#the big difference THERE is that SO fucking much programming shit is open source

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

once again furious at how AI has been implemented and fucking. hyped up and goddamn bullshit. the way its being used to steal creative works and fuck with artists and create porn of real people is fucking NASTY. but god fucking damnit it could be so useful. fucking. ai voice reader for my stupid incomprehensible textbooks where the voice isn't datamined against the person's will. ai npcs that didn't steal their fucking data. ai routine builders that can learn a person's typical day and preferences and help build checklists for people who struggle w tasks. they could be SO USEFUL. but no. no. we can't have useful things. improving lives??? nahhhhhh we've gotta make Pretty Pictures and Steal Fucking Everything to do it

[forgottenwriter]

ForgottenWriter's Guide to Writing: Getting Started, Part One.

So, I mentioned before that I might do this, and a few people were interested. I decided to actually put my money where my mouth was for once; this guide is going to be a practical guide to writing for a beginner. Now, this one is aimed at people who want to do stuff in fandom spaces, but a lot of what I am going to be doing here is also relevant to original work. I'll start you off with the basics, and help to teach you everything I've learned over the many, many, many years that I've been doing this.

True to its nature, this article will be pretty basic, but as we go, I'll get to more advanced stuff and concepts. You want to know how to do a proper character arc? Or characterise someone? Or make dialogue flow naturally? Or attract readers? Or really, anything like that? I'm your girl, and just because we don't cover it right away doesn't mean we're not going to cover it. But before we get into that, who am I and why do I get to give you these lessons? Well, I'm a writer, and a pretty successful one! Not only have I been in fandom species since the early 2000s, I'm also a self published author and writer of commissioned fiction. I live and breath writing, and not only do I think it's incredibly important, but I also treasure it as something that we all can have, and which can help us connect to one another.

I've been writing for a long time. Counting it all, I've been writing for almost two thirds of my span of life. I've done a lot, seen a lot, made a lot, fucked up a lot, and learned from it - hopefully a lot! My list of achievements include a fairly successful web novel-ish quest which ran for multiple years at hundreds of comments, votes and discussion per chapter, a 70K word steampunk novel, and a series of decently successful short stories published under a different, business name.

tl;dr, I'm not saying that I am an expert here and we always have more to learn. But I am saying that i know the basics, and know them well enough to make a living doing this shit, so let me pass on a little bit of what I know to you all if you're in any way interested.

So, what do you need to get started with writing? I'm going to be treating you like you know absolutely nothing here, and handing you some of the basic tools. The first thing you're going to want to have is a word processor of some sort. Back in ye old days, there were really only two games in town: Microsoft word and OpenOffice, but these days, there are a ton more options. I'll go over some of them and weigh the pros and cons.

Microsoft Office Microsoft office used to be the standard. Back in the old days, if you could use this, you would. Believe it or not, I don't hear it used much anymore, but if you happen to have it, it can serve well. It's formatting is still universal, and it provides a good grammar and spelling checker.

The downside of this is that it's paid, and microsoft can be pricey. It tends to be bundled with other programs, so if you already have it, you can use it. If you don't, it's not worth coughing up the cash for this alone. Also, it's had some AI controversies I believe, and some writers don't trust it. LibreOffice LibreOffice is an off-shot of OpenOffice, which was Microsoft's big, open source rival for writing back in the day. OpenOffice boasted that it could offer everything Microsoft offered, but for free. That's true! But I find it has a bit of a steeper learning curve. That said, I don't believe they've dipped into AI, and to this day, they're still free and can export documents into various formats.

If you want an word processor but don't want to pay, this one is pretty near the top of the list, and it's what I used for years and years.

Google Docs Google Docs is also a word processor, but differs from the others in several key ways. The first and most important is that your work is saved to the Cloud; you can access it from any computer. This also means that it doesn't matter what kind of computer you're running - LibreOffice won't run well on a chromebook for example, and Microsoft Office has no hope in hell, but anything will run Google Docs. Docs is also free, and has essentially unlimited space. Technically, limited, but if you're only writing, you'll probably never hit it. In my experience, the spelling and grammar checker is worse on google docs than Libre, but this is a minor complaint, and the main drawback of google docs is twofold.

Firstly, if your google account is ever lost, compromised or blocked, you lose everything. Your documents will be deleted, and you will instantly lose access without warning. Now, I rarely hear about this happening, but it's something to be aware of.

Secondly, AI. Google is very AI happy, and there has been suggestions in the past that they harvest information from google docs without permission. This has never been proven, but comes up somewhat semi regularly within author circles. Make up your own mind how likely you think it is.

Generic Word Processor These are things like Notepad, or some other brand of word processor. Typically, they won't serve as well as the ones I've name-dropped above, but you can write on anything in a pinch. The most important thing is to find something that works and clicks with you.

I spent years operating off LibreOffice, and before that, it's ancestor, OpenOffice, and nowadays I do most of my work via Google Docs.

These are all you will need to start writing in fandom spaces. Now, there are more advanced tools - especially if you're aiming to get published, but we can cover those in a later post. They don't matter right now.

[thenixkat]

everyone who knows Kafka is trying to pull whatever strings they have to not let him be killed and turned into weapons "If we can prove yer still a human inside we might be able to save yer life" ok but what counts as proof that he's a human inside? I assume not his actual organs cause that aint helping oh i see, the director general (rich girl's dad) is going to torture Kafka to force him to transform. And I assume if Kafka responds to being tortured by lashing out he's gonna get put down. That's shitty that one arm ripped off yeah Kafka is transforming b/c his inner kaiju is going 'hey they're trying to kill us we need to defend ourselves'

also, the bug that crawled into Kafka to turn him into a kaiju has been remarkably chill this entire time. Its just vibing in there thats a second arm getting torn off and a leg gone too Kafka's inner kaiju: Hey! There's a fucking daikaiju trying to kill us why are we not fighting back?! Kafka's kaiju side senses the kaiju that was used to make the director general's bracers and as far as its concerned there's another daikaiju trying to kill them and its human side needs to get with the program and fight that a thrid arm getting ripped off and internal bleeding from blunt force trauma to the abdomen and both legs got ripped off this man is gonna need some food after this or he should cause like, regrowing yer limbs 6 times in short order should be very energetically expensive

Kafka's inner kaiju has finally had enough and said if its human side refuses to fight, it's going to take the wheel. And it does easily, apparently the reason that Kafka had full control this whole time was b/c it wasn't interested in doing shit woke that sleeping dragon up Kafka's inner kaiju: Kill, kill, kill kaiju, kill the dragonfly said its gonna get some energy back for those 6 lost limbs and 2x internal organ damage i would imagine its pretty fucking hungry, I doubt they fed Kafka after arresting him. last ep of the season and then I'll move onto the comic which has gone further on see the differences between the source material and the adaptation

granted i think I'll still rewatch the opening theme between chapters when i read b/c I really like this opening theme also if what i read up was right big red dragon is one of mushroom's offspring teh perks of being shapeshifters that can reproduce asexually and apparently acquire new genetic material from eating other shit again I still think aliens

uh hey Kafka's inner kaiju fucking teleported. Teleported its core out of its body using its old body as a decoy and forming a new body around its core to attack the fucker trying to kill them from behind uh the dragonfly might not be as smart as a humanoid kaiju but its apparently got some tricks up its …flesh ok yes girl yer dad is giving Kafka a chance but that chance involved torturing him until he snapped to see how he'd react under pressure. It still shitty Kafka is a prisoner inside his own body rn as the kaiju is very much planning to kill and probably eat the fucker that's been torturing them. Kafka is not ok with this b/c going feral is not the best way to prove that he's not a danger to people Kafka is trying his best to not kill rich girl's dad right in front of her. His body isnt inclined to listen to him tho

Kafka's attempts to fight back for control get his sould self devoured by the soul self of the dragonfly and inside its he starts to be subsumed into the kaiju until he remembers that his childhood bestie is waiting for him and he cant just give up he takes enough control to divert a killing blow into his own chest and get his inner kaiju to calm its shit or else and he passes out b/c he must be very fucking tired ok so Kafka tried to join but failed for 12 yrs wow and you never called that man ma'am

ma'am tell yer friend how you feel pls Kafka really gave his body an ultimatum and said if you try to make me murder and eat my friend's dad I'm killing both of us b/c I'm not about to become a monster and his body really said, 'oh ok understood death is not preferable so' the director general decided to spare Kafka. Like it was a shitty shitty exam but he pasted he doesnt really believe in Kafka as a person, but believes he's trainable and usable as a living weapon against kaiju

Kafka's not cool with being viewed as a weapon and says as such ok I liked it. Def picked up more towards the end of the season where things got more serious and less shitty attempts of humor also while shit was going down, Mushroom wasnt idle. It was learning more about humans and has decided that it knows everything of value now

its also been shedding. and cloning itself ok, I will say that I like Kaiju no. 8 based on this first season. I dont think its good, not the first half at least but it is quite compelling thus far.

[seriously-mike]

Gatekeep the AI!

I had the funniest thing happen to me lately. Actually, a couple of funny things. All involving local, open-source AI image generation algorithms. And pretty much like a lot of open-source software, they do a fine job of keeping the idiots out.

If you want to wring more than the absolutely basic basics out of those algorithms, you need to learn a whole fucking lot. Esoteric programming stuff, shit about Python, gits, pips, modules, dependencies, wheels, error messages that could as well be in Ancient Sumerian, and why that one thing keeps fucking up every time you fire it up and you have to reinstall it and reload the whole pile of mismatched plug-ins built by everyone from basement-dwelling nerds to corporate R&D labs every goddamn time you want to use it.

Not knowing what I'm doing ended up in accidentally updating multiple Python modules way beyond the requirements, which in turn ended in the whole ComfyUI install coming the fuck apart into unrecoverable pile of tiny unidentifiable bits.

So I just downloaded a full fresh and updated install from Github. Which, much to my shock, was an entirely different thing than using the update batch scripts or even manually updating everything piece by piece using pip. Suddenly, the biggest pain in the ass that kept fucking up with uncanny consistency, Flux Dev in the form of separate models (as opposed to all-in-one builds for the other open-source frontend, Forge), started working. Including the lighter GGUF versions, leading me to come up with new and amazing ways of stuffing the entire 16 gigs of VRAM on my 4070 Super Ti full in order to create weird shit.

Halfway through that, I discovered something disturbing: that multiple plug-ins were so forked up it wasn't even funny. And half of them weren't in the catalog available in ComfyUI Manager, meaning that I had to install them manually. For example, there are two different versions of InfiniteYou, a face-swapper for Flux Dev that skips the entire overengineered insanity that is the latest implementation of my #Photobooth from Hell, and both are designed completely differently, with different inputs and controls... and both are named the same. Tencent did their own ComfyUI implementation in-house, and a Vietnamese developer called ZenAI did theirs separately. And both suffer from a couple of the same bugs, so if you're googling for solutions, sure as shit you'll be thrown between the Issues pages for both of them, and if you don't pay attention, you'll wind up completely confused. Like, how in the fuck the nodes in the documentation look completely different than what I have, where's the node that's shown in the documentation but missing from my install, and so on.

Also, InfiniteYou requires a teeny little Python module that hasn't been updated for the last eight years, and for which the pip install fucks up every goddamn time with no other solution than just downloading the whole package off the author's Github and hammering it into your Python install through brute force.

And much to my disappointment, InfiniteYou is not as great at gender-bending as the earlier algorithms, be it ZenID, InstantID or even IP Adapter. It gets the face shape correct, but refuses to add anything to it, which kinda misses the point. Even their own workflow shows that an attempt to add a big-ass wizard beard to a guy's photo works mostly around the edges of his face, and not on his face proper.

Not that the earlier algorithms don't have their own marvelous ways of fucking up, both recoverable through touch-ups in Photoshop, and completely writing off the output. For example, the combination of ADetailer and IP Adapter for SDXL doesn't work with Flux-generated input images. Anything you feed into it gets the brightness cranked up for no reason, so the result is an overly bright face slapped on the original image. Some plugins for automated face masking fuck up, so you're better off generating the components in separate files (Flux base image, the face mask detected in it and SDXL face replacement), then layering them in Photoshop. That way also lets you correct any mismatches in a much easier way than having to painstakingly select every fucked-up part by hand and trying to tweak that. And while IP Adapter Plus for SD1.5 coupled with an ADetailer for masking purposes is idiot-proof enough to provide fairly good results (and stick to the prompt) without the need to whack things with a Photoshop hammer tool most of the time, it's also kinda simplistic and can't achieve as much detail as anything newer.

Now compare that to the idiot-proof corporate product that is OpenAI's new implementation of DALL-E/Sora/ChatGPT, aimed at replicating the facial features of any schmuck that throws his photo at it. If you really want less idiot-prompted garbage online, limit the development of AI to open-source and have people learn something in the process of using it.

[donjuaninhell]

Hi! I just read your tutorial on making your own media server (it's great! I'm going to use an old laptop and a big external hard drive for now before I buy anything, thanks so much for writing it!) I had a question completely off topic, how did you make your Windows 11 look like that? You have a screenshot of your desktop with labelled boxes for sorting icons and your task bar looks completely different.

I use Fences and Start11 to modify the look and functionality of Windows. I've been using Fences for years, it's great, unfortunately Stardock has started following the "yearly subscription" model for their software, they still allow you to buy a permanent license, but it's a lot more expensive than it used to be, I got grandfathered in at a lower cost. It's up to you if it's worth it, but there is an open source alternative called Nimi Places that looks alright. I really do like Fences though, it's one of my essential programs, really keeps my desktop much more organized and things like Folder Portals and multiple desktops are A+ features.

