#proof that there is no algorithm here

[brytnoter]

"based on your likes"

why do i have tom riddle x reader fanfic written by a user called slytherinslut

[incognit0slut]

Devil’s advocate

Softcore Spencer doesn't feel any remorse when it comes to this strange arrangement involving sex. Neither do you.

Category: Smut (18+) Word count: 3.6k Content: fem!reader, dom!spencer, bratty reader if you will, implied age gap, unprotected p in v, spit kink, overstimulation, squirting, and kinda fwb or (more precisely) not-exactly-friends with benefits a/n: it took me more than 3 months to post again and it will probably take me another for the next post (kidding) (maybe not). try to imagine this spencer for a better experience

-

Spencer isn’t a good man.

A quiet verdict, a fault line.

A truth etched into the grain of his being that is unmoved no matter how many times people say otherwise.

He’s made a habit of the dissection — words, meanings, intent. A lexical autopsy, combing through every definition in the dictionary if it meant finding just one that could give weight to the well intentioned affirmations spoken by those who’ve shared his life through fourteen years of cases. From friends to mentors. From people he considers family. Even his mother has taken part in the exercise in her own way, quietly revising the definition of goodness to fit the shape of her son.

His love for her isn’t enough to convince him.

And he loves her, deeply, enough to bear the fragmented reality she clings to without complaint. Still, her confidence sounds like a desperate attempt to defend a virtue that, as far as he can tell, simply doesn't exist. Her faith in him is stubbornly rooted in wishes rather than proof. Pretty, fragile things wilting from reality. She doesn’t see the cracks hidden behind the glassy surface of his supposedly endearing charm.

Like most people never do. The brilliance of his brain blinds them. They think his mastery of facts or ability to weave information into careful answers is a reflection of some deeper moral foundation. Assuming that the man who can recite obscure case law from memory and deconstruct a lie with nothing but tone and syntax must also be someone incapable of harm. That someone who thinks in algorithms surely knows the difference between right and wrong and essentially follows it. Articulate, therefore righteous.

What lazy math that they run.

The truth, however, is far less romantic.

If there’s anything genuinely good left in him, he likes to believe it’s the act of waiting. Patience still sounds noble enough. It casts him as a silent benefactor, gifting others the space to sketch their own truths while he quietly collects their misconceptions and spends them like counterfeit bills.

He’s getting good at it, too.

Exchange his intelligence for wisdom.

Detachment for strength.

Emptiness for depth.

Little trades, so small and constant they almost feel natural now. As long as he keeps showing them the version they’ve come to accept, no one pauses to wonder if those long months locked inside his own head have carved him down to something less than whole. Selfish, perhaps, letting them cling to these illusions. But it’s a comfortable deception. They get the man they want, he keeps the truth to himself, paying nothing but time and silence for whatever reward comes from that carefully preserved silence.

After all, waiting is nothing more than delayed gratification, isn't it?

And this right here is what he’s waited for, to have you like this — warm and wet and dangling precariously off his bed.

A decadent reward for every second of restraint.

Purely carnal. Blasphemous in its perfection.

Your body curves at an angle that looks uncomfortable, a leg hooked over his shoulder, another barely hanging onto the edge of the mattress with the cool air licking your calf. Common sense tells him a complaint is warranted, yet not a murmur of discomfort escapes your pretty lips. You seem perfectly content to let him mold you into whatever shape he wants. Harmless, he insists, just a mutual indulgence between two consenting adults.

But morality has a way of souring sweet things — and maybe he should be ashamed.

Should be embarrassed at the way he finds satisfaction in this.

Should feel something other than pride watching your brows pinch together in pleasure.

Should care that he’s reduced to fucking you with all the desperation of a man who likes being selfish. It’s statistically uncommon for someone with his level of empathy, yet he stitches hunger into the tender curve of your body, scoring endless sensation with needles that prick and sting but never draw enough blood to slow him. Only if he distanced himself from you could he see the cruelty he’s gouging into the very seams of your skin.

He does no such thing.

He can’t. Not when he’s buried inside you like this, when your breath splits apart into fragile little pieces with weak fingers clawing at his back. Not when his selfishness feels bottomless, a craving so raw and wide and insatiable he's never dared give it a name — but somehow you seem to understand.

Understand what, though?

That he can’t help himself? That despite all the logic, all the reasons why he shouldn’t let himself have you, he does?

That he doesn’t regret it, not even a little?

No.

Good men don’t do this.

But you’re no saint either.

Innocence wears your face, but never fit so poorly. You’re trouble in its finest form — beautifully packaged, masterfully delivered with a smokey laugh that glides over the fine shiver pebbling across his skin as you offer a sly, “You’re getting sloppy.”

The smug little curl of your lips has his heart leaping in his throat, and he would have joined in your laughter if it weren’t for the way your breathless tone slithered into his ears. His brows draw together, sweat dripping down nose as he shakes his head to free the damp strands of hair clinging to his skin.

“Am I?”

“Mm.” You tip your head back against the bed, exposing the lovely curve of your neck. "Your age is starting to show.”

He finally huffs a laugh, lowers the leg hooked over his shoulder and trails up the inside of your thigh. “That’s not very nice.”

Your teeth briefly catch your lower lip.

“Neither is slowing down right when it’s getting good.”

“You think I’m slowing down?”

You faintly nod. “It’s actually cute how you’re pacing yourself. Should I be worried about your knees?”

That earns a sharp, almost affronted look before his palms grip both your inner thighs, followed by a sudden thrust that sends you back against the mattress. He thinks he’s regained some semblance of power over himself, until you let out a breathless little moan and continue to taunt him, arching your back with full insolence but only half the mockery. Docile in appearance alone when you’re flaunting your nipples in blatant invitation.

“That the best you can do?”

A hand flies to your breast, curling around the supple meat as he catches the stiff bud between his knuckles. “You’re acting brave tonight.”

“Sexually frustrated,” you admit with an exasperated sigh, rolling your hips. Urging him to move again. “Spent the whole day picturing you fucking me stupid and got exactly nothing.”

The corner of his mouth twitches.

Nothing feels almost insulting considering how easily he coaxed you through his apartment.

He tries to bend lower, and sure enough, there’s something that feels suspiciously like age nipping at his lower back. A dull throb he quickly swallows as his mouth find your nipple. And toys with it, rolling the taut peak between wet tongue and wetter teeth, each slow suck a deliberate rebuttal that the way he’s been driving his cock into you for the past twenty minutes is anything but nothing.

Your fingers slip into the softest surface of hair.

“Fuck me harder.”

He turns his attention to your other nipple. “That still wasn’t enough for you?”

“If you have to ask, then clearly not.”

His mouth closes around you again, laps slow, teasing circles, all the while you grind your hips, shamelessly trying to fuck yourself with every delicious tug of his lips.

Instinctively, he starts rutting his hips in response. Little thrusts of his cock easing inside you inch by inch. “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”

“I have every intention of finding out,” you counter, pulling him by his curls. “I know you can do better.”

His gaze touches yours.

You smile lazily.

“Go on. Show me.”

His eyelids dip in a slow, dangerous blink, and lets his nose brush the soft swell of your breast. Lingers. Smells the powdery scent of jasmine and honey consuming his senses.

What part of himself can he exchange this time? What currency of half-truths still has any value left?

The answer, adamantly, is etched in the narrow space of his mouth and your skin, a hush too charged to disguise. He doesn't think he owes you anything in counterfeit tonight. No borrowed patience. No repurposed kindness polished thin by repetition. The second you ask for more when he’s been giving you nothing less is the moment every polished veneer he’s spent years perfecting shatters like chipped glass.

So he gives you the one thing he’s never bartered — himself, stripped of caution.

Because no matter how many labels others slap on his name, you’ve never bought into a single one.

Not entirely. You catch the edges that don’t quite align, the rougher layers hidden beneath his careful composure. You see past the softness everyone assumes is the entirety of him, the reputation they’ve stitched together from fragments pieced carefully since he was an innocent young boy with oversized glasses and a penchant for knowledge.

Rationally, he is soft. He’s spent a lifetime wrapped in the belief that his gentleness is his sole trait. That it’s all he can embody.

But not with you.

With you, he's whatever he needs to be.

He's whatever he wants to be.

He pulls back just enough to watch your body seize around him, and drags his tongue over his chapped lips, tastes the salt of effort and the musky smell of sex before channeling what’s left of his energy into his core. Then fucks you harder. Shoving every inch back with a strangled noise of his own, savoring the tight pull of your dripping cunt. Relishing the slight roll of your eyes as he pushes deeper, harder, with a savagery that rips breathless whimpers from the back of your throat with each jarring thrust. 

Your moans ride every groaning hinge of the mattress, too, then linger, fogging the dark walls of his room as the wet slap of skin bounces off every surface. Stepping three beats out of time with reason, maybe more, for the way his eyes chase that music down the slope of your belly, following the trail of his thumbs over your mound, over your stretched folds, and pulls the soft skin apart.

His throat rises and falls in time with the motion of his cock — in, out, in, out. For someone so famously averse to germs, the streaks of your slick smearing across his skin outweigh every compulsion, so much so he pries you open even wider and lets a hot ribbon of saliva pool in his mouth. Watches it dribble over your clit. He’s nowhere near coherent enough to care about cleanliness when he can tell how much the slow trickle of his spit sliding down your swollen flesh — a foamy mess now resting heavily on his cock — only seem to intensify your thirst.

You squirm when he moves closer, fingers clawing around his wrist like you’re on the verge of asking for more but can’t bring yourself to say.

Stubborn, he's not surprised.

But he knows you well enough to understand the subtle shifts in your expression. He takes that slightly jutting lower lip of yours as a plea for him to give you what you need, so he smears the extra coat of lube over your clit and rubs frantically. Doesn’t bother to be gentle with it too, not when he’s seen how much you like it under rough hands. He’s proven right when he notices your muscles tensing up.

