense of self-preservation.

Meanwhile, Seunghyun?

He was Laughing.

Not just laughing, full-on cackling, hands thrown in the air like this was a casual joyride and not a near-death experience. His eyes flicked to you between the loops, your hair flying in every direction, face frozen in terror.

“You’re doing great!” he shouted over the wind.

You could only scream in response, your voice cracking as the coaster twisted through a sideways corkscrew, your stomach left behind somewhere three loops ago.

By the time the ride finally came to a screeching halt, you felt like you had just been through a tornado, a war, and an exorcism all at once.

Your voice was hoarse from screaming your lungs out, your hands were still clamped tightly around the safety bar like it owed you rent, and your heart was thundering like you’d just run a full marathon. 

Twice.

You tried to stand, really, you did but the second you unbuckled the harness and attempted to step out, your legs wobbled beneath you like they were made of overcooked noodles. Then you clutched the side of the ride’s seat, trying to stay upright with your entire body shaking like you’d just been through a natural disaster. 

Seunghyun stepped off the ride effortlessly, already bouncing on the balls of his feet, still riding the high of adrenaline. He turned around to help you and paused.

“Oh jagi…” he said, eyes wide with poorly hidden amusement as he saw you swaying in place, arms stretched like a baby deer trying to walk on an ice rink.

“I don’t think I can walk” you mumbled, trying to shift your weight and immediately regretting it.

Without another word, Seunghyun stepped forward, slid his arms under your legs and behind your back, and just lifted you. You gasped, flailing slightly as he cradled you like it was the most casual thing in the world.

“Shhh” he said dramatically.

“You’ve been through enough. Let me carry my brave little warrior princess.”

You buried your face in his hoodie in sheer exhaustion and embarrassment.

“..Stop calling me that”

“You faced death for me. Screamed like a banshee. Almost passed out.” he grinned, starting to walk away from the ride platform with you in his arms.

People were definitely looking, but Seunghyun didn’t care. In fact, he looked proud of the whole situation.

“Don’t worry” he added, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “You’ll recover. I’ll feed you snacks, get you a plushie, and tell you how hot you looked screaming.”

“Seunghyun.”

“Yes, jagi?”

“…Put me down.”

“Absolutely not. You’re mine now. Carrying you forever.”