As for Start11, well Windows 11 is a lot better than 10 in all sorts of "under-the-hood" ways, it has much better task scheduling, and it's much more efficient which results in noticeable performance gains in many games. Microsoft also did introduce a few very nice QOL features like a tabbed file explorer if you still prefer using the default Windows File Explorer over something like Q-Dir. That said, they fucked up the Start Menu. It's useless and cluttered with all sorts of shitty internet results and now AI bullshit. Start11 lets you get change the style of the start menu and make it actually useful. Want something closer to the Windows 7 Start Menu? You got it. How about something minimal? You got it. Again there is an open source alternative in StartAllBack, I've not used it myself but I hear good things.

But yeah, I recommend both if they're not too pricey for you, definitely go for the permanent license option, otherwise the free open source alternatives are out there. I'm very much an advocate of making your computer your computer i.e. if you don't like the way something works, find a way to change it. I swear, the moment there's a Linux distro that has 100% Windows software compatibility and non-shit audio drivers I am switching over.

For anyone confused by this, there's a screenshot of what my desktop looks like just under the read more.

[oogaboogasphincter]

The 50/10 Method (Agent Whiskey x f!reader)

Summary: Jack makes the most of your 10 minute study break. 

Word Count: 2.7k+

Rating: E (explicit) 18+ ONLY! bc this is just cringey smut lmfao

Warnings: smut (oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v sex (obvi use protection irl), very easily and conveniently reached orgasms (this is a fantasy i can do what i want skjfkd), dirty talk, one (1) allusion to thigh riding and one (1) instance of 💙spitting💙, fingering, positions i hope i've given enough detail so y’all can imagine what i was picturing💀), pet names (sweetheart, honey, cowboy *affectionately*, good girl, baby), there’s a sentence about reader having long-ish hair, reader and jack have a dog, swearing, reader is afab and is called things like good girl and the like, just overall trash grammar and structure 😇

Author’s Note: so this is very poorly written and extremely self-indulgent, as i myself use the 50/10 method 🙃. but i had a lot of fun with it, and i think that’s what writing is supposed to be all about! :) also i was heavily inspired to write this after reading “Take a Break” by @mellowswriting​ and “Study Buddy” by @pascalpanic​. please go check those out because they’re absolutely fantastic!!!!! +while you’re at it, i would highly advise you to read anything on their masterlists bc they’re just 💜exquisite💜

gif by @thernandalorian​

The lines of text on your computer screen are starting to blend into each other, creating a single run-on sentence that one of your previous English teachers would ridicule the author for. The sharp curves and angles that distinguish each letter from the next are becoming soft and dull, blurring into each other until your brain can only recognize it as a smeared streak of black on white.

It’s 11:00am on a Saturday, a big exam set for the upcoming Monday’s morning. You don’t feel rushed for time, or overloaded with unknown material, and the early hours of the day have been quite productive. Following a shared breakfast of homemade waffles in bed with Jack, your boyfriend, you didn’t complain when setting up your study station on the living room’s large oak table. If anything, you had been excited to begin studying early in the hopes of finishing your review by the end of the day. That way, tomorrow would be free for you and Jack to do whatever you pleased.

However, as the hours went by, your motivation was slowly but surely diminishing. The serene study atmosphere that you usually thrive in is now driving you mad. You yearn for a noise, any noise; a bird to sing a song in the tree outside your window, the smack of your dog’s loose wrinkles against each other as he attempts to shake the sleep out of him, a pencil unable to stop itself from rolling and dropping onto the floor with a tink.

You’re momentarily gifted with the crisp sound of a page turning. You flit your eyes over to gaze upon the source of your granted wish and your heart flutters in reaction to the sight: Jack’s resting on the couch, cowboy hat balanced on the back of it, deeply absorbed in the next installment of his favorite murder-mystery series. You find it curious that his desire for an adrenaline-filled challenge doesn’t stop when he comes home from mission after mission that nearly cost him his life. You’ll ask him about his insatiability one day, but for now you categorize it as fictional research for his Statesman assignments.

Your short glance quickly turns into an entranced stare. Jack looks... divine. Fetching. Luscious. As he’s lying on his back, neck propped up against the arm of the couch, his book balanced on his chest, relaxation radiates off of him in waves and utterly seduces you. You’re surprised that he hasn’t been a greater distraction to you throughout the morning. How have you managed to ignore the denim-wearin’, plaid-shirted, pornstache-sportin’ cowboy of your dreams that is only a few steps away?

Involuntarily, the thigh muscles of your crossed legs contract in an effort to bring some semblance of friction to your now weeping core. Similar to your imaginings of your dog earlier, you shake your head to force these heavy, unwanted feelings to dissipate and turn back to the work in front of you. Of course, Jack does the opposite of what you’d like him to do and takes an interest in your fidgeting. He peeks over the top of his book, “You cold, sweetheart?” 

His question is reasonable: you’re purposely wearing a skirt that’s so short it rides up quite high when you sit. You don’t dare to meet his eyes and answer while pulling a textbook close and opening it up, “No, I’m okay.”

Fortunately he returns to his reading. Your attention is able to retain itself for about a paragraph, but then your mind takes a sharp detour back to those pesky, steamy desires. You mentally huff at your inability to remain concentrated on your studies and rifle through the options of what you can do to satiate yourself for the time being. 

You could switch texts and force your brain to recognize the change and therefore become distracted. You could pick out some colored writing utensils and bring some fun to active reading. You could say fuck it, go straddle Jack and beg him to use you in whichever way he would like.

Jack interrupts your brainstorming, “Are you sure you don’t need a blanket or sumthin’? I can go get my jacket for ya.” 

The attentiveness of your southern lover melts your heart. You turn to him, “No, really, I’m okay, thanks.”

“I wouldn’t count a bathroom break as taking away from your 50 minutes, honey, if that’s what’s makin’ you twitch.” 

You had been implementing and strictly adhering to the 50/10 method all morning: study for 50 minutes, take a break for ten. Its effectiveness was never doubted, as it has proven to work for you for years. Only ten minutes into this 50 minute period, the devil of restlessness pokes at you and makes you think could time go by any slower? A hand comes up to cover the blush creeping across your cheek as you dismiss Jack’s suggestion, “No, that’s not it.”

Behind your embarrassed hand, Jack cocks an eyebrow at you. Your simple choice of words has given the Agent a hint, that there is something that’s bothering you, he just hasn’t figured it out yet and you don’t want to admit what it is for some reason. He returns to his book, however lost in thought about what your problem could be, while you task every cell in your body to pay attention to your studies. 

35 minutes remain on the clock, and Jack guesses, “Did you have too much coffee?”

You can’t help but grin at his sleuthing, “No, I just had my regular.”

He conjures up another possible solution five minutes later, “Are you itchin’ to get out of the house? We haven’t left in two days.”

He’s getting warmer. Both of you know exactly why you haven’t left the house in two days: you’d been occupied with activities of the sinful variety. You can’t gauge yet whether or not he knows he’s dancing around the answer, “Baby, you’re distracting me. And nope, it’s not that.” 

He smiles apologetically, “Sorry,” and uses his book as a partition, blocking your ability to procrastinate and just visually drool all over him.

Silence fills the next 20 minutes. Even though Jack is out of your sight, details from your observations exaggerate themselves in your mind to the point that they’re all encompassing, intoxicating. The way his jeans wrap around his legs ever so perfectly, the worn denim hugging those muscular thighs that he loves for you to grind yourself against when you’re feeling especially desperate (like now). How his plaid flannel slopes over the swell of his belly, stretching tight against his skin as his diaphragm contracts and deflating when he exhales. Even his large feet, strewn about lazily on the couch, his toes pointing in different directions, amuse you. 

Ten minutes remain in your study session. Feeling guilty about spending the majority of the last hour envisioning the seductive intricacies of your boyfriend, you actually start to study. 

“How many times do you think I can make you cum in ten minutes?”

Your eyes are ripped from your material and land on the menace lazing on the couch. He’s put his book down, one arm behind his head while the other is crooked, allowing himself to palm his cock through his pants. Jack’s wearing a shit-eating grin, bewitching your crossed legs to switch which one is on top; an excuse to apply more pressure to the yearning area between them. You fidget in the chair, shamefully trying to get the seam of your underwear to rub against you in just the right way. You shrug, “I-I’m not sure.”

He gets up and comes over to you, standing behind you and leaning forward to rest his chin on your shoulder. He murmurs in your ear, “I think we should find out during your next break.”

You turn to face him, “I think so too.”

He gives you a quick kiss, “Well, you better be a good girl and study for these last few minutes. Earn that break.” He places his large hands on either side of your head and turns it toward your materials, making you both laugh.

Somehow, you’re able to pay attention. Jack’s impending promise of ravaging you for ten minutes straight quells your jittering nerves and gives you something specific to look forward to. Before you know it, your alarm is beeping, alerting you that your break has commenced. Jack cages you by reaching forward and grabs the clock, programs it to ten minutes and keeps it in his hand. He grips the sides of your swivel chair, pulls it back from the table and spins you around to face him, the speed of the turn making your hair swoosh across your shoulders. Through mutual giggles, Jack lifts you up, winding your legs around his waist, your arms doing the same around his neck. “I want you to count for me how many times you cum.”

Breathlessly, you simply obey, “Okay.”

He practically runs to the bedroom. He sets the clock on the nightstand and turns the face towards the mattress so you don’t lose out on studying time. Tossing you onto the bed, your giggling continues as you bounce from the force. Jack hooks his fingers in your underwear and yanks them down, pulling them out from under your skirt and over your shoes. The way he wastes no time ridding you of any other garment makes blood and heat flood your center and air rush out of your lungs. He pushes your lost air back into your mouth with a kiss and then immediately retreats back to in between your legs.

He flicks the fabric of your skirt up onto your belly, letting himself have complete, unobstructed access to his early lunch. His fingers fondle your folds while his lips place sloppy kisses along the inside of your thighs. After he’s had his fill of that step, he sits back and stares at you: spread out for him, more than willing to take anything he wants to give to you. He blows out a whistle, eyeing your core, and you say, “Hey, you’re on the clock, cowboy. No time for dramatics.”

He nods, a smirk pulling at one side of his mouth, “You’re right, sweetheart.”

He spits onto your cunt, forgoing his usual gentle licks to adequately wet your pussy. A quiet fuck escapes your mouth as he plunges his tongue into you. Your fingers wind themselves in his chocolatey locks and pull, extracting an excited moan from your lover. His fingers knead the soft flesh on the backs of your thighs as he eats and when his mustache starts to tickle your clit, you’re done for. Your grip on his hair becomes vice-like and your whole body seizes up, constricted by enrapturing pleasure. You strangle out, “One.”

Jack unlatches his mouth only once he’s certain your first orgasm is complete. He stands, admires your wrecked expression, takes his cock out, spits into his hand and pumps his dick a few times. Hands slithering around your waist, he flips you onto your stomach and pulls your ass up, positioning you on your hands and knees. You’re a little bit dizzied by his manhandling in combination with his expert tongue, but this type of vertigo is the most enjoyable you’ve ever experienced. 

When he pushes into you, it’s a bit of a stretch because he hadn’t warmed you up with his fingers. He relaxes you by leaning forward, pressing his chest against your back and peppering soft kisses to your shoulder blades. The clink of his belt comically punctuates his thrusts, but your laughs are swallowed by intoxicated groans. You don’t know, and you don’t really care to figure out, how he already has you teetering on the edge of cumming again. Heightened senses tell you that you’re close; the fabric of his shirt feels unearthly soft as it brushes against patches of exposed skin, his fingertips are delightful lead in their clamp on you, his grunts and pants angelically reverberate in your skull. And then, suddenly and all at once, “Two.”

Jack’s pride shows itself in a smirk while he flips you onto your back. He makes a show of hooking your calves over his shoulders, eliciting laughter from the both of you. Resting almost all of his weight on top of you, your knees find your chest and his hands find your hair. The intimacy of it all is almost too much; his thumbs stroke your temples, palms cradle your head, those goddamned puppy-dog eyes bore into you. You turn your head in his grasp to check your timing: five minutes left. 

Jack’s tongue darts out to lick the pads of his fingers before he snakes it down in between the two of you to rub your clit. Your moans come out uncontrollably, your eyelids stutter and he eggs you on, “That’s it, sweetheart. Give me another one.”

Hearty moans are reduced to desperate gasps and you’re unable to verbally acknowledge the third orgasm that rips through you. Nonetheless, Jack can tell from the way your eyes roll into the back of your head and his name tumbles ferociously out of your mouth that you’re cumming. “’Atta girl.”

Jack takes his cock out of you and the whine that escapes your lips embarrasses you. He can’t help but laugh at your whimpering before he scoots down the bed and starts to eat you out again, framing his head with your quaking thighs. You find the strength to check the time, “Jack, there’s only a minute and a half left.”

He moans deeply into you, unaffected by your comment, and eases three fingers into your fluttering center. Like earlier, your hands fly to his hair like a magnet and find purchase so tight it makes your knuckles go pale. In a matter of seconds, circling your clit with his sopping tongue and tapping your g-spot with his deft fingers, Jack has you cumming yet again. This time you yell out the count, “Four!”

The sounds his ministrations make are lewd and exhilarating, pushing himself to his own precipice. You look down your body to find Jack’s other hand jerking his cock and his seed spilling out of him moments later. He groans into your pussy while you pet his hair, praising him for his efforts. 

Simultaneously, you both remember that you’re being timed. Your eyes meet the clock at the same time: 30 seconds. Jack springs from the bed and pulls you up with him, grabbing your discarded panties. He squats and taps your ankles so you lift your legs up, sliding each leg hole over your body and pulling your underwear up underneath your skirt. 

You fumble with his mussed clothes, stuffing his still-hard cock into his boxers, hiking his jeans up over his ass and zip and button them closed. You snake his belt around his waist and let his fingers do the work of buckling it before he picks you up bridal style and ushers you out of the bedroom, grabbing the clock off of the nightstand on your way out. 