Your breath stutters. Your body jerks.

He rubs your clit with more pressure. “Good enough for you?”

You swallow thickly, blinking up at him through heavy lids. “Still—fuck—”

“What was that?”

“Still—think you can—do better,” you retort, hiccupping through your words. 

It’s beyond him that you’re still functioning. Your hair clings messily to your forehead, damp strands caught in a tangled halo around your face. Your cheeks are blotchy from where his stubble scraped across your skin, lips kiss-bruised and swollen and somehow still trying to get the last word.

You should be done by now. Boneless, reduced to little more than trembling limbs, yet you still have bits of reason floating around that mush he’s turned your brain into. There’s a spark of energy left to bait him. Foolish, he decides, but if there’s even a sliver of you left untouched, he’ll gladly take every fragment that dares to surface.

He wrenches off your body just long enough to fist his cock, dragging his bulbous tip through the sticky fluids down to the puckered hole beneath, then slaps himself through the mess. If it weren’t for your hips bucking shamelessly, he’d think he was wrong for indulging such filthy impulses he’s never dared to overstep. You can’t seem to discern whether the sharp throb is pain or pleasure, but your cunt flutters around emptiness and aches like it's grieving the loss of him.

One stroke after repositioning himself and he’s right back where you need him, hammering into that devastating spot that sends your pupils scattering upward, leaving nothing but the whites of your eyes. He pulls out and does it again.

And again.

And again.

And again, until he’s certain all your senses have braided into one indistinguishable pulse.

“Oh God,” you moan, trying to press your thighs together out of reflex, but his grip tightens as he pries them open once more.

You feel lightheaded. Your belly rolls, your cheeks burn, drool slips from the corner of your mouth. You’re so far gone you don’t even notice. Too wrapped up in the desperate drag of breath through your parted lips, too busy chasing the dizzy spark bursting behind your eyes. You’re nothing short of raw nerves, lost in the punishing rhythm that keeps tearing you open and stitching you together in the same brutal stroke.

It doesn’t take long for a high, agonizing squeal to wrench free from your throat as your orgasm barrels through you without warning. Steals your breath away, leaving behind only a splintered string of gasps and trembling cries that fall recklessly from your lips as his pelvis hammers into the curve of your hip bone.

And he catches every fractured syllable and synchronizes his thrusts to the quiver of your voice, or maybe he’s simply addicted to the jagged rise and fall of your moans — like a direct stroke to his ego, trophies he hoards greedily.

He ponders how many more of those rewards he can coax from you tonight, how many more heights your body can scale before it finally gives way. He assumes it’s too much to ask, yet the greedy pulse in his veins insists there’s always more shiver to claim, another breathless note to add to his growing collection.

It turns out to be unnervingly easy.

Your second climax arrives in the span of a single heartbeat.

The third steals in like an electric stab, splintering along your spine as he pins you down and pounds hard into you.

By the fourth, your cunt swells and clenches around him in frantic pulses, yet he’s still fucking you relentlessly as if one more keepsake will finally satiate his greed.

Your hand shake when you lift one to trace his bicep, though it ends up as more of a twitchy pawing than anything resembling grace before you blindly scramble up his shoulder, finding his damp mess of curls again. Its wild, humid knot of heat tangles between your fingers as the most wrecked little whine trembles in your throat.

“P-Pee.”

He blinks, straining to pluck your voice over the rush in his ears. The words barely register at first, but when they do, his own pulse comes apart in a hot scatter mess.

“Need to pee,” you fluster again.

And if that doesn’t unravel him to his bones, he doesn’t know what will.

He tucks his hands into the crevice of your thighs. “‘S not pee.”

“What?”

The confusion in your voice is almost cute for someone who usually acts like they know everything. Adorable how you’ve been nothing but provocative all night, only to falter gradually.

“You don’t need to pee,” he rasps. The grip behind your knees tightens, fingers digging into soft flesh as he drives deeper with all the focus he can muster. He’s holding back by sheer will alone now, even when the familiar feeling of his balls growing taut creeps up, but that ache is a small price to pay when he’s painfully aware of what your body is capable of giving.

His cock strikes a deep, delicious spot inside you.

Rearranges your insides until you're wrapped tight around him.

“Fuck,” you croak. “I’m gonna piss your bed.”

“It’s not pee.”

His words barely register when your whole body winds so tightly that your face doesn’t even look like yours anymore. Eyes unfocused, spine bowing, throat bared. The muscles in your neck tighten like cords that it’s clear you’re still trying to fight whatever pressure you’re under.

“You need to relax,” he urges, finding your clit once again. Wide eyes flutter over intense brown orbs.

“Wait wait wait—gonna pee—”

“You’re gonna come again,” he corrects. He sees you puff out a long breath, which is nothing less strained than his own. “Female ejaculation, different glands. Less than—”

His words catch in a groan as your cunt flutters around his thickness.

“…less than ten percent of the fluid is even related to—to urine.”

Annoyed, you tug on his curls and whine, “This isn’t the time.”

“No better time than now.” His hips continue to buck into you with a sharp, hungry rhythm. “You’ll understand if you stop fighting it.”

“I can’t!”

“You can.” Thwack-thwack-thwack. “You will.”

The sound of his balls slapping against the wet cradle of your ass is making you delirious. Even more so when a warm, buzzing sensation sparks in your core and rushes outward, blooming into this intense prick that spreads across your lower belly with startling speed.

“Oh—shitshitshit—”

“That’s it, just breathe through your nose.”

His words falls on deaf ears. “I-I can’t hold it any longer.”

“You’re not supposed to hold it in.”

"I—wa—wait—Spencer!”

“Let it out,” he frets, and closes the last inch of space between you. Foreheads nearly touching, brows pulling together in quiet frustration. “Need you to trust me for once.”

“I don’t—fuck! I am NOT pissing on you—”

“Do it.”

“I can’t—”

“C’mon,” he prods. “Give it to me.”

You sniff a strangled sob.

“Do it.”

You claw at his hair once more, and any semblance of control that you clung to shatters immensely.

You try to follow his words and suck in a sharp breath. Lungs expanding, ribs flaring, and the rush of oxygen pouring into your blood sharpens every sensation to something blinding. A passage of whines pitches upward as his thumb swipes side to side over your tight nub while he slams into you. Once, twice, over and over — until a concentrated surge of pressure around his cock urges him to pull out.

Warm bursts of liquid splashes onto him. Streaks down his damp thighs, the flushed skin of his skin. Seeps deep into the cotton fabric of his sheets with muffled sounds as your heart thunders wildly in your chest. He doesn’t even try to fight the smile that pulls at his mouth the second your eyes flicker with disbelief, or the lazy circle his thumb traces around your sensitive, overstimulated clit. He’s too focused on the way your release continues to mark the bed he intends to sleep in.

"There it is,” he hums proudly, "knew you could do it."

He did. He knew this would happen the moment your breath stuttered into helpless little gasps, but nothing could have prepared him for the reality. His lust blooms unchecked, a fever behind molten eyes, something his vision can’t seem to outrun. Even as his gaze blurs over your dripping hole puckering around nothing, over the tiny bead of precum trickling down your cleft, he’s stunned into silence.

You’re a ravishing mess, and he’s never seen anything so pretty.

You’re on another level of divine that it makes something in his head tick just from the sight. His cock twitches helplessly as he unconsciously inserts himself back through the warm puddle of your flesh, and swears he can still feel you fluttering. Feels the tremor in your sweet, sopping cunt. Hears the faint splatter of droplets beating the sheets with every deliberate stroke of his hips.

He’s long since fallen behind in being a good man, but you certainly deserve something in return for listening to him. So he reaches out, cradles your face between palms that have never claimed to be gentle, and drinks deeply. Tries to steal back the breath you robbed from him.

Kiss, taste, repeat.

Touch, grab, repeat.

But it’s not enough.

He doesn’t think it ever will be.

The dopamine surge won’t last, a notion as clear as the haze of your sweat gluing to his skin. He’s even sure he could rattle off half a dozen papers about reward circuits and compulsive behavior, recite the exact millisecond window in which the pleasure centers will spike and fall. None of it matters when your mouth parts for him and your breath warms his cheeks.

He tries to catalog the way your pulse thumps beneath his thumb, the microscopic tremor in your lashes, the sweetness of carbon dioxide exhaled against his tongue. It becomes another unsolved equation, a tangle of variables his doctorate never prepared him to parse. There’s only the thunderous beat of his own heart and the simple, staggering fact that you’re here, giving when he has taken so much.

But there is no safe dosage of you that will let him step back unscathed. One hit becomes two, two becomes habit, soon habit feels indistinguishable from necessity. An addiction he can’t refuse when it would only mean denying himself the only thing that makes him feel alive.

And if that makes him weak, he might as well be weak for you — again and again until there’s nothing left of him that doesn’t carry the imprint of your name. To ruin or to worship, it makes no difference to him.

He’ll fall to his knees just the same.

Your pulse begins to settle into a calmer rhythm in the hush that follows, and he scatters small kisses along the corner of your jaw, up the sweep of your cheekbone, pausing at the hinge of your lips. The gentle weight of his mouth has you shifting along wet sheets, every muscle tensing at the unexpected softness threaded through his touch.

Tenderness, in your world, feels foreign. Unfamiliar. Ill-fitting. And truthfully, he isn’t much better when it comes to you. Sharper tongues seem to be the better fit for two people who know how to fight more than they know how to surrender.

His lips skate beneath your chin instead, slides along the sweat slick column of your throat and hums, “Think you can do that again?”

Avoidance. It’s the language you both speak fluently.

The stiffness in your body bleeds out with your next exhale.

“…depends on your skill, old man.”

That's it. He can take another one of your barbed little comments. Another sly jab delivered with that pretty pout of your mouth. In fact, he finds himself almost craving it. Your taunts fuel the heat beneath his skin as much as they test his patience, and patience is something he's mastered after all. So he continues to grind his hips. Rubs the tip of your clit with the fine coarse of hair dusting his belly before you’re writhing again.

Peculiar, how easily his selfishness devours reason. Logic. Decorum. How quickly a man who’s built his life on discipline can find himself unraveling for something as simple and devastating as the way you gasp his name.

A good man would’ve stopped at the soft mist pooling in your eyes.

Spencer keeps going.

"If a God is a dog and a man is a fraud then I'm a lost cause." Devil’s Advocate—The Neighbourhood

[bumblebeehug]

Posts you’ll like:

og team natsu is so funny because every single one of them thinks they're the Normal One™ in the group. when in reality all five of them are insane just in wildly different ways.

[boiohboii]

How would that keep us safe?

(Kimi Raikkonen x pregnant!wife!reader)

Inspo

When a formula 1 driver's car fails on them, they would a. be angry, b. go straight to their engineers, c. stay in the team's motor home.. but not kimi raikkonen, no sir, especially not with his pregnant wife on a yacht on her own.

or

in which Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber and Jenson Button make fun of the infamous ice man for being head over heels for his wife so he just decides to double down.

WARNINGS: not proof read (when do I ever proof read this stuff), no sense of timeline whatsoever, just a small crackhead fic that came to mind. Thank you insta algorithm for the Kimi edits, the man is so fine omg, solid dilf right here people.

Masterlist

"God," yn huffed as she, for an accurate description, waddled alongside her husband, Kimi Raikkonen into the Mclaren garage "if you don't keep it in your pants next time I will chop it off."

"Yes dear." Kimi replied with a smile on his face, hiding his laughter as best as he could to spare himself the lecture that would inevitably make him laugh harder- he can't help it, his wife is much more adorable trying to give him an earful with her puffed cheeks, stomping feet and her belly looking like it's about to pop at any second.

It hadn't even been 30 minutes before yn started to feel the heat getting to her, making her fan herself with the collar of her shirt while glaring at the fan that evidently did nothing to help her out.

"Everything alright dear?"

"No, no!" yn turned to look at her husband "it's so fucking hot i feel like my skin is melting off and your daughter wouldn't stop kicking my bladder so no, nothing is fucking alright!"

While the engineers around gulped, scared for their lives, Kimi bit his lips to avoid smiling at his very cute, frustrated wife. He had gotten used to her snapping at him whenever any little thing annoyed her, he knew it's the least he can do and she always apologises so no harm done really.

"It's okay, here, how about you go watch the race from the yacht? Will that be better?" Kimi whispered as he stood behind his wife with his hands underneath her belly, lifting it up to give his wife some rest.

"Oh my god," yn groaned in relief "I really needed that, I love you."

Staying like that for a few minutes, yn agreed that it would be much better if she watched the race from the yacht in her swimming suit, the atmosphere and the clothing would definitely make it much more comfortable for her. And just as she was about to leave, new company arrived.

"Ohhh, did he piss you off enough to leave him before a race?"

"Damn Kimi, don't make a pregnant woman that mad, especially not your wife."

The voices of Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button joined the couple, along with the laugh of Mark Webber.

"Oh, shut up." As much as Kimi tells yn that he would rather eat chalk than willingly hang out with these guys, he is indeed fond of them.

"He didn't piss me off," yn pulled her husband down so she could kiss him, smiling upon hearing two of the three newcomers groan and a whistle (of course it's sebastian) "i just feel like I will burst any second so I am going to watch the race from One More Toy"

"What the fuck is one more toy?"

"Oh, it's kimi's yacht."

"Our yacht."

Placing one palm on her belly while his other rests on her cheek, Kimi smiled at his wife "be safe, yes?"

"Yeah, of course."

Giving her a kiss on her forehead, Kimi let go of his wife, watching her head towards his yacht with the help of one of the interns.

"Be safe." Came the mocking voice of Jenson Button

"I'll be so safe." Sebastian continued as they both reincarnated the way Kimi and Yn were standing a few seconds ago; Jenson's hands on Sebastian's stomach and cheek

"I'm going to kill you on this track."

Deciding to join, Mark stood in between Sebastian and Jenson, breaking up their proximity and placing his arms around their shoulders "but how would that keep us safe?"

"An engine failure, yet again from Mclaren."

"It seems like Raikkonen is the one who will retire this race, what a shame."

"Everyone was hoping for him to win this race, he had been phenomenal these past few races giving one stellar performance after the other, truly a waste to see him go this early into the race."

"Well, it looks like Kimi is going to walk to the garage."

"That is insane, it's like a 20 minute walk, no?"

"And we are back, and oh my god, there is Kimi Raikkonen in his yacht, he hasn't got a shirt on, with his wife on his lap, the father to be could not care less in this moment ladies and gentlemen."

"What a legend, the Iceman strikes again everyone, leaving the race to be on a yacht with his family. And oh my god, it seems that the couple are having the time of their lives on their yacht 'one more toy' with snacks all around and their hands all over each other."

[the-most-humble-blog]

🧬👻 “You Think You’re You? That’s Adorable.”

You’re not even fully human. You’re a haunted meat golem with Wi-Fi and anxiety.

ACT I — The Lie You’re Living

Ah, yes. You wake up. Brush your teeth. Sip your coffee. Scroll your phone. You feel like a real person with thoughts, memories, preferences.

Cute.

Because here’s the punchline, sweet summer child:

You’re not even 100% human.

ACT II — What You Really Are

You’re a walking, talking orgy of multiple species. Part human. Part bacteria. Part fungus. Part virus. Part ancient ape. And 100% confused spaghetti code pretending to have a soul.

The human body? A biological group project between evolution, gut microbes, parasitic DNA hitchhikers, and ancient mitochondria that used to be their own species.

Your body contains:

More non-human cells than human ones.

Bacteria that outnumber your own cells 10 to 1.

DNA from viruses, ancient fungi, and unclassifiable “dark genome” segments that we literally do not understand.

You are not a person. You’re a biofilm with opinions.

ACT III — You’re a Colony. Not an Individual.

Think about this:

Your thoughts can be influenced by the bacteria in your gut.

Your moods are affected by your microbiome.

Your decisions can shift depending on what fungus you inhaled that day.

Your attraction to people? Might be chemical signals from your skin flora.

You ever get a “gut feeling”?

That might literally be your intestinal bacteria whispering strategy into your brain.

And you thought you were “making a choice.”

ACT IV — Are You Even There?

Let’s go deeper:

You don’t control your heartbeat. You don’t control your dreams. You don’t control what you forget, or when you cry, or what triggers your trauma. You don’t control the timing of your thoughts.

So the question is:

Who the f*ck is actually driving this meat suit?

Because neuroscience doesn’t know. Religion argues. Philosophy hyperventilates. And physics just stares blankly into the void.

ACT V — You Might Be a Ghost. Or Just a Glitch.

You’re either:

A consciousness that’s somehow haunting a nervous system

A chemical puppet with enough complexity to simulate free will

A hallucination of self generated by accidental electro-meat fireworks

Or, worst of all:

A network of sub-selves constantly arguing while pretending they’re one “I.”

Shocking Truth?

Science has no consensus on what consciousness actually is.

Nobody knows if it’s:

An emergent property

A soul

A quantum algorithm

A shared delusion

Or a horrifying accident we’ve decided to romanticize

ACT VI — Logic Tests That Will Wreck You

Ready to lose sleep? Try these reality-breaking diagnostics:

🧠 Logic Trap 1: “When Are You?”

Your brain processes input with a delay. What you’re experiencing right now actually happened a few milliseconds ago. So… if you’re always behind the present… Where is “now”? And who’s watching it?

🧠 Logic Trap 2: “The Ship of Self”

Every 7 years, your cells have completely regenerated. You are literally not made of the same matter you were as a child. If your body changed… and your thoughts changed… What stayed the same? Who’s left?

🧠 Logic Trap 3: “The False First Person”

What if every time you go to sleep, the “you” that wakes up is a copy? You remember yesterday… but so does the copy. Are you just a rebooted save file that thinks it’s original?

🧠 Logic Trap 4: “The Brain In The Room”

The only proof you have that anyone else exists is sensory input. You could be a brain in a jar, hallucinating all this. Can you prove you’re not?

FINAL VERDICT — You’re Not “You.” You’re Just a Temporary Pattern.

A mind is not a soul. It’s a self-updating hallucination stabilized by hormones, trauma, diet, genetics, and luck.

And when you die?

That pattern ends. And everything you called “you” dissolves into meat, memory, and microbial decay.

The ghost leaves. The flesh rots. The world keeps spinning. No refunds. No backups. No explanations.

🔁 Reblog if you’ve ever felt like something else is steering. 👁 Comment if you’ve questioned your reality since age 9. 🧬 Follow if you’re ready to peel back your face and find the universe staring back.

⚖️ LEGAL DISCLAIMER:

This post is intended as philosophical commentary, not psychiatric advice. If you’re spiraling, eat something, touch grass, and don’t take your thoughts too literally. If you feel like nothing is real… congrats. You’re officially more qualified than most philosophers.

[drchucktingle]

I have a Bury Your Gays question. All the victims of Mrs. Why that we have SEEN are rendered catatonic by existential cosmic hopelessness. Would there be any victims you could see being taken by an existential EUPHORIA instead. Still trapped in the visions, but vibing in the perpetual ebb and flow of existence rather than horrified?