Unhinged cackles follow you two down the hallway as you return to the living room. He plops you down in your chair, straightens you out, gives you a kiss on the cheek and then your alarm goes off. You raise your eyebrows at him, “Jeez, you didn’t waste a second.” 

He hums, then mumbles, “You get back to work now, babygirl,” and leaves you with a yearning kiss on the part of your hair.

Both of you return to your respective readings, hopelessly trying to downgrade your panting gasps to normal breaths. The absence of Jack’s warmth is already painful. But you rationalize that the indulgence of the last ten minutes is more than enough to get you through this next hour of studying, if not for longer.

Little do you know that Jack feels the same pain. His ache for your touch, sexual or not, will overtake him later and he’ll be unable to resist the temptation of coming over and distracting you again. Determined to finish your studying, you’ll propose a compromise: you can sit in his lap while he is lulled to sleep by the ambience of the afternoon rain and the enveloping comfort of you. The two of you can try to beat the record of four orgasms next semester. 

💘taglist: @pascalpanic​, @mellowswriting​

[phantaloon-books]

I was rereading the iconic reunion at baltimore and this came to me and I can't not write it (even though I have a half finished chapter waiting to be written for a fic for a whole different fandom but who cares right)

in which neil regrets realizes that the feds were on to something when they talked about witness protection program. brace yourselves, it's angst time bby. please bear with me, I don't write stuff like this, content and format wise.

so everyone knows what goes down in baltimore. everyone knows that famous college exy striker for the foxes neil josten has been the son of the butcher of baltimore all along, and that smth happened after he was kidnapped and tortured that resulted in the butcher and some associates to be killed. everyone knows that neil walked out alive, injured but alive. so when a few weeks, months later, associates of the butcher start getting raided and taken in custody, everyone knows exactly who opened his little mouth and revealed everything he knows (bc there's literally no one else who could know this stuff and would be willing to share with the fucking feds, no one has a death wish)

It's a slow process. It starts with the feeling of not being safe, which is ridiculous, because he hasn't been quite as safe as he is right now, with the foxes, his family, and most importantly with Andrew. They're on summer break, technically speaking, even if they're at campus for practice because they gotta train the new foxes. They're barely doing anything than hanging out together and training, but still Neil can't shake the feeling that something is wrong, that someone is watching him, but he doesn't say anything, because it doesn't make sense, he's just being paranoid, there's no need to panic.

Neil can swear he's being watched. He feels the dread whenever he's out of the dorm, when he's out running, when they go out to eat something, when they go to the mall, on their way to practice, at Eden's. But when he looks around there's no one looking, it's been weeks and nothing has happened, he hasn't seen anyone.

Neil can tell Andrew is growing suspicious of the way he checks out a place, the way his eyes trace every corner, every exit, because he's starting to fall back in old habits, and he knows Andrew hates it. But Andrew doesn't ask, he knows that Neil will speak when he feels ready, so he lets it go, even if he can't quite let got of the worry clawing at his heart.

But everything keeps going normally, things are fine, everything is fine fine fine. Neil doesn't talk about it, but it's fine really. Until it's not fine at all, but it's also too late to talk now because his head is fuzzy and throbbing, and he feels like he might throw up and he feels pain even if he's not sure where the pain is coming from. But he can't do anything now, he can't tell Andrew how he's been feeling dread for weeks, because a man whose name he doesn't even know but whose face is awfully familiar is standing right in front of him where he lies on the floor, and the situation is also awfully familiar.

Stop being a martyr. Oh Andrew would kill him. If Neil gets out of this alive, Andrew will kill him, because he left again. He didn't want to, he really didn't. He was out on a run while Andrew was in therapy with Bee and Aaron, a couple miles away from fox tower, when a car pulled up right in front of him, two men wearing hoods and sunglasses stepping out and standing in front of him. He came to a halt, trying his best to keep calm because who the hell were these men and what did they want and for fucks sake can this just stop? It would have been smart to turn around and try to get back to the tower but he can't ever keep his mouth shut can he?

"Look I don't know who you are, I don't care what you want, but you're in my way, so move away if you know what's best." He intended to go for more sarcastic, but he was doing his best not to panic, so that had to do.

"You're coming with us, get in the car, or we'll do this the hard way." Their voices said they wouldn't hesitate, but Neil laughed anyway, that smile he knew was the Butcher's resting on his lips. Anything to make the men leave. He opened his mouth and then- "The Minyard twins are at Dr. Dobson's office. Reynolds, Walker, and Wilds are at the mall. Hemmick, Boyd and Day are in the dorms. The newbies are at the dorms as well. Come with us the easy way and we'll let them walk out of their respective places alive, Nathaniel."

And he was fucked. Of course he hadn't been safe, he would never be safe. In fact no one he cared about would ever be safe. He should have known better. But he wasn't going to let the foxes be harmed.

"How do I know you won't kill them anyway?" The snark was gone, the smile vanished. His face was blank and dangerous, because he'd done this before. "I don't even know who you are, you're obviously not the big guys, and I don't remember seeing your faces."

"We don't want to attract unnecessary attention. All we care about is you. If you come, you spare us all the trouble. As for who we are, let's just say someone is pissed at the piece of shit that ruined everything."

"The Butcher's friends then. I can't argue with that, it's a habit of mine to fuck up. Ichirou won't be too happy if something happened." He played his strongest card but fuck it. The Moriyamas owed him protection, Ichirou himself had made a deal with him.

"The moment they turned their backs to the Wesninski and made a deal with Hatford, those Japanese shits mean nothing to us." These were desperate men apparently. If the Moriyamas were nothing, the FBI was even less. "Time is running Nathaniel, decide. You or them?"

Andrew would kill him, but they'd talked about it before. Neil had told Andrew. If it means losing you, then no. He would not put himself first. Hell, he'd told the others before, the Foxes were all he had, he wasn't going to risk them for himself, not for anything. He needed to keep them safe.

So now he's lying on the cold wooden floor of some house or shed or whatever, drowsy from whatever they drugged him with once he got in the car, and in pain after being beaten for the last hour or so. He didn't bother asking the man (who is obviously in charge and sent the two men) for a name, and honestly he still doesn't plan to. What was the point of that anyway? He just looks up at the cold brown eyes of the man standing over him, Neil's face as neutral as he could keep it despite the fear of not making it out alive threatening to pull him under. The man just stares at him, calculative eyes and cruel smile, and Neil can't take it.

"What, so you're just gonna stand there? I have better shit to do." He hears the slur in his voice, wonders if it's just the drugs or something else. A concussion is likely. He's met with silence, so he closes his eyes and lays his head down. Fuck he's tired of these situations. He truly will never be safe, no one will-

"You know, I was expecting so much more from you Nathaniel," the man says with a laugh, "I was told that you'd put up a fight, I thought this would be fun. They said you'd beg for your precious life, but you haven't even made an effort."

Whoever his source was, they definitely do not know Neil, or Nathaniel for that matter. Not only is he not going to risk the men hurting the others, but he isn't going to fight, not against so many of them, not when running would be more likely to get him out alive. He isn't going to let them know that. "First go fuck yourself, and second, this isn't remotely close to entertaining to what I've been through, maybe if it was more interesting."

What does Andrew say? Regret is worthless? It seems right, because he can't find regret in what he said, even if his face is a bloody mess (what's new?) and his body shakes with shivers, after his head is held underwater so many times. No, he doesn't regret it. Instead he finds himself laughing a hollow thing.

"Y'know at least others have had a point, this time it's just for the fun of it, and it's not being much fun." His voice cracks a couple times, hoarse from coughing up water.

"You're right though, it is for fun. You cost me absolutely everything Nathaniel. Did you know the feds and the Moriyamas have been after us for months? Hunting us like we're rabbits, all because you decided to be a dipshit and open your mouth. You should be dead. You should have died ten years ago, back in March, anytime. All your existence caused us is trouble. And ratting us to the feds wasn't enough was it? No you told Ichirou all of the Butcher's men were loose ends, too." The man took a deep breath, composing himself. "So yes Nathaniel, this is for fun. This is payback, you've cost many lives, this is retribution for speaking, and I'm gonna enjoy seeing you have fun for as long as I can."

At some point, after hours, he's left alone in the dark, in the cold. He knows he’s in pain. He’s pretty sure his arm is broken, and so are several ribs. He knows he should be in a lot of pain, but he's just numb. Regret is worthless. Because even if he feels even worse than how he felt last winter at Evermore, he doesn’t regret it. He can’t be sure the guy’s men were truly going to kill the Foxes, but he doesn’t regret coming here to make sure the others don’t suffer more than they already have because of him. He wonders if Andrew will forgive him. He didn’t leave proof that he didn’t want to leave this time. Would Andrew think he left them - him? God, he hopes not. Would Andrew look for Neil or leave it thinking that Neil wanted to leave?

It doesn’t really matter, though. Neil is so tired. This time isn’t like when he was on the run or when he went to Evermore or when Lola took him. While with the Ravens, Kevin knew he was there at least, if anything were to happen, a person would know where to look somehow. At Baltimore, several people knew the most likely place to find him; Uncle Stewart, the Hatfords, Kevin again. He has no idea of where he is, or who took him, and no one knows he’s been taken in the first place. No one will ever find him.

Maybe it’s better that way, he thinks. No one will have to deal with the burden of him or his disappearance or his death, because no one will know. The simple thing would be to assume he ran. He hopes they assume he ran. Maybe they’ll be hurt, but haven’t they been expecting him to run? They won’t make it to championships without him considering Jack is an awful striker, but Kevin will manage. Andrew - Andrew is the one who expects him to run the most, maybe he’ll take it nicely. Neil hopes he takes it nicely. Guilt blossoms among the nothingness in his chest, but he can’t take it back, and he doesn’t want to. It’s better this way. No one will find him, but that’s fine. He wonders what the Moriyamas will do. He doesn’t want to think about that. He thinks of Andrew, the kisses, the care, the love, the nights spent together. Thank you, you were amazing. He wishes he could tell him how much he cares one last time. He feels something wet slip down his face. He can’t tell if it’s water, blood or tears. He sighs. He thinks of Andrew, and his eyes slip close.

[queenlua]

hey, i started following you recently and ur bio says ur a hacker? any tips on where to start? hacking seems like a v cool/fun way to learn more abt coding and cybersecurity/infrastructure and i'd like to explore it but there's so much on the internet and like, i'm not trying to get into anything illegal. thanks!

huh, an interesting question, ty!

i can give more tailored advice if you hit me up on chat with more specifics on your background/interests.

given what you've written here, though, i'll just assume you don't have any immediate professional aspirations (e.g. you just want to learn some things, and you aren't necessarily trying to get A Cyber Security Job TM within the next three months or w/e), and that you don't know much about any specific programming/computering domain yet.

(stuff under cut because long)

first i'd probably just try to pick some interesting problem that you think you can solve with tech. this doesn't need to be a "hacking" project at first; i was just messing around with computers for ages before i did anything involving security/exploitation.

if you don't already know how to program, you should ideally pick a problem you can solve via programming. for instance: i learned a lot back in the 2000s, when play-by-post forum RPGs were in vogue.  see, i'd already been messing around, building my own personal sites, first just with HTML & CSS, and later on with Javascript and PHP.   and i knew the forum software everyone used (InvisionPowerBoard) was written in PHP.  so when one of the admins at my RPG complained that they'd like the ability to set multiple profile pictures, i was like, "hey i'm good at programming, want me to create a mod to do that," and then i just... did. so then they asked me to program more features, and i got all the sexy nerd cred for being Forum Mod Queen, and it was a good time, i learned a lot.

(i also got to be the person who was frantically IMed at 2am because wtf the forum is down and there's an inscrutable error, what do??? basically sysadmining! also, much less sexy! still, i learned a lot!)

the key thing is that it's gotta be a problem that's interesting to you: as much as i love making dorky sites in PHP, half the fun was seeing other people using my stuff, and i think the era of forum-based RPGs has passed. but maybe you can apply some programming talents to something that you are interested in—maybe you want to make a silly Chrome extension to make people laugh, a la Cloud to Butt, or maybe you'd like to make a program that converts pixel art into cross-stitching patterns, maybe you want to just make a cool adventure game on those annoying graphing calculators they make you use in class, or make a script for some online game you play, or make something silly with Arduino (i once made a trash can that rolled toward me when i clapped my hands; it was fun, and way easier than you'd think!), whatever.

i know a lot of hacker-types who got their start doing ROM hacking for video games—replacing the character art or animations or whatever in old NES games. that's probably more relevant than the PHP websites, at least, and is probably a solid place to get started; in my experience those communities tend to be reasonably friendly to questions. pick a small thing you want to do & ask how to do it.

also, a somewhat unconventional path, but—once i knew how to program a bit of Python, i started doing goofy junk, like, "hey can i implemented NamedTuple from scratch,” which tends to lead to Python metaprogramming, which leads to surprising shit like "oh, stack frames are literally just Python objects and you can manually edit them in the interpreter to do deliberately horrendous/silly things, my god this language allows too much reflection and i'm having too much fun"... since Python is a lot of folks' first language these days, i thought i'd point that out, since i think this is a pretty accessible start to thinking about How Programs Actually Work under the hood. allison kaptur has some specific recommendations on how to poke around, if you wanna go that route.

it's reasonably likely you'll end up doing something "hackery" in the natural course of just working on stuff. for instance, while i was working on the IPB forum software mods, i became distressed to learn that everyone was using an INSECURE version of the software! no one was patching their shit!! i yelled at the admins about it, and they were like "well we haven't been hacked yet so it's not a problem," so i uh, decided to demonstrate a proof of concept? i downloaded some sketchy perl script, kicked it until it worked, logged in as the admins, and shitposted a bit before i logged out, y'know, to prove my point.