GOOD QUESTION buckaroo

SOME SPOILERS IN ANWSER, so if you have not read bury your gays yet then do that and come back

anyway mrs whys power is to show the end and beginning of the universe which is too much for mortal human brains to grasp and kind of sends them into a catatonic nihilistic state. they will eventually starve to death. NOT FUN. but here is the thing, MRS WHY is FICTIONAL. she is part of a tv show called TRAVELERS (and loosely based on mishas IDEA of agent y from a show called dark encounters).

point is SHE IS NOT REAL. her power implies a dystopian view of existence because that was the view of the show she is on. HOWEVER i personally believe existence is proof of love, and i have a positive view of existence and creation

so it is my belief that in REAL LIFE, outside of books, if mrs why was trottin around on our timeline, her touch could very well cause euphoria instead. that is almost a broader philosophical question of 'what lies at the end of this timeline?'

the issue is that in BURY YOUR GAYS, when mrs why 'comes to life', she does not really come to life. it is an approximation of the character. she is not ACTUALLY causing the buckaroos she touches to see the end of time, she just makes them act like that. a KEEN EYED READER will notice this is revealed when the news talks about the dust and metal found in the catatonic victims brain scans

some readers have had this question of WHY certain victims of mrs why got better once they have this knowledge. you cant just TURN OFF the knowledge you gain, and that is true. the answer is because AFTER YOU UNDERSTAND THE TWIST OF BURY YOUR GAYS you can infer that she does not ACTUALLY have the power to show anyone anything, she just has the power to make buckaroos ACT that way. of course, this will have the same result on a long enough trot (starving to death) but FORTUNATELY it can also be turned off if that is beneficial to the algorithm

[zaebeecee]

Why HuskerDust Isn’t Canon

I’ve seen a lot of Angel Dust-involved ship critical posts lately, all of them cruel and mean-spirited and all of them from those HuskerDust shippers who give the rest of them a bad name and go out of their way to attack anyone with a ship involving either Husk or Angel. They do this because “HD is canon”, and even those who don’t like the ship have resigned themselves to it being canon. But here’s the thing: in both the actual text of the show and in the meta, it’s not. And I’m going to go through several points to prove that it isn’t canon. (Note: these are all tropic flags and nothing else. Consider this a tiny media literacy course.)

Getting this out of the way: this isn’t anti-HD, a discouragement from shipping HD, or saying “it’s literally never going to be canon”. Obviously, people are free to ship whatever they want for whatever reasons they want; this isn’t intended to bully members of the fandom or to shame anyone who ships it, nor to attempt to convince people not to ship it. This is simply a response to claims of the canonicity of the ship being used to bully non-shippers, and speaking from the viewpoint of the narrative, the tropes, and the meta, it is not canon.

tl;dr: I don’t hate the shippers, I hate the bullies. This is not a discourse invitation, this is a trope analysis. If you don’t like what I’m saying, move on or block me. If you think I’m being mean, I really don’t care, because this is specifically a response to people who are being mean all the time. People in the fandom are terrified to be even vaguely critical of this ship because of the potential backlash, but I’m an Aquarius with a block button, idgaf.

HD was not confirmed canon by Medrano in an interview or on Twitter

To get this first point out of the way, the primary proof that HD shippers will use to claim their ship is canon is a Tweet Medrano put out after Episode 4 was put up on Amazon, as well as a Zoom interview where the interviewer asked her about HD.

The Tweet, which included a screenshot of Masquerade and asked what HD shippers thought of the episode, included the ship name. This is an example of engagement farming, a technique used in social media when people will use trending/popular tags, words, and phrases in order to increase engagement with posts and videos. The use of the HD ship name was not a confirmation of the ship; rather, it was used to capitalize on the ship’s popularity, ensuring that the algorithm would distribute it to as many people as possible. We know this was engagement farming because it was simply asking the people who shipped them what they thought of the episode. It didn’t call it a HD episode, nor did it say it was for the HD shippers.

In the Zoom interview, while the person conducting the interview used the term HD, Medrano herself never did. In fact, she went out of her way to avoid using the ship name, and instead, used the generic word “relationship” when describing their future interactions, a word she has also used to describe future progression between Charlie and Lucifer (so, if this makes HD canon, then it also means that Charlie and Lucifer will be a canon romantic ship).

HD was not confirmed canon by Blake Roman or Keith David

In much the same vein as the aforementioned Zoom interview, when Roman and David were interviewed about the interaction between Angel Dust and Husk, both actors carefully avoided using any terminology or wording that suggested a romantic relationship, only talking about the two of them as close friends. If the ship had actually been confirmed by Medrano months earlier, there would be no reason for the two of them to skirt around the issue. There was also nothing teasing the potential of the ship, simply straightforward information about their friendship.

Husk has been called Angel Dust’s “best friend” by Medrano repeatedly

Medrano has always, when referring to their future interactions, referred to Husk as Angel Dust’s “best friend”. Additionally, while she has never shied away from stating when a character has any form of romantic interest in another character, her only comment on Husk has been that he is pansexual, but she has quite specifically never once stated that he has any romantic interest in Angel Dust.

“Loser, Baby” is the “we’re not so different” buddy musical song

Much of Hazbin Hotel can only be understood through the lens of the form of media that it’s taking most of its cues from: namely, musical theater. There are many tropes that exist within musical theater, specifically in the types of songs themselves, that are used as shorthands to tell audiences what relationships are between characters and how they will be interacting going forward, because all storytelling in musicals are abbreviated by necessity, and songs exist to encapsulate large portions of character/story development in short periods of time.

“Loser, Baby” is, tropically speaking, a song that occurs during the main character’s lowest point in the first half of Act II. This is when they have encountered a massive hurdle in their journey (a breakup, a death, getting kicked out of their house or school, losing their dream job, etc) and are feeling hopeless and lost. In this instance, one of two kinds of songs will occur at this point during the show:

The first is the romantic duet, where the MC is dejected and negative, and their love interest is attempting to turn them around. This is the point when the love interest realizes they are in love with the MC, whether they confess these feelings or not, and is a plea for the MC not to give up.

The second is the “snap out of it, you moron” song. This takes place when the MC is on their own and is found by either a character we are familiar with who has realized they misunderstood the MC (who goes from being a point of conflict to a friend), a family member of the MC (usually either a sibling, an adult offspring, or a parental figure), or by a character we have never met before (generally one considerably older than the MC). This is the song where the other character confesses to the MC that they understand their pain because they were once in the same situation, or because they went through a similar painful progression if that situation hasn’t changed. This song typically carries a “suck it up, buttercup” message and is considerably more callous than the romantic duet, because it is a communication of tough love. It’s important to note that this is never a duet between the MC and their love interest.

“Loser, Baby” is quite firmly in the second category. It is not romantic in nature; rather, it’s Husk realizing that he misjudged Angel Dust and, subsequently, telling him “a lot of other people are in your position, I’m one of them, you aren’t special, stop whining”.

If “Loser, Baby” is romantic, Husk is a predator

For the entirety of the series up until this song, Husk has shown that he has absolutely zero interest in Angel Dust romantically. “Loser, Baby” comes on the heels of Angel Dust confessing to suffering from a great deal of physical and emotional abuse and manipulation, as well as crying in front of someone else for the first time, showing his first true moment of real vulnerability. If Husk uses that moment to suddenly show interest in Angel Dust, it says that either A) Husk is only interested in Angel Dust once he realizes that he is emotionally broken and in a vulnerable position, or B) Husk is willing to use this vulnerability to his advantage and subsequently manipulate Angel Dust. Both of these things are contradictory to Husk’s character.

Husk and Angel Dust have minimal interaction in Welcome to Heaven

Episode 6 has two plots: the A plot, which is Charlie and Vaggie visiting Heaven to attempt to bargain with the Seraphim; and the B plot, revolving around Angel Dust’s temptations to regress into his addictions. In the B plot, Husk’s only interactions with Angel Dust are judging him for wanting to do drugs (which directly contradict his claim in “Loser, Baby”, where he expressly states that he’s fine with Angel Dust’s hooking and drug addiction; it also comes while he is indulging in alcohol, his own vice, which is the definition of hypocritical), and being silently proud of him when he doesn’t do drugs. This is the behavior of the Shoulder Angel or of the Detached Father, not the love interest.

Angel Dust is a main character, Husk is not

Angel Dust is a member of the main cast, alongside Charlie, Vaggie, and Alastor. Husk is a secondary character. It isn’t feasible to have a main character pursue a relationship with a secondary character; you can have an MC who is already in an established relationship with an SC, but you cannot build a relationship between an MC and an SC because the SC doesn’t have enough lines or screen time. Keith David is also quite expensive, and there is no way the show will be able to afford the price that would be required for Husk to be a larger presence in the show.

There is a forty year age gap between the two

Sinners do not age, nor do they mature. We see examples of this in every single Sinner throughout Hell; Angel Dust is a good example, as he died in his 30s in 1947, meaning he would be (at minimum) 110 years old. However, he acts like a young man in his early 30s who spent most (if not all) of his life in a deeply repressed home. Another good example is Cherri Bomb, who is clearly in her 20s, but would be at least in her 60s by this point. Because of this, it is easy to determine that not only do their bodies not age, their minds do not, meaning that the age they were at time of death is the age they will be, mentally and emotionally, forever.

Angel Dust died in his 30s. The only official number Medrano ever gave for Husk’s age at death was 75, and she has stated both that he died in the 1970s and he was born before the year 1900. While no specific age has been stated for Angel Dust, he is written to be between the ages of 30 and 35, meaning that there is a minimum age gap of forty years between the two of them. Additionally, if Husk was intended to be the love interest of someone in their 30s, he would not have been specifically written to be an old man.