(they responded by banning me for two weeks, and did not patch their software. which, y'know, rip to them; they got hacked by an unrelated Turkish group two months later, and those dudes just straight-up deleted the whole website. i was a merciful god by comparison!)

anyway, even though downloading a perl script and just pointing it at a website isn't really "hacking" (it's the literal definition of script kiddie, heh)—the point is i was just experimenting a lot and trying a lot of stuff, which meant i was getting comfortable with thinking of software as not just some immutable relic, but something you can touch and prod in unexpected ways.

this dovetails into the next thing, which is like, just learn a lot of stuff. a boring conventional computer science degree will teach you a lot (provided you take it seriously and actually try to learn shit); alternatively, just taking the same classes as a boring conventional computer science degree, via edX or whatever free online thingy, will also teach you a lot. ("contributing to open source" also teaches you a lot but... hngh... is a whole can of worms; send a follow-up ask if you want that rant.)

here's where i should note that "hacking" is an impossibly broad category: the kind of person who knows how to fuck with website authentication tokens is very different than someone who writes a fuzzer, who is often quite different than someone who looks at the bug a fuzzer produces and actually writes a program that can exploit that bug... so what you focus on depends on what you're interested in. i imagine classes with names like "compilers," "operating systems," and "networking" will teach you a lot. but, like, idk, all knowledge is god-breathed and good for teaching. hell, i hear some universities these days have actual computer security classes? that's probably a good thing to look at, just to get a sense of what's out there, if you already know how to program.

also be comfortable with not knowing everything, but also, learn as you go. the bulk of my security knowledge came when i got kinda airdropped into a work team that basically hired me entirely on "potential" (lmao), and uh, prior to joining i only had the faintest idea what a hypervisor was? or the whole protection ring concept? or ioctls or sandboxing or threat models or, fuck, anything? i mostly just pestered people with like 800 questions and slowly built up a knowledge base, and remember being surprised & delighted when i went to a security conference a year later and could follow most of the talks, and when i wound up at a bar with a guy on the xbox security team and we compared our security models a bunch, and so on.  there wasn't a magic moment when i "got it", i was just like, "okay huh this dude says he found a ring-0 exploit... what does that mean... okay i think i got that... why is that a big deal though... better ask somebody.." (also: reading an occasional dead tree book is a good idea. i owe my firstborn to Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development, as outdated as it is, and also O'Reilly's kookaburra book gave me a great overview of web programming back in the day, etc.  you can learn a lot by just clicking around random blogs, but you’ll often end up with a lot of random little facts and no good mental scaffolding for holding it together; often, a decent book will give you that scaffolding.)

(also, it's pretty useful if you can find a knowledgable someone to pepper with random questions as you go. finding someone who will actively mentor you is tricky, but most working computery folks are happy to tell you things like "what you're doing is actually impossible, here's why," or "here's a tutorial someone told me was good for learning how to write a linux kernel module," or "here's my vague understanding of this concept you know nothing about," or "here's how you automate something to click on a link on a webpage," which tends to be handier than just google on its own.)

if you're reading this and you're like "ok cool but where's the part where i'm handed a computer and i gotta break in while going all hacker typer”—that's not the bulk of the work, alas! like, for sure, we do have fun pranking each other by trying dumb ways of stealing each other's passwords or whatever (once i stuck a keylogger in a dude's keyboard, fun times). but a lot of my security jobs have involved stuff like, "stare at this disassembly a long fuckin' time to figure out how the program pointer got all fucked up," or, "write a fuzzer that feeds a lot of randomized input to some C++ program, watch the program crash because C++ is a horrible language for writing software, go fix all the bugs," or "think Really Hard TM about all the settings and doohickeys this OS/GPU/whatever has, think about all the awful things someone could do with it, threat model and sandbox accordingly." occasionally i have done cool proof-of-concept hacks but honestly writing exploits can kinda be tedious, lol, so like, i'm only doing that if it's the only way i can get people to believe that Yes This Is Actually A Problem, Fix Your Code

"lua that's cool and all but i wanted, like, actual links and recommendations and stuff" okay, fair. here's some ideas:

microcorruption: very fun embedded security CTF; teaches you everything you need to know as you're doing it.

cryptopals crypto challenges: very fun little programming exercises that teach you a lot of fundamental cryptography concepts as you're going along! you can do these even as a bit of a n00b; i did them in Python for the lulz

the binary bomb lab is hilariously copied by, like, so many CS programs, lol, but for good reason. it's accessible and fun and is the first time most people get to feel like a real hacker! (requires you know a bit of C beforehand)

ctftime is a good way to see when new CTFs ("capture the flag"s; security-focused competitions) are coming up. or, sometimes CTFs post their source code, so you can continue trying them after the CTF is over. i liked Stripe's CTFs when they were going, because they focused on "web stuff", and "web stuff" was all i really knew at the time. if you're more interested in staring at disassembly, there's CTFs focused on that sort of thing too.

azeria has good ARM assembly & exploitation tutorials

also, like, lots of good talks out there; just watching defcon/cansecwest/etc talks until something piques your interest is very fun. i'd die on a battlefield for any of Christopher Domas's talks, but he assumes a lot of specific x86/OS knowledge, lol, so maybe don’t start with that. oh, Julia Evans's blog is honestly probably pretty good for just learning a lot of stuff and really beginner-friendly?

oh and wrt legality... idk, i haven't addressed it here since it hasn't come up in my own work much, tbh. if you're just getting started you're kind of unlikely to Break The Law without, y'know, realizing maybe you're doing something a bit gray-area? and you can cross that bridge when you come to it? Real Hacking TM is way more of a pain-in-the-ass than doing CTFs and such, and you'll learn way more with the latter, so who cares lol just do the fun thing

[jtsfavslut]

Show Me How II

Description: After countless 'I think she's the one' Grayson loses hope in finding his soulmate. But one girl gives him the hope to try again.

Warnings: None Word Count: 4.5k+

Part One

"Grayson, you can't put three of the same things next to each other," you said noticing how he was putting the same type of decorations next to each other. "You gotta spread em' out evenly," you added before moving over to where he was and spending out the little fake spiders.

"He's so dumb," Ethan shouted making you shake your head as Grayson cursed him out and they began to bicker.

"I didn't know I was taking care of toddlers, I would've brought toys," you sarcastically shouted as Karolina laughed, shaking her head.

"You might want to run away and save yourself while you can," Karo whispered and you shook your head laughing.

"I think I'll stick around for a bit, get some source of entertainment," you replied and focused back on decorating.

"Karo, let's go get some food while these two decorate," Ethan shouted and she nodded her head, carefully putting the decorations on the floor before walking away.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Ethan shouted as they walked away.

"So basically anything with common sense? Got it," you shouted back causing a 'fuck off' to fall past his lips and Karolina and Grayson to laugh.

"You almost done?" Grayson asked you and you shook your head.

"Just a couple of things. Do you guys have a step stool or something? I need to put some things up there?" You asked pointing to the area near the roof.

"No, but you can sit on my shoulders, I'm sure you'll reach," he said and you laughed.

"And crush your body and soul? No thanks, I don't have money for a lawyer," you replied and he glared at you shaking his head.

"Y/N, please don't say that come on," he said and crouched down. You hesitantly climbed on his back and sat on his shoulders and you wrapped your arms around his neck as he rose up.

You carefully placed the decorations as you told him where to stand.

"See, we're done!" He exclaimed with excitement and you shook your head with a smile.

"I am never offering to decorate someone's house again, we've been here for two hours. Two fucking hours," you groaned and laid down on the floor.

"Oh come on? It was fun!" He shouted and you mentally rolled your eyes since your eyes were closed.

"Yeah, says the one that put three things up," you said and he scoffed.

"Shut up before I throw you in the pool," he said and you shrugged.

"Ah yes! And murder me and finish this misery," you joked and heard him chuckle.

"You have class tomorrow?" He asked and you felt him lay down next to you.

"Yeah, it's just one tho," you sighed nodding your head.

"Which one?"

"Organic Chemistry, kinda fun you know?" You replied.

"I don't, I don't even know what that is actually," he said causing you to laugh.

"It's the study of the structure, reactions, and all that other stuff of carbon-containing compounds and shit," you replied and Grayson stared at you with confusion on his face.

"What a carbon-containing compound?" He asked.

"It's a chemical substance that contains carbon, hence the name carbon-containing compound. And a compound is a mixture of two elements. It's basic biology," you said and he nodded his head, still not understanding but not wanting to ask any more questions.

"Holy shit you're smart. Me and E didn't even stay in high school," he said causing you to laugh.

"Well, I'm not going to college for nothing. But you guys had a reason to not stay in school, plus look at this, you didn't even graduate and look at you, meanwhile, look at me, worked my ass off in school and still are busting my ass only to live in a shitty ass apartment, in a shitty ass neighborhood with a shitty add job," you sighed.

"Your apartment isn't shitty Y/N, it's cute. And you're working toward what you want. Have you even made your decision yet?" He asked and you nodded your head opening your eyes.

"Yeah. I'm gonna continue with college. I want to help save people, especially children, I want to help people get a second chance," you said smiling.

"Good, I'm proud of you. And I know you're going to be a great anes- doctor however you pronounce it," he laughed making you chuckle.

"An anesthesiologist Gray, and thank you" you softly replied with a smile.

"We're back bitches," Ethan's voice screamed out as both were shaking you up. "And we brought Monty's and McDonald’s for the meat-eating monster," he added, making you roll your eyes.

"Thank you, Mr. Vegan, I appreciate it. And I appreciate you ordering meat at a store, that's really mature of you," you replied, getting up along with Grayson and following everyone inside the house.

"So, Y/N, are you staying in school?" Ethan asked and you nodded your head, holding a finger up as you swallowed whatever was in your mouth.

"Yeah, I wanna help people, and it's kinda too late to switch majors or drop out now. It's only three more months, and finals are coming up as well," you replied and he nodded his head.

"And after that, do you instantly become a doctor?" Karolina asked and you shook your head.

"Not really, since this is medical school, I need to take on a residency program for a couple of years until I'm officially certified as an anesthesiologist. You still get paid but not as much,"

"That's a lot of work," she replied.

"Yeah, but it kinda pays off at the end, it's a high salary and you can retire pretty early. And you get the satisfaction of helping people," you shrugged.

The conversation carried on switching from different topics as everyone ate their food.

"I need help," you softly said, walking back into the house.

"What wrong?" Grayson asked looking up from his phone filler by Ethan and Karo.

"My dumb car won't turn on," you pouted and Grayson got up from his seat following you outside.

"You have jumper cables?" You asked and he shook his head. "How about soda? The battery terminals might be clogged and that helps clean them," you asked and he shook his head.

"No, but how do you know that?" He asked and you smiled.

"After years of getting yelled at by holding the flashlight wrong, you learn a thing or two," you said and he nodded his head.

You spent a good fifteen minutes trying everything you could but the car wasn't bugging. It was almost 2 Am and Uber prices would be through the roof.

"You wanna spend the night here? You can sleep in my room. It's too dark to be driving around, and to our convenience, it's raining," Grayson sighed and you nodded your head.

"It's ok, I can sleep on the couch, I don't want to take your room away," you said and he shook his head.

"I can't let you sleep on the couch, that's rude," he said and you shook your head smiling.

"What's rude is me staying the night," you replied.

"You're our friend and that's not rude, condone we can split the bed or something," he said grabbing your hand and pulling you to his room.

"Do you wanna shower?" He asked and you nodded your head. "I'll get you some clothes, let me ask Karo if she has anything," he said and you nodded your head.

"Grayson, unless it's big on her it's not going to fit me," you said with a smile and he gave you a look which you couldn't read. "I'm not ashamed or anything. I know my size and she's smaller than me," you added sending him a smile and he nodded his head.

"Here's a shirt and some joggers and a pair of boxers, these are new by the way," he said, handing you everything neatly folded. "Oh some socks in case you want them, and a hoodie," he said, handing you more stuff.

"Gray, I'm fine, thank you," you laughed thanking him, and began walking to the Bathroom he showed you earlier.

You quickly went inside, took off your clothes and turned on the shower, which he had shown you the day you had your little pool party, and took a short but long shower before realizing you had no towel.

"Umm Gray," you said, opening the door and standing behind it, only showing your head.

"Yeah, everything's okay?" He asked and you shook your head.

"I need a towel," you softly replied and he nodded his head.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that, I'll bring your one," he said and left the room getting a towel and quickly walking back.

"Thank you," you said as he handed you the towel, his eyes catching a glimpse of your bare tits when you went to grab the towel forgetting you were naked.

"I'm sorry, oh my God," he quickly apologized, closing his eyes and walking away.

"No I'm sorry, I forgot I wasn't wearing anything. God this is so embarrassing," you exclaimed with your flushed face. You just flashed him something no one's ever seen before. You quilt got dressed into the hoodie and joggers he handed you and folded your clothes, placing them on the far back corner of the sink counter.

"Well, that's something new, I've never shown anyone my tits before," you joked walking out the bathroom causing Grayson to blush.

"Wait really?" He asked and you nodded your head.

"Yes, is that so hard to believe Dolan? Ima good girl," you laughed and he shook his head.

"Have you even dated anyone?" he asked and you shook your head laying down on his bed.

"No, I didn't really have time and I wasn't interested in anyone in that way. I was close but it didn't work out," you shrugged and he looked at you in confusion.

"We didn't work out because I was too busy with school. And if I want a relationship I want to make sure I'm putting my best and I couldn't give him that, so I stopped it before it got too serious.

"That's a valid reason, at least I think it is," he said and you nodded your head. "How about now? Do you think you're ready?"