Angel Dust has never once come on to Husk

Angel Dust is a flirtatious and sexual character. However, his only flirtations with Husk have been responses to statements Husk made that could be taken out of context. Not only does he never take the initiative and flirt with him first, he also never propositions him; the closest he gets is telling Husk he would be lucky to be propositioned by him. (As a side note, Angel Dust has only ever propositioned two characters in the entire show: Alastor, both in the pilot and the first episode, and Alastor’s shadow construct in the second episode).

It could be said that this is because Angel Dust has “true feelings” for Husk and is, therefore, too shy to overtly proposition him, which brings us to the next point:

HD as a ship is built entirely on homophobic writing tropes

There are several points about this ship that are, ironically, homophobic, but I’ll be focusing on the last two points: the age gap and Angel Dust’s sexual nature.

The age gap: the gay male community has, since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks, been plagued with this idea that enormous age gaps are not only fine, they’re expected. Age differences that would never be tolerated in heterosexual or even lesbian couples are waved off when the characters in question are men. This has created the false expectation that many older gay men have--namely that they are “owed a twink”, and that younger gay men are almost required to submit themselves to a much older man as a rite of passage.

Angel Dust’s sexual nature: Husk has quite expressly stated he has no interest in Angel Dust’s overt sexuality, to the point that he refuses to even look at him as a person until Angel Dust reveals other facets of his personality. This suggests that, for a relationship to work, Angel Dust would have no choice but to repress his urges, or that Angel Dust’s sexuality is a front and he actually isn’t that overt. In either case, this would be a direct parallel to Angel Dust’s life as a gay man in the 1930s and 1940s, where he would have been forced to be closeted under threat of prison or death, and either Husk himself or the audience would be forcing him back into a form of that closet.

Crimini has no stated relationship with Angel Dust

Crimini, a character who is slated to appear in Season Two, has been described as Husk’s adoptive daughter who will make up the bulk of his character plot going forward. Not only does Angel Dust have no stated relationship with her, he has never once been mentioned alongside her character at all. If Angel Dust was intended to be Husk’s love interest, that would make him (functionally) another parental figure to Crimini, if perhaps a reluctant one; that would make him an integral part of Crimini’s future plot, but seemingly, the two have nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

Despite the fact that Medrano changes canon based on fan opinion all the time, the show is written too far in advance to change major plot beats just because one ship got really popular

We in the fandom know that Medrano has a tendency to fold in the face of fandom wants and desires. However, between the pilot and season one, the HD fandom was rather small; this would have been when Medrano was working with Amazon, getting future script approval and mapping out the way the story was going to go, and at the time, RadioDust was just about the only thing keeping the fandom alive long enough for interest to remain during the three year gap, and we all know that isn't going to be canon. Because of the sheer amount of overhead and advance planning that goes into something like this--particularly considering that season two was already in production in the wake of season one’s premier--the fact that the HD fandom grew after the season’s release would be unable to have any effect on the show because it would be far too complicated and far too expensive to make big changes. HD would only be viable if it was already planned from the beginning, which it quite clearly was not.

•

So what's my point with all of this? My point is that the content of media means things, and part of media literacy is understanding the difference between wishful thinking/projection and canon.

[physalian]

Whatever project you're too afraid to start, just go for it

I know a lot of my posts lately have been video/content creation-related but I just want to say:

The learning curve that I have had to climb in the past week alone has been both frustrating as hell and ridiculously rewarding.

Already, I had to refresh my memory on basic video editing and sound comping, but for the first seven episodes of my little series I’d accepted the average quality of my voice recording as cest la vie, I’m not sinking money into this without proof of concept, you’re supposed to be a little rough around the edges when you’re first starting out. But one thing I couldn’t get over was the clipping from some technobabble shenanigans with frequencies that isn’t important here.

What I thought was a quick fix—replace and double the RAM in my laptop—was absolutely not the source of the problem and suddenly I was in the deep end trying to fix broken audio in post while also troubleshooting an issue no one else seemed to have between my microphone and my recording software and I was about tempted to just use my desktop mic, the built-in, because at least I could somewhat fix that in post.

After far too many hours deep in discussions with strangers on the internet who were very helpful, I half-fixed the problem. My mic stopped clipping, but it was distorting pretty heavily between two different processers and my recording software hated it for a whole different reason.

Reluctant Plan B was to record gameplay live, but record audio separately/after and then sync them in post. If you’ve ever made a gaming video like these, you’re staring at probably 15+ clips of useable content over the course of recording sessions, which means 30+ clips with all the separately recorded audio, and since I can’t hit start/stop congruently with both programs, they would always be a little bit off, which meant more tedious editing.

Why? Because I was recording in Program A, fixing audio in Program B, and editing the video together in Program C, and Program C is for like, tiktoks, not professional youtube videos. I was only using it because I was already paying for it in an Adobe package with InDesign.

Enter DaVinci Resolve.

It’s like, Photoshop compared to MS Paint, a free one-stop-shop for video and audio editing (and visual effects, this thing is used to make blockbusters) and here’s me still confused by all these audio terms like ratio, attack, threshold, etc.

So I’m still wading through tutorials, all while my mic only works through Program B, Audacity, with an episode deadline looming over me. From the time I committed to initially fixing my audio by replacing the RAM, to episode release date, I had 6 days. Today is day 4.

And I’m still without a proper recording setup because Program A hates my microphone. But I am not missing this deadline, not just for the youtube algorithm, but because I know I can make it.

So episode 8, at the time of writing this, I have only 9 minutes and 25 seconds all edited and ready to go, out of 22-24 that I usually publish. So what have I done?

Fuckin’ taught myself DaVinci Resolve and committed to recording my vocal track in post just this once, doing it over and over again until it sounds as genuinely live as it can, and doing regular voiceover and music montages wherever else I can to fill the time with meaningful content.

All to buy myself time for my replacement mic to deliver so I can get back to proper live recordings, because at this point, the time it takes to fix terrible audio in post isn’t worth it, when I can spend a little bit of money for a mic that isn’t 8 years old and is built for gaming, not podcasting (but I am keeping the problem child as a backup, because it’s not broken).

I’m waiting for a timelapse to render while I write this, staring at a workflow with one video source and 3 different audio layers—game sound, vocals, and music—and I can almost turn my brain off when trimming things because that part I already know how to do.

This thing is a mess, to be clear, but it sure as hell won’t look like a mess when I hit publish on time two days from now.

But like…. 3 weeks ago I knew next to none of this, beyond basic video editing I learned back in college. And here I am with my double-wide monitor up and professional video making software quietly churning along in the background.

So just—if you want to do it? Go fuckin’ do it. Whatever it is that you’ve been holding off on pursuing. When I started I already owned things like a gaming laptop (that I bought to run photoshop so I could paint), an 8-year-old podcasting mic from a dropped podcast attempt, my game of choice, and I was already paying for the bare bones version of Premiere: Premiere Rush.

But heck, even if I had none of the fancy equipment, the only limiting factor would have been my computer’s processing power to run all these programs at once, and I would have figured it out.

I’m a perfectionist bound and determined to fix my audio, but I didn’t hear any complaints when it was jank, and I’m learning all this because the whole process, not just the gameplay, is just so fun and fascinating.

[tuboficecream]

Ilsa Faust and MI:8

Here’s my theory on this scene in the trailer.

I believe this is confirm to be Marie (an unknown character we know was very close to Ethan but was killed at the hands of Gabriel). If it is her, this is a hallucination / dream.

———————————————————————— Not sure how The Entity truly works but if it was (or wasn’t) able to predict that Ethan swapped out the key at the end of MI:7, it at least knows he has it now and will be coming for The Sevastopol (knowing Paris telling him the info, whether it planned for Gabriel to force Paris into switching sides for a greater goal or knowing she would switch eventually and was trying to let Gabriel prevent it).

I am wanting to bet that it wants Ethan to get there. Foreshadowing the opening of DR with the Russians getting psyched by its own machines and leading to their death underwater. Ethan will be able to find the Sevastopol to try and stop the Entity. The only way for the AI to guarantee its victory is have Ethan killed underwater.

So how does this tie into Ilsa?? Both Marie and Ilsa were close to Ethan and was killed by Gabriel.

Well going off of the wonderful theories created in this fandom (that my delusional brain is saying it’s a fact) Ilsa is alive. There are plenty of wonderful theories out there that goes into depth with great proofs that Ilsa is alive and that Ethan faked her death. I won’t go into detail because other people had written it out really well but here’s how her survival should (and will) be implemented.

There was a plan made before Ethan went to see The White Widow at the club where Gabriel, Grace, and Paris was. We don’t know the full details since the audience is jumped right into Ethan and Ilsa going into the club (but I know both of them are not going to go in blindly. Not with Luther’s caution at least anyway). The main crew is counting on anyone close to Ethan and himself being there at the party. Lo and behold, he’s given the illusion of choice that one person will die that night. Ethan is good at faking out deaths (Julia exhibit) and in order to save both people, Ilsa needs to be fake dead. And to ensure her safety.

What would be ABSOLUTELY epic is that we recall back to Rogue Nation. Ethan drowning, dying. Ilsa Faust comes to save the day. The MI films and especially Dead Reckoning had been so great at referencing its previous movies and referencing Rogue Nation’s midpoint AND if they gave Ilsa a mask (which will explain how she disguise herself to go down into the subs and follow Ethan undetected) would be absolutely incredible.

It would also work with the very plausible idea that Ethan NEEDED to fake out Ilsa’s death in order to take her out of the AI’s algorithm so it will no longer calculate her actions and fate. Knowing Ethan, he doesn’t need to choose between Ilsa and Grace—he is capable of saving both and he doesn’t weigh his options. A life is a life. No matter whom. And we establish this heavily in Fallout.

All in all, Ilsa Faust is alive and I need her back please.

anyway thank you for coming to my rambles. I’m too excited and anxious about MI:8.