"I think so. It depends on who the person is, you know? And also whether they're serious about it or not," you shrugged.

"I need you to rub that off on me," he sighed and you turned to look at him.

"No Gray. You just need to find what you're missing. Maybe settle down for a while, and when you least expect it she'll be right there for you, and if it's meant to be it'll last and work out." you said and ruffled his hair making him smile, "Just give the universe and God time. Their timing is always right," you smiled at him, making his urge to kiss you stronger.

But he fought it away, it was hard but he didn't. He didn't want to mess up the friendship that was just beginning. You wouldn't have minded tho, not one bit.

"Thanks, Y/N, you're always so wise and have advice for everything, I don't know how but you do," he said and you shrugged.

"I don't know either," you yawned, slowly closing your eyes.

"You tired?" he asked and you nodded your head.

"Let me tuck you in, yeah?" he said, making you chuckled at his sweetness.

The next morning you woke up to a pair of arms wrapped around and your legs tangled with someone else's. Butterflies erupting in your stomach along with a red tint on your cheeks.

You tried to move but he just wouldn't budge making you let out a sigh.

"Grayson….Grayson, let me go," you whispered, shouted and he shook his head.

"Mmm, Five more minutes please," he mumbled, his morning voice hyping up thoughts that you would never admit you had.

"I need to pee, and brush my teeth," you whined, not wanting to be in bed with morning breath.

"You coming back?" he asked with his eyes still closed.

"Yeah, I just need to pee," you nodded your head and he unwrapped his arms from you. Your body immediately missing being in his warm embrace.

"There's an extra toothbrush on the bottom cabinet, now hurry up, I'm getting cold," he said shooing you off and you walked inside his bathroom and did your business.

Only to find him staring at you when you came out.

"What?"

"You look cute in my clothes," he said with a sheepish smirk on his face, causing you to blush.

"Shut up, Bailey," you said and crawled back into bed.

"You smell good," he said as he pulled you into him.

"Thanks, I tried, and I also had perfume in my purse so I sprayed some last night," you yawned and had hatred at the ceiling.

"Going back to sleep?" he asked and you shook your head.

"I can't, once I wake up I can't go back, and I have class at 12," you sighed, then it hit you that you had class and no car, "Oh my God, I have class," you groaned and he chuckled.

"I'll take, what time is it?" he asked, his voice more awake than before.

"No, no it's okay, I'll take an uber or something," you shook your head and he said no.

"I'll take you, taking an Uber isn't always safe," he said getting up from the bed before you could protest.

(We'll pretend that Stanford isn't 5 hours from LA)

"Thank you, Gray," you thanked him as he pulled up in front of the building.

"It's no problem Y/N, What time do you need to be picked up?" he asked as you got out the car and looked back inside.

"At three, but it's okay," you smiled and he nodded his head.

"I'll come pick you up, I'll be right here when you come out," he sent you a smile and your heart melted.

"Why are you so nice? But I'll see you later Gray, I need to go," you said with a smile and left when he said bye and began walking to class.

"Who was that? And whose clothes are those?" your friend's voice asked from behind you making you turn around.

"Good Morning to you too, Alex. And no one, just a friend's," you shrugged and hugged her before pulling away and walking next to each other.

"Friends don't just wear each other's clothes and drive each other to class," she said and you rolled your eyes.

"Don't you have a video to make or something?" you asked before your phone started ringing, you checked the caller ID to see it was Grayson calling.

"Yeoo," you said after answering and bringing the phone up to your ear.

"Hey, you left your purse in my car, do you need it?" he asked and you let out a groan.

"No, it's okay. I don't even have my laptop in it so it's fine. I didn't even realize it," you sighed and heard him chuckle.

"Do you need it? I can go get it for you," he said and you shook your head with a smile.

"No Gray, it's okay, I'll be fine. I'll just type them on my phone,"

"Are you sure? I don't mind," he replied.

"I'm sure, it's not the first time. Now, I really gotta go, I'll see you later," you replied as your friend stared at you.

"OK, bye,"

"Bye," you whispered before hanging up and putting your phone in your pocket.

"So, Gray?" she asked and you shook your head letting out a 'here we go'

"Yes, Gray, and he's just a friend," you said shaking your head.

"Gray, Gray, Grayson? Grayson Dolan? From the party?" she asked and you nodded your head with a sigh.

"Yes, Grayson from the party," you said and she suddenly grabbed your shoulder stopping you in your tracks.

"Are you serious? Do you know who he is Y/N? He's loved by everyone," she said and you shrugged.

"And? He's just Grayson to me, just like you're just Alex to me. And like I said before we're just friends," you said and she sent you a lie telling you, you were lying.

"Where have you been these past two weekends? Whose clothes are you wearing? What does that mean? And called you to ask whether you need a computer or not?" she asked, causing you to roll your eyes.

"Yeah, we've been hanging out. And I only stayed the night because my car wasn't turning on, and he's just being nice Alex," you sighed making her drop it.

"Fine I'll drop it but one last thing, I've never seen you being so smiley and happy around a guy, you barely even talk to guys, so I'm just saying that maybe you like him.

"Of course I do! Have you seen the guy?" you exclaimed, "And he's so nice and everything, but he's way out of my league, and we just met three weeks ago," you said and she chuckled shaking her head?

"Y/N, it's clear that he likes you too, and he's not out of your league, no one has leagues Y/N. You just need to try and go for it, it's time you do," she said and you sighed.

"I know, but I don't want to get hurt, or hurt anyone else. And I've never been in a relationship, I don't know how this works," you sighed before finally entering the building and going to class.

"Your friend is here," she said and nodded her head towards the car she saw you get out of earlier.

"Thanks, I'll call you later yeah?" you said and she nodded her head before you began walking your own ways.

"Hi," you softly spoke as you got inside the car and put your seatbelt on.

"Hey, how was class?" he asked and began driving away.

"It was alright. Not that many notes, which I'm thankful for. What did you do?"

"I went back home, worked out then took a shower and a power nap, and helped edit a video, then we're gonna film later," he replied and you nodded your head.

The rest of the drive was spent talking as the radio played quietly in the background.

"Do you wanna be in the video?" he asked and you quickly shook your head playing with a pillow that was on the couch.

"Absolutely not sir, not that I don't like your videos, I rather stay behind the camera," you said and he nodded his head.

"What are you guys even doing?"

"A vlog, that's what we've been doing lately," Ethan responded and you nodded your head.

"And we're going somewhere and you're coming with us," Karolina said and you nodded your head.

"Ethan, don't touch that, it's poisonous," Grayson shouted at Ethan who was about to touch a plant.

Grayson decided it would've been a great idea to go hiking in a place they've never been to. Karolina told you Grayson thought he was a survival specialist after doing a couple of survival videos which made you laugh like crazy.

"Oww, something just bit me," you slightly shouted because it was hurting your ankle, you quickly looked down but there was nothing in sight.

"Are you ok? Where is it?" Grayson said quickly, moving to stand in front of you along with the rest.

"On my ankle, and it hurts," you softly replied and he crouched down, softly rolling up the bottom of your- well his joggers to look at your ankle.

"Well, nothing bit you, but it's a bee sting, are you allergic?" he asked and you shook your head with a sigh.

"No, I'm sorry for ruining your video," you sighed and he shook his head.

"You didn't ruin it Y/N, we need to put something cold on it, and you need to take Tylenol or something," he reassured you, and you nodded your head.

"It's okay, I can still walk….I think," you said and looked down at your ankle that was swelling up wicked fast.

But when you couldn't walk you let out a groan, causing Ethan to snicker.

"Oh my fucking God, stupid ass bee, that's why you fucking die, bitch," you said and Ethan laughed.

"I'll just carry you on my back,"

"See I did ruin your video because now we have to leave because of a fucking bee," you exclaimed and Ethan shook his head.

"You didn't ruin it, I don't even want to be here anymore, so thank you," he said, earning a glare from you and a playful smack from Karolina.

"I'm glad my suffering brings you joy Ethan," you sarcastically said.

"Okay, Y/N, you need to let us keep this part," Ethan said, replaying the part where you kept saying something bit you.

"Okay but why?"

"Because it's funny, plus your voice and laugh is throughout the entire video so why not?" he replied and Karolina brought you a bottle of water.

"Why is everyone in this house so fucking nice?" you asked, causing her to laugh.

Two days later the swelling in your ankle was better, you could walk, Grayson forced you to stay in his house, saying it was his fault for wanting to go hiking, you protested, but that's when you learned that Grayson was as stubborn as they came.

"Grayson, I'm fine, I can walk now, look," you said and walked around the room to show him.

"I know, but I just- I don't want you to go," he said causing your heart to melt and a blush to spread on your cheeks.

"Gray, I can always come over, I'm your friend, I'm not just going away," you said and walked back to sit on his bed.

"But I don't want to be just friends anymore," he said and walked towards you standing in front of you.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, that I've been holding these thoughts since the second week of knowing you. You told me that I would know she's the one because I would feel it, And that once I settle she would come into my life for good and that's you," he spoke rather loudly from the emotions he was feeling, while you were frozen in your spot. "I told Ethan I was taking a break from trying to find her, and then you came along, and told me all those wise words, and I feel like it's you. You randomly became a big part of my life, and I just needed to tell you that and that  I like you, it's okay if you don't feel the same,"

"Gray, I like you too, I just didn't know how to tell you. And I thought you wouldn't have liked me back," you said with a smile and he sat down next to you, grabbing your hands in his.

"Y/N, you have been driving me insane, ever since I first saw you," he said causing you to playfully roll your eyes with a blush.

"So now what happens?" you asked.

"We just let it flow. I'm not going to force things to happen, just let the universe play out," he said and you nodded your head and laid your upper body on the bed while your legs were hanging.

"So, does that mean you're staying?" he asked, earning a chuckle from you.

"I don't know, I kinda need clothes,"

"You can wear my clothes, or I  can buy you more,"

"Buy? No sir, I can buy my own things,"

"But I want to buy you stuff," he said and you shook your head.

"I'm fine with wearing your shirts," you said and snuggled into the white shirt you were wearing, which was his, along with some biker shorts you had gotten from your apartment when he took you there to get some of your things.

"You do look cute in my clothes," he said and you could hear the smirk in his voice.

"Stop, I'm gonna blush," you laughed.

"I'm serious, you look so cute, I just wanna kiss you," he said and that must have triggered a switch in your brain because before you knew it, you were slowly climbing onto his lap, your arms wrapping around his neck while his wrapped around your waist.

"Do it," you whispered, your voice was confident but shaky from your nerves.

And after what felt like a lifetime, you felt his lips press against yours. Soft but rough, containing so much emotion, which you returned by kissing back.

You curled your finger along with the little curls on the back of his head and his fingers gripped your waist, digging deep inside your skin.

"God," he groaned once you slowly pulled away with a sly smile on your lips.

You didn't imagine for your first to be this way, but you wouldn't change a thing either.

"Can you drive me to my place? To get more clothes," you asked causing his smile to widen. You had taken your car to the shop, and it was going to be ready by tomorrow, making you depend on other people.

"So you're staying?" he asked and you nodded your head.

"Yeah, until my car's ready," you replied and he pouted.

"But that's tomorrow,"

"I know, it's also Sunday tomorrow which means it's cleaning day," you said climbing off his lap.

"Your place is clean tho," he said and you scoffed.

"And? That doesn't mean you can't clean, there's a thing called dust Grayson," you replied and he shook his head.

"I know what dust is Y/N, do you clean like every day," he said and you scratched the back of your head.  "You do?"

"I do, damm. Do you know how bad I wanted to clean this house in the last couple of days? It's not dirty it's just disorganized, for example, go look at your closet," you said and he walked towards his closet which you organized while he was working out.

"When did you do this?"

"When you went for your workout," you shrugged, you had color-coordinated everything from white to black, and made sure everything was straight and the longer pieces faded into the short ones and so on. (me af)

"You know it's getting messed up later right?" he asked, walking towards you and wrapping his arms around you.

"And that's why I'm staying another night," you smiled and leaned up, pressing your lips against his.

Tags:  @guiltydols@angelgrayson@fangdolan@ydolanssss@aquadolan@atlas-of-a-human-soul@blindedbythelightt@rhyrhy462@333dolans@dolanissues@graysonsdollface@persistence-ofmemories@evergreendolan@episkygrant@graysonsbailey@simplyxdolxstyles@dolansficsandpics@kinkygrays@babeygray@tadadolan@pineappledols@erodasugar

[kay-kaylen]

Genshin Rant

Okay so, I’ve been into Genshin for quite some time. I’m not a seasoned player who’s been around since the Latern Rite (I am furious that I missed that honestly) but I’m doing pretty well for myself. 

But oh man. A few months ago, I joined an unofficial Genshin group and let me tell you, this is something I’ve got to get out of my system because I had such a huge argument with some of the members there that I just left the group because oh my God. I couldn’t take it. It’s probably a controversial topic, and I might get hate for what I say, but if you decide to shit on my words without providing legitimate evidence and being able to have a civil discussion and debate with me, then I’m just blocking you because I don’t need that here.

A lot of complaints about Genshin Impact mainly stem from the Gacha/Wish system, which is a system in which you roll for different weapons and characters. To roll, you need Fates, and you get Fates through Primogems. You can get Primogems by just doing stuff in the game, but it’s slow-going sometimes. If you want to, you can purchase Primogems with real life money.

The BIGGEST complaints I’ve ever seen from Genshin ALWAYS comes from this Wish system and the things that were said during that argument in the group was so ridiculous, I literally can’t.