[ladybugmania]

BRAND'S FALL FROM GRACE.

Who's C..K has Russell Brand been sucking on.

Russell Brand: once the wild-haired, sex-charged court jester of British comedy, now just a crusty relic of relevance, drooling orange sludge from his mouth like a broken Trump-branded Pez dispenser. Seriously, what happened? The man who once seduced pop stars and sparred wittily on talk shows now sounds like your cousin who discovered Reddit and never came back.

He’s gone from sharp social critic to full-blown conspiracy goblin, squatting in the digital swamp with the likes of Alex Jones and Elon Musk fanboys, croaking out “truth bombs” that are really just brain farts wrapped in pseudo-mysticism. And naturally, like a Roach to a nuclear-powered dumpster fire, he’s found his tribe in the MAGA cult. Yes, Brand has latched on to the Trump regime like a barnacle to a gold-plated yacht, both loud, both delusional, both accused predators.

Let’s not mince words, Brand is under serious investigation for multiple sexual assault allegations, including rape, exposed by UK media in 2023. And what does he do in response? Deny, deflect, and dive deeper into the conspiracy playbook. Because when you're accused of monstrous behavior, what better way to distract the public than by ranting about the New World Order while selling supplements from your kitchen? Perhaps taken from the playbook of the Trump regime.

The man’s entire brand now feels like a parody of itself: once a provocateur, now a prophet for the perpetually confused. He’s like a cult leader who forgot the script halfway through and just started making up words. There’s nothing “woke” or “awake” about hiding behind “freedom of speech” when what you’re really doing is gaslighting your audience and ducking accountability.

So here lies Russell Brand: a “truth teller” in a sea of delusion, floating somewhere between a YouTube algorithm and the ghost of his own washed-up career. Once upon a time, he was funny. Now? He’s just a meme waiting to expire.

The charming trickster turned out to be just another predator in the parade of fallen celebs, hiding behind spirituality and self-help gobbledygook like it's a cloak of virtue.

It’s almost poetic, Brand, the man who once mocked the powerful, now grovels at the feet of power, parroting MAGA rhetoric while pretending he's awakening the masses. From British bad boy to bargain bin Bannon, Russell is proof that not all who wander are wise—some are just completely lost, ranting about the matrix while cashing in on clicks.

He's just another rapist MAGA loving loser, dribbling orange fluids from his mouth after sucking the Orange Kings little Republican doodle noodle.

[princessaffirms]

heyy! i’m kind of new to loa but have manifested some very small things before. i understand a lot about loa too. i was just wondering how to manifest my big sister continuing to live with me and my mom after summer. she said she would move out after summer break. she plans on traveling alone during the summer, and i want me and my mom to go with her to all the places my sister plans on going to.

hi angel! ₊˚⊹♡ it’s awesome that you’re really stepping into your power on your manifestation journey, yay!! and CONGRATS on your recent successes 🥹

if you understand the fundamentals of the law of assumption (your assumptions create your reality), then you already have all the knowledge you need to manifest that! the ability and power to do so has ALWAYS been in you. now, all you need to do is APPLY the knowledge! 🫶

i know things can feel really overwhelming with all these new manifestation methods, concepts, etc. on social media, but don’t let that sway you! those new methods, etc. are just there to help provide structure for those who need it. but it’s not necessary for you to succeed!! 🤍

you don’t need a new technique or anything to manifest this. you just need to APPLY the law! the law can NEVER fail. the universe is algorithmic, NOT random (i wrote a BLOG about this topic that i recommend reading through: 🔗 LINK HERE)

🫶 that being said, here are some loving reminders for you to consider as you continue persisting in your affirmations:

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

1. DECIDE it’s already done. ✨

assume that your sister already chose to stay. that you and your mom are already going on those summer trips with her.

for EXAMPLE, you can affirm things like:

• “i love that we’re already officially all traveling together this summer!”

• “it feels so good having my sister still living with us!!”

a popular concept in the law of assumption is that everyone is you pushed out. this means that the people around you reflect your beliefs, assumptions, and inner state. so shift internally, and let the external world mirror that.

2. SEE it in your mind + FEEL it in your heart. ✨

you don’t need perfect visuals (or even to visualize it at all if you have aphantasia or struggle with visualization). just imagine little moments where it’s already true. think about how you’d feel and think if it was already true and happening, then hold onto that feeling.

laughing together. seeing her room still set up. photos from your summer adventures. feel the gratitude and happiness in your chest, and use THAT as your evidence of it being true now. create that proof for yourself, because whatever is true for you in your 4D (inner world) ALWAYS reflects in your 3D.

shut down any doubts by flooding your mind with that experiential evidence. how could your affirmations be anything BUT the truth? you’ve ALREADY EXPERIENCED IT!! you ALREADY HAVE IT! <3

(i also wrote a BLOG about this topic that i recommend reading through for more information: 🔗 LINK HERE) 🫶

3. REMEMBER: there’s no such thing as a “big” or “small” manifestation — that’s just a label your mind gives it. ✨

the only thing that makes something feel “harder” or “bigger” is the WEIGHT YOU ASSIGN to it.

when you normalize your desire and let it feel easy. because it’s meant to be! 🥹

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

you’ve got this, and your desire is SO POSSIBLE.

sending you so much love and light! <3

[webslingingslasher]

is trouble ever frat!peter’s lock screen? Either before or after the whole situationship thing or secretly during both eras? If so, what picture?

yes! relationship!peter does it proudly, situationship!peter is a bit more stealth. iphones have a wallpaper feature where if you hold the screen down you can swap between photos and i imagine that’s how it is.

peter went home for a week and really missed you and went through his photos and he saw that picture he snapped of you at a party. the background is blurred, proof that the liquor was flowing heavily. you’ve got a smile that shows off almost every tooth and a vice grip on a liter of rum. he doesn’t know why, but he made it his wallpaper for the week and would pick up his phone every five minutes just to look at it.

relationship!peter has a picture of the both of you. something he looks at and is reminded of what he has and how much he truly loves you. it was from a double date night you both had a few months into being official, your friend pressured peter for the photo, he rolled his eyes and gave in. he’s glad he did. it’s his favorite.

you’re wrapped around him in a side hug, peters got a grip on your shoulder. he’s laughing at something your friends date said, he’s wearing the grin you tell him you love. but the reason he has such adornment for the photo is because of the way you’re looking at him.

your eyes are bright and shining, your smile matches his, not because you found anything funny, but because peter’s joy was contagious for you. each time he looks at it he feels warmth radiate, a visual reminder of how much you love him.

—

(you know i had to add a bonus of trouble finding peter’s wallpaper!! -situationship!peter obv)

‘just sit here and look pretty, i’ll be thirty minutes tops.’

peter had pulled you away from date night with the promise of stopping at his chapter meeting. he had negotiated the first hour, trent, the chapter president, wouldn’t break on the last thirty minutes and demanded peter be there. or else.

you wouldn’t mind but peter didn’t tell you until last minute and now you’re sitting down at an empty table at the library while they fill up a rented room across from you.

‘it’ll be longer than that and you know it.’

‘you’ll be fine. give me a kiss.’ you meet him with one, you grumble down at your phone. ‘my phones about to die, what am i supposed to do?’

peter feigns shock, ‘oh no!’ he looks around, ‘i hope you’ll find something to do in this big, empty library. it might be hard.’

your eyes narrow, you hate his sarcasm. ‘the library doesn’t have instagram reels, peter. how am i supposed to entertain myself while you’re talking numbers and business?’

there’s a miniature battle of silence, you win when peter groans and hands over his phone from his back pocket. ‘here. use mine.’ you reach forward, peter’s giving you unbridled access to his phone, you’d be dumb to say no.

‘nuh uh. you promise me right now you won’t fuck up my algorithm, i spent months perfecting it.’ you make grabby hands, ‘promise.’

the sleek, black screen is in your hold in seconds. your thumbs fly over the screen, you’re in and on instagram in a second. peter looks back once more, ‘thirty minutes.’ you nod, the first video already playing, you wish you could send it to peter. you send it to yourself to send back to him when you’re at a full charge.

ten minutes and you need a refresher, wandering around towards the bathroom you grab a water from a vending machine. cracking the cap, your left thumb pressed into peter’s home screen and his wallpaper separated, another photo right next to it.

you can recognize the edge, you swipe and feel your heart melt into a puddle. it’s you and only you. smiling and posing just for peter. he snapped the pic and saved it, he even went one step further and put it as his screensaver. a backup one, but something tells you he doesn’t want you knowing it exists.

you can keep a secret.

you can’t stop smiling at his phone and the short videos playing aren’t even that funny. you perk at a kiss on the top of your head. ‘told you i’d only be thirty minutes… what? why are you looking at me like that?’

‘no reason. it was very nice of you to offer me your phone, thank you.’

another kiss, you can’t wait til you get him alone. you might be the only one in on the secret, but he was going to be treated very nicely for it.

‘no problem, trouble. what’s mine is yours.’ your heart thumps louder. ‘and now,’ peter gently pulls you up with him, you’re along for the ride.

‘i owe you dessert, let’s go.’ you don’t walk with him, you stay until his hand tugs yours, peter looks back at you confused. ‘i wanna have dessert at yours.’

peter pouts, ‘tarrent polished off the ice cream.’

‘i know.’ peter knows that tone, now he’s standing straighter and acting casually. ‘oh? alright, yeah, let’s go home.’