First off, a lot of people say Mihoyo are scammers, and to be fair, sometimes they’re kind of wonky. Like the Serenitea Pot and Sanctifying Essence which is supposed to give more artifact exp buuut it doesn’t give a lot. That part needs to be worked on, of that I agree. But the wishes?? No. As far as I see it, it’s fair game. In fact, the chances to get a 5* character are NO LOWER than any other gacha game I’ve experienced. I’ve done my maths. Any higher and you’d pretty much always be getting them, which isn’t fair to the makers of the game and defeats the point of a gacha. This is especially true because we’re constantly GETTING new characters. The more characters, the more chances for that 0.6% chance to land on them, and it’s literally just a matter of time. The ONLY reason you’d complain is because you’re salty you didn’t get the character you wanted despite paying. You think that just because you paid them money, Mihoyo would serve the character for you on a silver platter. But they don’t. It’s ALL based on luck and chance, and they GIVE you chances on Banners. And you can ALWAYS try again. There will never NOT be a time where you can’t try. Mihoyo does NOT control what characters you get. You wanna know how I know? Because I rolled once with no fucking expectation and got ZHONGLI of all characters. A 5*. They are NOT trying to screw you over, I am HAPPY with the characters I’ve got. It literally doesn’t matter to me whether I get a 4* or a 5* or just weapons, I am still GETTING stuff.

And yeah, I don’t mind if you wanna keep rolling to get a character or weapon you REALLY want, there is literally nothing wrong with that. But I HATE it when people get salty and take it out on the creators. One of the points the people in the group tried to make is that the game’s teaching kids how to gamble. It. Is. A. Gacha. Game. It is made EXPLICITLY clear that there are in-game purchases that are OPTIONAL. You have to AGREE to the terms and conditions before you play the game. And why is Genshin being treated as this unholy demon? You know how many MORE Gacha games are out there with just as much gambling potential? Cause there’s a lot. But UNLIKE some Gacha games I know of, when they say optional, they MEAN optional. You can play the entire game and build a GOD level team without paying a single damn penny, and Mihoyo doesn’t even shove the gacha wishing system in your face. You literally don’t even get told about its existence when you play and go about the story, you have to FIND where that wishing thing is. The game does NOTHING to tempt you to rolling apart from showcasing their new characters, WHICH THEY DO ANYWAY IN THE STORY ITSELF. If anything, things like character trailers are just lore for the characters to make them interesting and build them for us storylovers.

But the whole point of this whole thing is that Mihoyo does NOTHING that requires you to pay a penny. Literally nothing. They make it clear that it’s on you to pay real life money, and you should KNOW about how Gachas, or even just rolling for chances is like, because it’s basically a capsule machine. YOU are the one rolling, and YOU are the one who CHOSE to fork over your own money. YOU are the one who chose not to stop ‘gambling’. The game does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to make you pay genuine money. YOU are the one who made that decision, so YOU deal with the results you got. You know damn well that you’re likely not getting what you want, so stop whining about it.

But just to take a step back, even IF you disregard all these points and just look at the 0.6% chance and say: “Man, that’s low odds.” It HAS to be that way, because Mihoyo NEEDS that money. Yes, I know damn well they have millions of dollars, I did my research, but that is NOT ENOUGH MONEY. People don’t realize just how BIG and AMBITIOUS of a game Genshin Impact is. It isn’t just costly to make, it’s costly to MAINTAIN. It’s not a final released game, they’re still a work-in-progress and that brings LOADS of complications with it, especially since it’s blown up so much and they’ve got MILLIONS of users playing all the time. And just because they’re a Chinese company or WHATEVER excuse you have to bring to the table, doesn’t mean they have any easier of a time.

I know this. Because I have a fucking friend who works in game programming and development. She took one look at Genshin Impact and told me this was a game that makes Final Fantasy and Detroit: Become Human, or whatever huge fucking ass games over the years, look like a JOKE in terms of expenses. 

Mihoyo is CONSTANTLY updating their game, fixing bugs, implementing new things like small events or just fun stuff for players to goof around with, but NONE of these things are easy. THAT’S why they have new characters, THAT’S why they’re constantly doing events, they NEED people’s support to the game and their attention CAN’T wane. It’s pure BUSINESS. They’re not being selfish, that is literally just how it works.

And here’s another thing. Genshin doesn’t have ANY other money spending things EXCEPT for the wishes. They don’t make you pay for Resin, or make you pay to progress the story. No. ALL their income from the game, comes from the Wishing. Where YOU GUYS make that choice to fork over your money.

One of the things people in that group jeered about is Genshin’s shit security, and yes, that is problem that needs serious fixing. The thing is, they’re ALREADY hard at work trying to fix it. You think it’s a walk in the park to stop account hackers? FUCK NO. It needs cooperation from the users AND the company. The company needs to make better firewalls and security measures, and the users need to take precautionary measures to make sure they DON’T get their accounts stolen. It doesn’t matter how high or tough your walls are if you’re the one who just opens the gate yourself. And by all means, they are improving in that aspect, people just don’t announce it to the world. And oh yeah, they DO need money to improve their security. It is NOT free to develop bigger shields.

I had people in that group tell me the game was sooo slow in their development and there was no point in investing money in it, and to that I say. Let me just put this into perspective, okay? Let’s just rundown a list of things that need to be implemented when making a new region. Just one.

*inhales*

The terrain, environment, treasure locations, puzzles, local materials, local recipes, main city, sub towns, npcs, npc dialogues, shops, unique enemies, regional bosses, unique drops, regional characters, books, region lore and history, statues of the seven locations, teleporter locations, domain locations, oculi locations, story quests, world quests, sigils, and the list REALLY does go on.

AND THIS IS FOR ONE REGION.

THERE ARE SEVEN REGIONS IN THE GAME.

MEANING THEY HAVE TO REPEAT THIS PROCESS, FIVE FUCKING TIMES. (Since we already have Liyue and Mondstadt.)

Do. You. UNDERSTAND. HOW MUCH WORK. GOES INTO THIS FUCKING GAME.

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS?? HARDLY A HALF OF WHAT THEY NEED TO KEEP THEIR WORKERS GOING.

AND THEY’RE STILL VERY ACTIVE IN THE COMMUNITY.

So yeah. Genshin only draws money from the Gacha system they have, other income sources come from Mihoyo’s other games. They don’t force you to pay, at all. That decision is all on you. They need lots of money for the game, and still squeeze in time in their development to come up with little tidbit stuff for us to enjoy. They’re doing well, but they need improvements, but they won’t improve without the community’s support and understanding.

[marvel-download-tutorial]

How to Download Marvel comics for free!

I’ve been thinking about writing this for a while especially since we’re all stick inside but last week Marvel made the shitty decision to transition various print titles to digital only, meaning they’re directly taking revenue away from local shops rather than delay the titles, so since Marvel thinks digital comics is such a cool idea I’m gonna show you how to download as many as you’d like! (oh also this is for windows only, idk how to do it if you own a mac but also you’re rich anyways so who cares buy the comics richie)

I don’t want to take money away from the people that need it, not the actual companies of Marvel and DC fuck them they’re dying and they deserve it, but for my own rationalizing I want to take a minute to plug the Hero Initiative, basically what it is an organization that provides for comic creators that are having hard times, comics are a rough industry and you don’t get into it to get rich, I won’t go into it too much you can read for yourself but it’s been endorsed by Stan Lee, Justin Ponsor, Mike Grell, Skottie Young, Rags Morales, a lot of big names, so I’d ask if you do follow this guide and download some comics for free please consider donating to the Hero Initiative (they also sell autographed prints and you can commission some really famous artists)

anyways onto the good stuff! I’m going to be doing a fairly brief but easy to follow guide, there will be links at the bottom of the post so look for those, I’ll probably be making a few other posts with some more info so also check back for those if my blog is still here

What do I need?

You’re going to need 4 basic things if you want to do this as easily and safely as you can 

1) a good anti-virus

2) anonymous web browser (Tor)

4) a safe and reliable source for the comics

4) a torrent program to download the comics

Also optional: VPN

Anti-Virus 

it’s good to remember when torrenting that no one is your friend, everyone is out to trick you and no one cares, honestly you should also have a good anti-virus though, I’m not really gonna tell you which one you should have but Norton 360 is pretty good but say that in a room of CS majors is the quickest way to start a fist fight, honestly just google it, you’re gonna have to do some research, but really you’re good as long as you don’t go with Avast or Kaspersky, I’m going to go over typical tricks and traps later to ensure safety, this is just basic overall security thing

Anonymous Web Browser (Tor)

next we’re gonna download Tor (you can do this before getting a VPN, like I said either one is going to put you on a list but using one to cover you getting the other at least mitigates it lol) Tor is a great open source project that allows for basically complete anonymous web browsing, it’s a project dedicated to privacy and disruption of corporations ability to control every aspect of our lives, also a friend of mine bought K off silk road with it once in highschool, really not too much you need to know about it before using it, just download it, let it configure and you’re good, also use Duck Duck go that it comes with, don’t switch it to chrome or anything, Duck Duck go is anonymous search service which better lends to Tor’s protection

Where to get the torrents

Now this is really important because you can have everything else set up but without a safe reliable source none of this is gonna do any good, but this is the dangerous part, torrent sites are notorious traps (I bricked more than on family PC on limewire) and this is why I said earlier to remember these people are not your friends and are out to hurt you, don’t click banner ads, don’t believe pop ups, make sure your virus protection is on and it’s a very good idea to have an adblocker on, also look out for another post I’ll be making on what download buttons to trust for different popular torrent sites

when talking comics (and remember specifically only Marvel comics) there’s no other name out there than Nemesis43, he is a god and he’s going to be your new best friend, there are groups and sites out there that do comic scans that you have to pay to join or like apply to join, that shit’s dumb as hell and I’ve never used them once and I’ve got more comic than I can read in my lifetime, you don’t need em and you especially don’t need to give them money, donate to the Hero Initiative instead

Nemesis has moved around a bit in the past (if you remember the WWT debacle) right now the main site for him is ettv (there will be a link at the end of the post) sites a bit barren but he’s there, he also has a reddit he gives updates on very rarely, generally if he moves he adds where his new home is in a text doc in his recent uploads, I fully trust him and his uploads, he’s been doing this for years and I’d never have a second thought downloading from him, also because he uploads so much he’s often very highly rated and verified on whatever site he’s on

The second place I’d recommend is getcomic (again there will be a link at the end), now this is very important, never donate to them, they kinda suck, basically they’re plugged into a bunch of different scanner groups and just steal those scans and put them up and then ask for donations, basically they’re just an aggregate (Nem kinda is too but he doesn’t ask for donations and stuff), they usually use browser downloads which are a complete pain so I’d really recommend Nemesis over them but they do have TheComicGuy on torrent galaxy for larger files but that updates a lot less frequently then the main site, again I trust these guys (as long as you’re on the actual site) but don’t trust any banner ads or pop ups, also for downloading they give multiple options, a lot are very sketchy, just use the main server

also there’s other sites like readcomics or newcomics, never used em, don’t like em, use at your own behest 

On sites like ettv you’re gonna want to use the magnet, someone years ago told me it was safer and I just believed them and have always used em, not sure if it’s true but it’s worked so whatever, really you shouldn’t be too worried about this stuff and if you follow this guide you’re going to be way over prepared to download comics, really no one cares about comic torrenting, movies, video games, tv shows that’s the stuff people really get caught on, this is just nerd shit

I’m going to be making another post showing how to use these sites, and other sites comic can be found on so look back at my blog for that

Torrent program

This is pretty basic, just get utorrent, it’s what I’ve always used, it works, whatever, definitely look this up with a VPN on or on Tor, it’s simple to use, I’ll be doing a short tutorial on how to make it even safer

Lastly this one is optional but a pretty good idea, for more than just this

VPN aka Virtual Privacy Network

honestly you can get the anonymous web browser (Tor) or the VPN first, their both going to help cover you downloading the other and honestly both are going to put you on a list for googling them (which is why I suggest looking for someone who just already has the .exes ((I always keep them on a thumbdrive for when I have to reset one of my computers)), I might try to make a google drive with em but also I might not bc that sounds like work and I’m already typing all this up), anyways I’m not really gonna explain what a VPN is, there’s a lot of resources that can explain it better than I can but basically it masks what you do on the internet, there’s a lot of choices when picking a VPN but the big thing I looked for when choosing mine was 1) non-US based so it’s harder for US investigation agencies to request stuff for them or get anything from them 2) one that doesn’t keep logs, honestly they all do even if they say they don’t, but you wanna look for one that hasn’t turned over many logs to US agencies and 3) unlimited peer 2 peer connections which is complicated but basically means you can torrent stuff anonymously and with decent speed. Like Anti-Virus there are a ton of different VPN’s out there, you really have to do research because there are actual accounts of FBI agencies crating VPN’s telling people they’re anonymous when really they had direct access to all the info, I haven’t done any research but NordVPN seems kinda like one of these, really the more they advertise the more suspicious I am, Just google “best vpn 2020″ and look at like 5 lists and read the the stuff, personally I use IPvanish which unfortunately is US based and while it gave over logs in 2016 even thought they said they didn’t keep any but now they’re owned by a new company that super double promises they don’t (again who cares they all do) but they’ve allow P2P and use 256-bit AES encryption

I wanna take a second to mention that this isn’t going to be free, this is the only place you’re going to be spending money (besides donating to Heroe Initative of course), a good VPN is about $100 a year which all in all isn’t terrible, technically you can just get by on the anonymous browser but this gives you an extra layer of security to pretty much ensure you won’t get caught and plus in the ever worsening internet hell world a VPN is becoming more and more important, I’m sure you can find articles about it but yea you don’t technically need a VPN but it’s useful for more than just this

How to work it all

Ok so this is gonna be a little stream of consciousness, as this all kinda has been, so sorry but I’m gonna try and explain it as best I can and also feel free to ask any questions on this blog, I’ll check back eventually I’m sure