[halalgirlmeg]

🚨🚨🚨THIS IS URGENT PLEASE DO NOT SCROLL. PLEASE REBLOG🚨🚨🚨

Hello everyone. It has been multiple days of posting. Many reblogs and no donations. This isn't unheard of, across the board multiple Palestinans have talked about how their posts have stagnated. Those who collect esims and who run larger campaigns to collect funds have spoken about how their engagements have dropped and they are receiving much less than they did last year. And I feel the same here, I'm not entirely sure of the origin of the change but I do feel there was a lot more help before. And maybe people are working with less, maybe they're tired, maybe the algorithm is supressing things. Maybe multiple reasons, but still i want to make sure that Shimaa and her family get the help they need like anyone in Palestine should be getting help needed. People are facing lack of food as aid is not allowed into Palestine or when it is it is subpar if not dangerous (being expired or poisoned for instance), people are in danger just moving from place to place. I particularly am helping Shimaa to campaign towards being able to help her family have food and toiletries and they are one of the many people that are hoping to rebuild their home. Our current goal is 350. And we have yet to receive any aid for this one. And I'm not sure what else to say. No one has to give like the whole thing or like 100 dollars but a little bit could help because from many people small additions really add up. But no contributions means we stay where we are and it will take that much longer for help to reach Shimaa and her family. So, please help if you can. If you are unable to, at least continue to reblog and contribute, even if you see older posts because they have the same links and if it works it works, anyway help can be received is gladly appreciated. @im-smart-i-swear is also still doing commissions in exchange of proof of your help

GOAL: 0/350

[vintagevixyxol]

The old language: the alphabet and some patterns

from the books Dark Rise by C.S.Pacat

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The old world holds many attractions for the readers: its mysterious history, culture, characters and language. There are inscriptions and phrases in old language in the books. At first glance, they look scary and inexplicable. Nevertheless, at second glance, the language opens up. In this analysis, I hope to show that the old language is amazing and share the delight I had researching it.

First of all, disclaimer. I am not a true linguist and, moreover, not Kettering, but a person who loves to find out patterns and tries to explain them. This article is just my theory, hypothesis and my point of view. It can be different from the canon.

There were phrases in the old language and their translations in the first edition of the Dark Rise. They inspired me to reconstruct the old language alphabet and to start my research. The inscriptions in the Dark Heir, the second book, proved the alphabet to be correct.

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The alphabet

As I have already mentioned, the alphabet is based on the translations of the old language in the first edition. I will use one phrase as an example to explain a deciphering algorithm. As I have applied the same algorithm to all inscriptions, I will only mention other phrases in the old language to show the letters they contributes to the alphabet.

The phrases from the Dark Rise: Decoding the alphabet

Step 1: selecting similar letters

Here is the phrase “Rassalon the first lion”.

There are two S in “RaSSalon”; there is also S in “firSt”

Double S is between two A

The first word begins with R, and R is also present in“fiRst”

L — “Lion”

O —“liOn”

N — “lioN”

“...the First Lion”

T — in “The” and “firsT”

i — in “first” and “lion”

!(why “i” is small I am going to explain later)!

Step 2: non-repeating letters

New letters: H, e (!) and F.

Other phrases

He is coming (Dark Rise, chapter 11)

New letters: C, M, G

I cannot return when I am called to fight So I will have a child (Dark Rise, chapter 2)

New letters: U, W, D, V, I(!)

I and i are different. In my opinion, it might be because “I” is a pronoun.

Enter only those who can (Dark Rise, chapter 15)

New lettres: Y, E

E and e are different. Perhaps, it is because “E” is in the beginning of the word “Enter”.

The horn all seek and never find (Dark Rise, chapter 15)

The new letter: K

Note: The letter design in the figures is a little different from the original design due to qualities issues.

The phrases from the Dark Heir: Proving the alphabet relevance

There are also inscriptions in the Dark Heir. If I use the same strategy here, it does, here are the proofs.

The first proof

One of the inscriptions is the name Undahar. Names are not translated. All letters in Undahar match the letters of my alphabet except U. It turns out to be V in the previous inscriptions, so I will write two variants U/V because I am not sure which one is correct.

The Eclipse/Finem Solis (Dark Heir, chapter 26)

The second proof

Here is the phrase: “He is coming.”

(Dark Heir, chapter 2)

Although there is one unknown letter, we can identify it by using the similar phrase:

He is fighting — Ar ventas

He is coming — *r uentas/ventas

The new letter is A. I think this A is different from the regular A because it is the first letter of a pronoun. Pronouns start with capital letters to avoid confusion with other words that include “ar”.

The result: alphabet

Of course, I admit the possibility that not all letters comply with the original alphabet as it is in the U/V case.

Issues in deciphering

The same phrases in the old language are written differently in the Dark Rise and the Dark Heir. I do not know whether it is due to errors in the first two editions or it means something else.

He is coming, Dark Rise (chapter 11), edition 2021

He is coming, Dark Rise (chapter 11) edition 2022

He is coming, Dark Heir (chapter 2)

The past cries out, but the present cannot hear, Dark Heir (chapter 2)

Only a Steward may enter, Dark Heir (chapter 37)

Dark Rise (chapters 2, 10, 11, 15), edition 2021

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The structure of the language

There is more to the old language than the inscriptions. Here are my thoughts on the other aspects of the old language. The old language is likely to be the parent language to all languages in the books, the language from which modern languages have derived. The old language has similarities to Latin and Sanskrit, borrowings from Sindarin, Quenya and some unidentified languages.

Vocabulary

Analyzing new information, I have found patterns that helped me to identify word classes. The word classes of the old language are shown in the table below.

Data summary sheets

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Nouns and names

Most nouns end with “ar”, but there are two nouns that end with “or/er”. The pattern is pretty apparent, so I am going to discuss only the nouns that do not fit the pattern.

Aladharet and adharet

My suggestions about meanings and forms of the word “adharet” are based on this dialog:

‘He said, ‘I am not aladharet.’ <...>  ‘I cannot do magic,’ he said. ‘I have never trained with the’ – there was no other word for it – ‘adharet.’ <...> ‘I only know what I have seen, watching the adharet cast spells as I fought to protect them.’ (Dark heir, chapter 38).

There are two variants of the word: aladharet is singular and adharet is plural. Perhaps, “al” is the marker of a singular form, I would no more touch on single/plural forms because we do not have enough information.

The closest meaning from the context is a wizard /enchanter. This noun is interesting because “ar” is in the middle of the word. I think it is a verbal noun (a noun derived from a verb), such as spell – speller, enchant – enchanter.

Kishtar

According to the book, “Vara kishtar” is a shadow hound. “Kishtar” is highly likely to mean a hound or hounds. (Chapter 21)

The root “Kisht” means field, sown-field, tillage, cultivation, (at chess) check in Sanskrit. Of course, the meaning of the word in the old language is different, but it is still quite an interesting coincidence.

Similarities to Latin

There are some Latin names in the books like “Finem Solis”. Besides, some words in the old language are very similar to Latin (see the examples below).

“Callax Reigor” (The Cup of Kings) (Chapter 46)

“Callax” reminds Latin “Calix” (the Cup).

Reigor (Kings)

The root “reig” resembles the Latin root “reg” in “regio,-are”, “regium” (to rule/ royal).

Valdithar

English translation is “dauntless”, it is the name of Sancean`s horse. It has the ending “ar”, probably, because this adjective plays a role of a noun as abstract adjectives can be nouns in English. Synonyms of the “dauntless” are valorous, valiant. They derived from the Latin word “valens” – strong, powerful. This meaning of “val” seems to be suitable for Valdithar as well.

Similarities to Tolkien`s languages: Sindarin and Quenya

As some readers know, C.S.Pacat is a big fan of the J.R.Tolkien, so I decided to compare Tolkien`s languages with the old language and found out some borrowings from them. Several names look like Elvish words in which some letters are altered.

The ending “ion” is typical to Elvish.

Anharion

He is the Light’s greatest fighter who served the Sun King. That name consists of two parts: “Anar” is the Sun and “ion” is a son in Elvish. The sound “h” is pronounced with exhalation, so it might be omitted. Anharion means the son of the Sun in this case. In addition, the name was given to him by the Light side (the Sun King) and it is not his true name.

Ekthalion/thalion

Ekthalion is the Sword of the Champion.

Although “Fermaran, katara thalion” (Dark Heir, chapter 29) does not have a translation, “thalion” is a hero/a dauntless man in Sindarin. In my opinion, the coincidence is not an accident. “Thalion” is the part of the Sword`s name and the meaning seems relevant in context of the books.

Moreover, Ecthelion`s fate in the Silmarillion is quite similar to the fate of the Sword. Ecthelion slayed Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, at the cost his life. The Sword`s fate is described in the book as follows:

…As a weapon to kill the Dark King. It’s said that a great Champion of the Light rode out with it to fight him <…> but could do no more than draw a single drop of the Dark King’s blood. That’s all it took to corrupt the Blade… (Dark Rise, chapter 13).

The name Ecthelion had its own evolution: its Qenya cognate was Ektelion.

Another thing

Veredun

One of the characters mentioned this name in the following dialog:

‘This isn’t my first time at sea.’ Visander <…>. ‘Atlantic? Pacific?’ ‘The Veredun,’ said Visander. He looked out at the night expanse of black water. This did not feel like the Veredun, or like any sea he had known (Dark Heir, chapter 34).

Names are not translated, but I wanted to know more about this old world sea/ocean. There is no word which is exactly the same in any language relevant to my research, but there are analogs to its parts.

Vere/verus is “truth” in Latin

Dun is “dark/deep/gray/gloomy” in English

Dun is “West” in Sindarin

My translation is “The deep truth” or “The dark truth” or “The West truth”, but I do not pretend to know the truth.

Verbs

All verbs that we know end with “as”.

Aragas

Aragas means “open” in the old language. I have not found any Latin roots. However, separate parts of this word exist in Sindarin: “ara” is “royal” and “gas” means a hole/gap/opening. Aragas is used for opening gates that connected the Kingdoms, for opening the oubliette under the Sun King`s throne and in the metaphor of opening the door of the Dark King`s magic­. All these cases are associated with something “royal” and “opening”. I might have gone a bit too far here and read too much into it.

Ar ventas

Ar ventas – He is fighting (The translation from the text, Dark Heir, chapters 27, 29)

Ar uentas/ventas – He is coming (The translation of the inscription, Dark Heir, chapter 2)

There is a possibility that these verbs are borrowed from Latin. The root of the word “uent” is the same as in the Latin verb “uenio/venio” (to come). Thus the ending “as” indicates a tense and a person (is coming). My guess is that V and U are interchangeable in Latin. Therefore, “ventas” means “is coming” and “is fighting” at the same time. I think “uentas” is right, because U turns into V.

Vala!

One of the characters used this word in the following dialog:

With a tug of her horse’s mane, she [Visander] said something that sounded like Vala!, and they burst out of the stable doors (Dark Heir, chapter 21).

I think it is the command “walk/run” for a horse and the verb could be in the imperative mood. In my opinion, there is a parallel to Latin. Singular imperatives are formed by removing the ending “re” from verb roots, for example, monstra̅re (to show) – monstra (show). Nevertheless, “Vala!” could be another command, e.g. “gallop/forward/ahead”.

Adjectives

I think the ending “ra” indicates adjectives. Valdithar looks like an exception, but I think it is not an exception because it is a noun (see the section about nouns).

Vara

The translation of “Vara kishtar” given in the books is “a shadow hound” (Dark Heir, chapter 21).

It also means “soiled” and “dirty” in Quenya. As far as we know, “Vara kishtar” is a creature of the Dark side, and all shadow creatures could be “soiled” in the Light side`s opinion. By the way, there is the Sanskrit word “vara” that means “the best, excellent, the eldest”. The meaning is opposite to the meaning in the old language, but the Dark side could use the word differently.

Katara

“Fermaran, katara thalion”(Dark Heir, chapter 29).

Katara ought to be an adjective because it ends with “ra” and because of its position in the sentence (before a noun). The text does not give a translation, so I decided to consult dictionaries.

Latin and both Elvish languages did not help, but Sanskrit has the adjective “katara”. It has several meanings:

Which (of the two)

Mean, poor, miserable

Timid, shy/cowardly, cowardly/fearful

I have never mentioned Greek before, but it also contains “katara”, but as a noun: κατάρα is a curse or a calamity/disaster.

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Other observations

I noticed other patterns as well, but I need more examples to confirm them.

Structure of sentences

Like in English, a subject goes before a predicate:

Ar ventas – He is fighting

Ar uentas – He is coming

An adjective precedes a noun:

Vara kishtar – a shadow hound

Katara thalion – a shy hero (?)

My own hypothesis

Old language adjectives agree with nouns in gender, case and number.

There is evidence that verbs conjugate and have different tenses. So far I managed to identify only one verb form (continuous, third person, singular). I suppose that the inscriptions contain other verbs as English translations provide other verb forms including modal verbs, various tenses and person.

The reconstructed translation

Only one phrase from the Dark Heir has no translation: “Fermaran, katara thalion” (Dark Heir, chapter 29). We know the hypothetical meanings of the words from the analysis, so the translation might be reconstructed.

Fermaran

Ar ventas fermaran (Chapter 27)

Ar ventas, fermaran (Chapter 29)

In this case, “fermaran" is not used to address someone because there is a variant without a comma. Catalan has the verb “fermar”. It means “to stop”. The form “fermaran” is “they will stop” in indicative future, plural, third.

The reconstructed phrase goes as: “They will stop, mean/timid/poor hero”. It can fit in the context but it is still pretty questionable.

Inscriptions

Unfortunately, I have not achieved my goal to identify words in the inscriptions from the Dark Heir. As I mentioned there is not enough data. For example, the words we know from the translations such as the adverb “only”, the negation “cannot”, the modal verb “may” and the English phrase verb “cries out” remain unidentified. These inscriptions are still the Phaistos disc:

The past cries out, but the present cannot hear (Dark heir, chapter 2)

Only a Steward may enter (Dark heir, chapter 37)

Dark Rise paper editions 2021-2022

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The conclusion

Roots of the old language lie in Latin, Sanscrit, Sindarin/Quenya and, perhaps, something else. Four Kingdoms, four language families: Latin for the Sun/Undahar, Sanskrit for the Serpent or the home of the Lions, Elvish or unknown one for the Tower or the Rose.

I hope the third book will provide new data that will allow me to decode all inscriptions and get more profound understanding of the old language. Meanwhile, I am going to entertain myself with guesses, theories and attempts to decode the inscriptions.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my thanks to my aunt for being my editor, for all help and discussions about the old language, to my sister for all figures and to my friends from Undahar for the support and help! Thank you all very much!

All information is from the Dark Rise, the Dark Heir and dictionaries: Latin, Sanskrit, Sindarin and Quenya.

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The article also was written for the C.S.Pacat fanbook "Undahar" made by people from the discord server Undahar.

Please, ask about permission and credit me if you want to share the analysis.

[anremithrl]

Why undoing things is hard:

I am inherently, a very lazy person. And I cannot stand being bored. This has, of course, resulted in me being really into coding and automation.

And when I begin my journey as a mathematician, thirteen-year-old me was really sure I'd figure out how to write just the right algorithm that would automatically solve all math problems. But this is actually really hard.

Now, naively, it's really easy. You just write a code that takes the axioms of a system, your premises, and then just tries to apply every single possible rule to generate more statements until it either proves or disproves what you want.

But two problems arise: halting problem, and the fact that it takes a really, really, long time to get anything done.

Maybe you can mitigate the halting problem somehow or something, you could additionally try adding proving the statement is unprovable as a stopping condition, but maybe it is unprovable that it's unprovable, or maybe it's unprovable that it's ... I'll stop.

But that doesn't much matter if it's going to take a twenty years to prove a single statement. At that point, you might as well prove it yourself.

Let's say we have a proof checker, it starts with a proof and then tells you that it is valid. If we run this algorithm backwards, then... shouldn't we get a valid proof?

This, quite obviously, doesn't work. Or at least, doesn't work easily. (The fact that it doesn't work is tied with P vs NP) It's less obvious when you're trying to do this without realising you're trying to do this. But for some reason it took me a while to realise why that wasn't 'easier'.

The reason it doesn't work finally clicked with a Rubik's cube. If I run an algorithm like CFOP on a cube to solve it, then I can run CFOP backwards to get the original position, starting from a solved cube? Nope. Mathematically, the best I can do is reduce it to 1/12th of the states, leaving some 43 quintillion (43,252,003,274,489,856,000) possible starting points which all end up in the same ending point. Running an algorithm backward isn't just some trivial thing. It's a whole millennium problem, you get a million dollars if you figure all of this out, since running verification backwards is what all of P vs NP is.

At some point after that, I learned there's a whole field of math devoted to this.

And today, I watched a YouTube video about someone trying to run Conway's Game of Life backwards. It's not easy to find even one possible backwards step. And I remembered this.

So, to everyone here, I suggest learning about SAT solvers! They're cool! That's a whole branch of math devoted to doing this.

[leidensygdom]

Just a bit of a personal thought, but I have grown to deeply dislike how social media, with its' competitive algorithm and need to have a perfect performance, is often giving people a really wrong idea of what is it actually to do art.

Most times, artists are rewarded by posting only their best work: A badly performing post in places like Instagram may affect how well your next post performs. It also prefers you to post finished pictures, very presentable sketches, that kind of stuff. Which is rarely the bulk of an artists' work. Even speedpaints have been chewed down into palatable videos barely reaching 15 seconds. Tiktok and Instagram reels prefer extremely short videos, and speedpaints are mostly just few (sparkles) aesthetic (sparkles) shots of minuscule parts of the process.

And all of that, I've found, gives people this really weird image of what is art actually like. A lot of starting artists grow to make idols out of bigger ones, thinking that these people can only create perfect pieces effortlessly, but that's not how it works. Very far from that. It's mostly that artists that keep active social media and have grown to know the game, know that showing the rough parts of art is not what gets you favoured by the algorithm.

I've been thinking about this ever since I saw a video on twitter of a fairly long speedpaint for what you usually see in social media, I think 4 minutes long, where the person redrew portions of the sketch up to five times. And a lot of people mentioned it was enlightening to see the struggle, to see that even a competent artist sometimes will struggle doing a little phone cord for an hour.

I think that's something I have kind of experienced, too. I'm not a big artist, but a lot of people have mentioned they find me intimidating still, up until they know me on Discord or something and realize I'm just a goof like any other. Up until I mention a face refused to work for 2 hours and I gave up, or how I randomly keep learning new basic functionalities in my drawing software of choice. And I think that's crucial to share too: Art is not a linear road! It isn't a smooth trip! You'll fail again and again and sometimes will end up going back to a previous point, then take another path. Sometimes you render a whole drawing and decide it looks bad so you start over. Sometimes you realize the lines came out wonky as hell and end up redoing it. Sometimes you gave a character 6 fingers or forgot people have eyebrows. It happens! And it's part of what making art is!

I mentioned this on Twitter- I rarely have visible proof of these struggles, but for an Artfight drawing (where I am trying to be speedy), I struggled with a cloak. For long. I made a thumbnail, I made a sketch, realized the cloak didn't work out, so I redrew it over and over again. I deleted most of the discarded sketches, but here's a few of the things that survived.

And like, I'm tired of not talking about this! I'm sad that people think they're failing because their art process isn't as smooth as it could be! So, yeah: I guess rant over, but I just have been thinking about this a bunch lately. If you'd like, do please feel free to reblog or share in replies any similar situations, struggles and flops. I think it could help people to realize how this is actually just a natural part of the process.