So first thing first, make sure you’re virus protection is on and you’re connected on your VPN if you’re using it (you can google “what is my IP” to double check it’s working) then load up Tor, let it load and connect up and whatever, then go to https://www.ettvdl.com/user/Nemesis43 (I’m just gonna show this with Nemesis43, maybe I’ll make another one for getcomics but that’s pretty straight forward, also nem is better)

now remember we’re only here for Marvel comics, so scroll past all those thousands of other comics this would work exactly the same for, I’m gonna go for Ant-Man #4 which was released on the 13 as a digital only comic despite the first three issues being physical copies and now sit on my shelf forever unfinished making me look like a complete penis

it may take a while but it’s going to look like this, click on the blue words, it’s gonna take you to a page that looks like this

now from here we’re going to get the magnet link, right click and select copy link address, I like doing this because it limits my interactions with the page, note the advertisement at the top telling me I need a VPN despite thinking I’m in Guadalajara (which for legal reasons I am)

just copy that and then go to utorrent and click the add link

it’ll open a little box, it should add the link automatically, if it doesn’t just hit ctrl+V

hit ok and it’ll load it up, it might need to download some metadata but after that it should be good, oh also it might bring up a window basically asking where you want to save it and what to name it, you can set all that up in preferences, I did so I just turned that window off and can’t be assed to turn it back on, just hit ok if you don’t wanna bother with that stuff, it’ll go into your downloads by default

and that’s it really, it’s that easy, I might make another thing talking about how to make utorrent more anonymous or whatever so look for that, but stock it’s fine, also when it’s finished downloading it’s gonna start seeding (like uploading to someone else) I’ve always been a scumbag and I never seed but Nemesis seeds stuff so much you really don’t need to anyways, just select it and hit the stop button (the black square on the tool bar)

here are all the links I could think of

Hero Initiative

download Tor

here’s a guide for VPNs

download utorrent

song I found recently that I like

getcomics

Nemesis

so yea that’s pretty much the basics, be smart, be safe, any viruses you get are on you but I hope you found this helpful and feel free to ask any questions

oh and also this is all parody and I’ve never actually torrented anything, I don’t even own a computer

[hazelenergy]

How I Digitally Paint like a Scenic Artist/Designer

Aka: how I did this and put my degree to good use. 

LONG POST WARNING

Step 1: Research. 

First off, get to your image search. If you are going to be using Google, you may want to type “-pinterest” in the search to eliminate the countless boards. 

I had to figure out clothing that is vaguely late 1800s. I found a multitude of reference images that were fancier clothes- but I wanted to find images of clothing for kindred across all social classes. Photographs from the era and paintings are your friend. They will more accurately showcase what was worn. 

After Fashion research comes location research. The 1890s in America is known for the rapid industrialization. Factories were getting bigger and work days were getting longer. But, I wanted the moonlight to be cascading into the place, illuminating the scene. This means I needed to find a structure that had skylights or let sunlight in. And the best images I found? Slaughterhouses. Fitting, huh?

The same rule for fashion still stands- if you can find photographs or paintings from the era- they’re better. There are tons of places still standing today from the 1800s. But today, they look WAY different. Ya know, Abandoned! So just be sure to take this into consideration if you search “abandoned slaughterhouses” or go trespassing like I did.

Lastly, pose research. Finding the poses for a fight scene can be tedious. So, I enlisted some help from a few fight choreographers and stunt men. You can record their fights and play them back at quarter or half speed. You can also get a mirror and flop on the floor a bunch. I did both. This lets you see the action/motion lines you are going to replicate in the drawing.  Heres how we initially did fina’s pose:

And sometimes you have to go back and get a clean shot. I ended up using this pose for the axe.

Step 2: Set up and Background!

When you open a new file, set it to the dimensions and resolution you want. I was working at 600. Usually, I’m working at 300-350. You can always reduce resolution. Its hard to prevent fuzzy lines if you increase it later. 

I cannot stress the following enough:

You work background to foreground. Big Shapes and areas to little shapes. Work your way forward. What this means is you need to fill in as much space as possible first. Then build your details. I prefer working as follows: Big Solid tones, Soft shadows, Dark Shadows, Highlights, then final blend. Once you finish this, put an overlay on top. This knocks everything back and helps create the illusion of depth. See this at work with the video below or here

Step 3: Figure Drawings + Composition

Utilize that research and images you collected to pose your characters. I create subfolders for each set of figures. Organization is important here. This will help keep you on the right layer and prevent the eternal digital artist struggle of “Fuck that was on the wrong layer!”

Even after you move on to lineart and shading, Keep the sketch layer as a reference. You may need to see what youre original notes/ figures looked like as you do the lineart and shade. Don’t be afraid to move them around and alter the composition rn. You want to be able to make changes. Make notes! Detail light sources! 

I’m about to through out some art jargon:

You want to think about asymmetric balance. The easiest way to achieve this in an eye-pleasing manner is to use the Fibonacci spiral. Yeah. This boi:

Place your figures and actions in a similar sequence to the spiral and the viewer’s eye tends to naturally follow it. This is sometimes called the Golden Ratio in the art world. 

Doesn’t need to be perfectly on the spiral. You can break it- but its an excellent tool to plan how things move in the piece. 

Step 4: Lineart

Once you got things sketched- its time to do the lineart. I’m using clip studio paint’s standard brushes. Nothing fancy. I often switch between the G-pen and the For Effect Liner. Mapping and Turnip are for thicker lines. 

Usually I set these pens to a specific thickness depending on where I’m drawing.

My background figures are lined at 0.05 thickness, the midground is .1 to .2, Fina is .3 and the foreground is .4. I set my stabilization high to help keep my lines smooth. Stabilization 100 means there’s a significant delay between where the pen is and the cursor. I like the stabilization to be at 20 for freehanding and at 50 ish for outlining. Dont become completely reliant on the stabilization though. Good and smooth lineart is drawn from the arm not the wrist. Your range of motion is severely limited if you only move your wrist. Practice moving from your elbow and you’ll be surprised how much smoother your lines get. 

Once I finish lining the figures, I usually go around it with an outline. This does three things: 

1. Solidifies the figure and cleans lineart for paint bucket tool. More on that in the next step.

2. Its a stylistic choice. Helps give it that comic book feel with a heavy outline. 

3. Pushes figures forward or back in the composition. Thicker outline helps denote that a figure is farther forward than another. My background figures have no outline to push them away 

Step 5: Digitally coloring

For each figure you are going to select outside the lineart. 

Create a new layer under the lineart

Invert the selection. Paint bucket. You should now have a solid shape of the figure under the lineart. Do not deselect.

Create a new layer above the one color. Title it solid colors. Paint in thick, solid tones. I like to use the mapping pen and turnip pen to color in my solid tones: skin, clothing, hair, etc.  

After that, deselect. Create a multiply layer if you can. If your program does not have a multiplier function, Pick a tone you want to use for shadows and lower the opacity (usually 30-40% I like to use lavenders or blue tones). It will not be as vibrant, but you can edit it in post. Select off of the solid colors layer. I like to start with skin tones. Use the airbrush tool to create soft shadows. You don’t want to create harsh lines on this layer.

Then repeat this process with harsh lines.  

Then knock it all back with an overlay. If you dont have the ability to create an overlay, you can again drop a solid color and lower the opacity, but you’ll have to mess with the color balance/ brightness/contrast to let all the hard work come through. 

You’re going to repeat this for every single figure. Here’s a few color theory tips though.

Your overlay colors should be darker (not more vibrant) in the foreground and lighter (avoid using pure white) in the background. This helps with the depth of the piece. Things closer tend to be darker (not always true, depends on lighting)

You can choose to use color theory to aid your shadows. Instead of choosing black or grey for shadows, choose a complimentary color. I used a lot of green for this piece, I used red for really dark shadows. Its not that black drains color- its just loses some depth if not used carefully. 

Keep your colors consistent. Helps unify the piece. You can strategically break the consistency to draw focus. For example, Fina is the only figure with a true blue overlay. This helps her stand out from the other figures who have reds and greens. 

Step 6: Touch Ups and Final Renderings

Now comes the most tedious part. If you’re like me, your computer fans have been whirring for the last few hours trying to render this monster of a file. If you havent already,  SAVE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD

These are the last four layers I have for the entire piece. Here, I am trying to create effective and believable lighting. This kind of work I have only been able to achieve in clip studio or photoshop. You can do it with normal layers, but choose your colors CAREFULLY. Stay away from pure white. Carefully utilize your knowledge of light and shadow to create soft highlights. Harsh lines tend to be a stylistic choice for me. The final layer, subtract, dulls out harsh red tones. I used this as a final overlay to help put everyone and everything in the scene. Without it, things are a little too green and skin tones are a little too blushed for vampires.

The challenge here is I want to tone down the red, but not lose the vibrancy of the blood. So, shift it to a blue. This also helped reinforce the “nighttime” effect. Its only a slight change.

Final thoughts:

Whenever you finish something, its important to reflect.

1. I am so FUCKING PROUD OF MYSELF. This is easily one of the most complicated pieces I’ve done in a while- and I’ve made 16′ tall faux stained glass. Brag. Let yourself feel awesome cuz you just made something awesome. 

2. I timed myself on the piece. I could have easily spent another 7 hours on it. But its important to know when to stop messing with it. Partially for budget reasons but also when you get down to the details you can make yourself go insane. Theres also a ton of detail work I lost cuz of overlays or its just too small to notice. Fina’s face? hard to see cuz its not close enough. 

3. I needed to take frequent breaks for this piece. That was good. Resting and stretching was very important. That is one of the reasons why I was able to work so fast. 

4. I started doing more digital art in April 2020. I have to say, practice makes perfect. I practice drawing and digital painting for at least 3 hours a day. 

That discipline has allowed me to improve so rapidly. So- I don’t wanna hear shit about I can’t possibly get this good! Or I couldn’t even draw a stick figure! BULLSHIT. You can. Get yourself some free software like Krita or Autodesk sketchbook and start playing! 

And thats what I got! Thanks for coming with me on this long post! 

[theholistichedonist]

Soul Fragmentation and Inner Child Work

“we are the most important project we will ever work on”

(affirmations at end)

a question that i continuously ask myself recently, always, 

Who am I?

constant conformity has me begging for the unusual, unique, and unregulated views i possess.

too much of one thing is never a good thing

where am i? 

how can i find myself? 

questions i have and answers i had found myself looking for externally

through peers, parents, and past

i wasn’t finding the answers, it ultimately lead myself into hermit mode, recluse status

i found myself in bed most of the day, not patient enough to close my eyes and actually dig for my answers yet, but a knowing of something

spinning my wheels with all the projects i was fucking forcing to the bitter end, i burnt out

this Gemini was hiding in a basement with the blinds closed binging on Gaia and praying for a miracle.

All these fucking emotions,

what the fuck, i’m feeling!

the great purge had begun

it felt so weird to turn my brain off ‘go mode’ and feel into my body

the repressed emotions, horrible parenting (w/ no fault to my parents), and what are coping skills?

i started RE-PARENTING myself

the little baby HH that was crying and scared in the corner from neglect, lack and abuse. 

i would visit her and hold her. i would care for her and kiss her wounds. it was the most powerful thing i had ever experienced before.

i had shut my past out and tried to lie and hide my past for years. i had blocked my little girl me completely out of my life and it was me who ultimately needed me

i cried for a week straight like a little baby, couldn't leave the house because i was either anxious AF or in fear I’d be at the cashier and she would trigger me in some way and i’d start crying lol

i looked at myself and was like wtf who is this?

OH RIGHT it’s me lol

begging for attention, my baby inside was like feed me!! She hid in the corner, cowering away from me because i had neglected her for so long, ignoring her pleas and emotions

so i gave myself my full, undivided attention

i would feel these emotions, sitting with them and healing the parts of me that had been closed off and fragmented from my human self for protection of being lost forever

all these visions and pictures of how horrible i had grown up (truly because I felt misunderstood and had my own path to forge), bullying, rejection of myself and from others, constant people pleasing with a resentment behind it, all the anger i had pent up inside of me so much fucking rage just ready to explode,  i would see how lonely i was and how horrible i had truly felt all my life up to this point just flash before my eyes

i lacked love, from and for myself

i forgot to consider my own needs

i neglected the emotions that pair with experiences to give us the answers we crave

in hindsight, with no fault of my own - to blame will not help us heal

we all choose our ‘Sacred Contracts’ before birth in the 3D

how would i ever get to know myself with so much judgement and resentment behind my motives?

simple,

Open you heart space to the highest frequency of All That Is

removing the filter of the EGO and relishing in the presence of your soul

where this is no judgement, no pain or suffering

it just is, all that is, Love, Compassion, Understanding, Gratitude

i had came to realizations that helped me dig, search and heal my fragmented pieces of my soul and welcoming them back with love and ACCEPTANCE

and ultimately opening myself up to the Divine Abundance and Greatness that this Universe naturally exudes and amplifies with the help of us

that’s why we’re here y’know, to help and heal, to give and receive, w/ no one more worthy or deserving than the other. Equal, but with different paths!

remember this: I am worthy of all my desires just because I am alive

Abundance is our birth right,

it is the programming that has been layered on top of our soul and mind that blocks that abundance from coming to us

whether it be a belief of unworthiness, hidden anger towards a situation or person, having to suffer to receive was a big one for me, that life was meant to be hard and difficult

all these beliefs are fucking lies that we tell ourselves or have been told, and these are just some of the beliefs some of us carry with us

not to scare you or overwhelm you this is more to help you open your mind and see where your programming effects you - we have 1000′s of faulty beliefs and 95% of them didn’t come from us they we’re imprinted from other people, situations or institutions

and they can be released without having to search endlessly for them

and that’s where Theta Healing came into my life,

i realize i haven’t explained to those who may not know what Theta Healing is and i will do just that:

Theta Healing is meditating in your Theta brain wave state that through healing will bring you closer to your Higher Self/Soul/Creator with physical, psychological and spiritual healing of programs and beliefs that are holding us hostage in our subconscious mind.

we become our true selves.

it’s the purge or societal views, back home to your soul and higher self

here i thought everyone else was the problem, and now i’m like ooooohhhh right it’shmeeee

to make a short story long:

I have been working with R for 4 months now and my life has made a complete 180 and lead my to find my purpose with helping heal the collective and grow into a higher and expanded consciousness of awareness.

from drug abuse, alcoholism, self loathing, pushing forcing and swimming upstream for most of my life, lost ad confused, looking for a cliff, and this aching need to figure shit out

to now where i am still resting, breathing, smiling, feeling, and releasing 

in complete serenity and tranquility, most days lol

but the point being is that now i know how to process these emotions, and i’m learning about WHO I AM, dissolving the EGO and seeing the full picture, myself

why am i feeling this way?

is this good or bad, and is this a belief that is worthy of releasing (if bad always yes lol) release that shit, you’re too good to be carrying a backpack of crap lol put the damn shit down

and here I am, still not sure who the fuck i am but i have a way better idea of it today than i did a few years ago and i really do thank Theta Healing for my growth, it’s been life changing and I’m so excited and blessed to be here sharing this with you, definitely something that used to be miles away from my comfort zone

releasing the belief that it is unfair, unsafe and ung-dly to be seen and to put myself out there. 

replacing with:

i give myself permission to share love, wisdom and confidence with those who need it because i am worthy and deserving of being seen and receiving recognition for my efforts

legit if you want to know more about Theta hit me up lol it’s fucking mind blowing

some affirmations for you beautiful souls:

I am open to the abundance and greatness the Universe offers

I am divine

I see and feel the support I have from Source

I am a divine goddess worthy of all that I desire

I am worthy of love and appreciation - because i have found that love of yourself is what brings in abundance on all levels (including money) 

My voice matters

My feelings matter

My opinions are important

I let go of my past insecurities and focus completely on feeling confident, secure and independent

Love, Peace, and Joy are what I know

i choose to live through the open space in my heart . I look for love and find it everywhere

My mind is cleansed and free. I leave the past and move into the new. All is well.

There is a joyous release of the past. Life is sweet and so am I

All Healing and health is flowing to me now

I am always safe and protected

I am confident in my full recovery

I am learning what my body needs to be in a perfect state of health

It’s my time to heal

I deserve great health, wealth and abundance

I trust myself

I have the courage and strength to enjoy my life, no matter what comes

I let go of perfectionism and thoroughly enjoy myself here and now

I free myself from the past and take actions that reflect my life purpose

I am supported by life

I awaken the self healing power within me

I show my strength through releasing all beliefs that no longer serve me.

thank you thank you thank you 

and so it is

love you,

HH

[botanyshitposts]

how did you know you wanted to be a botanist? did you ever consider doing something else?

(I’m going to write this one with proper capitalization because this is gonna be long and it’s easier to read)

Ohhh yeah. Like, to be honest, if I could do ANYTHING with my life I’d probably teach people about plants, write science fiction, or teach about plants through writing science fiction. I feel a lot like a journalist walking through botany conventions and stuff, like I just want to survey everything and learn it all and talk about it, and I’m not sure if I would be good at being like, a Real Plant Scientist, despite having some VERY niche botanical interests that i would absolutely dig deep and go through the literature for (isoetes and isoetes evolution, maize, lichens, carnivorous plants of the very specific nepenthes genus, hornworts, thermogenesis, etc, if you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ve probably seen me Go Off about a ton more). I do consider myself to be an aspiring botanist, but not a researcher looking to produce data and publish. That being said, going into academia isn’t completely out of the realm of possibilities for me.

Right now, I kind of have the pipe dream of trying for a science communication grad program, or a science fiction writing program. As it stands, I’m a biology major with a plant science concentration, I’m going into my junior year of undergrad, and i’m going to declare an english minor this year. I’ve been writing sci-fi since i was 10, and I’m currently in the process of buckling down to try to get something published (on a small scale to start) and increasing my stamina to work on some substantial projects, be it fiction or nonfiction or both. If I want to take writing seriously, I figure I have to start working hard for it now. 

As for like, HOW I got into botany, it’s been a while since I’ve talked about this on here, so I should start by answering a frequent question I get: most botanists stumble into botany. Like, they go down a path with animals or ecology or another biological field, and then accidentally fall in love with them. Not everybody is like, down for botany right in undergrad. Actually, a lot of people don’t think plants are very cool in undergrad. I started learning at 15, and I get asks sometimes that are like ‘I’m 17, am I too old to get into botany?’ like dude RARELY do you see botanists younger than 20 lmao you are NEVER too old for that shit. Plants have the disadvantage of being static beings in the peripheral of our everyday lives until you start paying attention to them (a phenomenon colloquially referred to as ‘plant blindness’ in the botany/horticulture communities), so they tend to get sidelined in K-12 education and are easily overlooked in general. 

I got into botany through an unpaid high school internship program. Fun fact, before all this I was passively thinking about becoming a zoologist, and what a disaster that would have been. I signed up to help out in a local greenhouse and was immediately blasted by how fucked up ornamental plants are. Specifically, I remember a time when my mentor was like, ‘do you want to see what $1,000 worth of plants looks like?’ and of COURSE I wanted to, so he brought me down to the back of the greenhouse. $1,000 worth of seeds turned out to be about 10-15 test tubes and blank white packets in a tupperware container. He took one of the test tubes out; it was filled with bulky, lumpy looking tan seeds. He said each one grew a pot of three different types of lettuce. They were bulky because each one was three separate seeds fused together with a rubbery substance that companies apply to make the seeds easier for robotic potting arms to pick up. It’s wild shit. I was a big fan of Jurassic Park at the time. As you can imagine, my third eye had been absolutely blasted open and I’ve never been the same.

From there I started volunteering in a community greenhouse, then I got obsessed with plants that heat up (thermogenic plants) and ended up teaching myself a ton off of wikipedia and from anything that wasn’t behind a paywall to understand what the hell I was reading about, then got some money from an extended learning program at my school to do a research project with it, and then my extended learning teacher had me submit my research to a science competition, and after that I got chosen to give a presentation at said competition and to be completely honest I completely blacked out for 15 minutes and can only remember crying on stage at the end about how much I loved Eastern Skunk Cabbages (my subject for the project), and THEN I went onto the National competition in San Diego and THAT was wild because in retrospect WOW my project sucked data and hypothesis-wise, and THEN I spent a summer doing manual labor for an industrial maize breeding facility which was wild, and after that I went to college and got invested in lichens and isoetes and all that wild shit and that’s where I am now. Last summer I went to the BSA conference in Manchester and the ICPS conference in California, both of which I liveblogged on here. They were awesome. Like holy shit. 

As for the history of this blog: I started this blog when I was...god, 15 or 16 I think, when I first was going hog wild getting obsessed with plant stuff I absorbed off the internet. My parents and friends got very tired of my infodumping very fast. I’d been a tumblr user for a couple years already, so I made this blog to talk about stuff so I wouldn’t annoy people irl, and now it’s turned into like, wow. This(tm). Which is wild. 

I get a lot of questions too about like, jobs in botany, and how to get further in botany, and I never really know how to answer them because I’m still figuring it out myself. My number one biggest source of botany information, to be completely honest, is asking people, and talking to people in horticulture and botany positions and bugging them with questions (I first learned about isoetes while talking to a couple grad students around a campfire on a BSA fern foray. One was wearing an isoetes convention hat, and they were all kind of struggling to explain them to me when I asked, which of course got me obsessed immediately because when a plant in general is difficult to explain you know it’s some cursed shit. It then took me a semester of college to begin to understand them, and yes, they are just That Cursed and also INCREDIBLY underrepresented and understudied in the literature). 

Idk how to end this but yeah thank you guys for asking me questions and supporting my shitposts and stuff all these years. It’s made me a better science communicator than I could have ever imagined it would make me, and I’m still learning a ton from it. I’m moving back to college tomorrow. I will finish this post with a picture of a hornwort (anthocerotophyta), the slimiest of the cursed lads: 

[laceymorganwrites]

The Genius idiot

Word Count: 2,138

Pairing: Senku x reader

Warnings: swearing

A/N: So guess who watched Dr Stone and is utterly in love with Senku?

You didn´t like high school. At all. It was shit, the people thought you were weird and they were right, but being weird wasn´t a bad thing like they said it was. The teachers were all total nutjobs in midlife crises who didn´t have their shit together and took it out on you instead of teaching. And for fuck´s sake was the stuff they taught you boring.

The only good thing about the institution were the things you could out of the lessons, you were in the computer programming club for instance, you also were a member of the crafts club.

That´s where you met Yuzuriha, she was kind and sweet, quickly warming up to you.

You liked to think that you were friends, but when you saw her with her real friends Taiju and Senku, you knew you´d never belong anywhere like they did.

They were always hanging around and having fun, doing some science stuff you didn´t get.

It was none of your business anyway.

But still you were sad that you weren´t part of their friend group, they seemed to be so close and you wanted to be too. You never really bothered much with making friends, creating strong bonds with people in a relationship was something you never quite understood.

People were selfish, they only wanted others around them to make themselves feel better, to stop the cold loneliness that was creeping inside their hearts, to stop them from thinking about things they didn´t want to think about, about truths that couldn´t be denied.

Life wasn´t give and take. It was take all you can get and run as fast as you can.

Like there would be no consequences.

Surely enough though, you felt yourself become intrigued by the friend group, letting Yuzuriha introduce you to them.

You didn´t mind it as much as you thought you would, quite the opposite truly.

It was as if you finally found the true meaning of life, the source of genuine happiness and you finally understood why people glorified high school so much.

You never intended for people to get so close to you, never expected to have friends you could tell anything and feel save with.

And you sure as hell didn´t anticipate to fall in love with Senku.

You guessed it was the take of life after giving you friends.

It was like a sick joke, a sort of cruel humor Senku would appreciate if it didn´t involve him.

He was too busy to notice you anyway. Maybe it was better this way, but your mind couldn´t help but wander to him in the most irritating times.

Why did he have to be so cunning, charming, funny and have the same interests as you? And why did he have to be so devilishly handsome? And why did you have to fall for the person who made you feel so incredibly stupid all the time?

The only person who knew was Taiju and that was only because he too told you about his crush on Yuzuriha, even before Senku. He thought you could help him since you knew her.

It was nice having someone to talk about this embarrassing inconvenience without being judged or criticized. But that didn´t help the situation, so you two made a bet.

It was a win-win situation: it was a race who would confess first. And if things went good, the loser had to finance the first date. If it went bad however the loser had to make up a scheme that the confession was a lie and another bet.

You really tried to confess your feelings to Senku, on multiple occasions too. But he never seemed to get it, or rather you thought he did get it but simply wanted to avoid the topic to be able to concentrate more on his science experiments.

If you only knew how different the reality looked…

Senku might give the impression of complete disinterest in all things romantic, but really he was just scared of making a fool of himself, of being vulnerable, getting hurt, so he shut love out of his life.

Until he laid eyes on you that is.

And fuck did you turn his world upside down, he told no one, not even Taiju.

He was too embarrassed, after all those years of swearing never to bother in having a crush or something more, he didn´t want to admit defeat.

And when Senku thought you were giving him hints that his feelings were reciprocated by you, he suppressed every possibility of you getting together. Because that would mean he would have to initiate something, which he couldn´t do for the life of him even if he wanted to.

That was the downside of completely refusing gathering any knowledge on romance, love and honestly, just being a decent human being.

If it wasn´t science, he wasn´t interested in it.

To him, you were the embodiment of science and that was what scared him.

It especially scared him after the stone broke around his body.

He felt helpless and useless, trying to figure out how to get you back all those months.

3,700 years passed, it felt so unreal, like a number too big to count, all those years wasted.

You remembered waking up to a bunch of new faces alongside familiar ones.

The scenery was different. Very different.

“Where´s the school?” you asked, looking around and meeting Senku´s eyes looking at you with wonder, relief and another feeling you couldn´t quite identify. For an instance you thought it was the way you looked at him, but that couldn´t be.

It took a while to get used to the new circumstances, but with the quick explanation of the new faces and situation of the earth, you at least had some starting point.

Kohaku, a warrior from the village that Senku´s father built, which was still weird to you, led you to said village.

It was nice, people were running around happily and working one some science stuff.

For a world that was completely set back to year one, this fast progress wasn´t bad at all.

“You did all of this?” you asked Senku in awe, it was hard for you to hide your feelings around him after not seeing him for so long, even though it felt like yesterday. But then again, it would always feel that way with him.

He stopped in his tracks, somehow embarrassed by your praise and looked sideways.

“I could´ve never made it on my own though...” he admitted, it wasn´t like him, the Senku you knew would boast the shit about his success.

“You´re amazing, Senku! Bringing all those people together like that, building all of this… nobody could do it like you” you smiled at him and he swore his heart stopped for a second.

To avoid giving into you, he showed you around and introduced you to everyone.

They were all so nice and bright, so energetic, it was refreshing to be welcomed with such open, warm arms.

They explained their next big project and you immediately were woven into the daily routine. But you liked it that way, how else would you get used to this drastic change?

Senku was even more distant than before, but that was okay, he had much to do.

Well, it wasn´t really okay to you, but what did you expect from him? To confess feelings that weren´t there to you in such an important situation? It was vital to win the war to have the cellphone. You simply weren´t part of the plan. You never have been.

This revelation made you feel sad and lonely, especially since the whole village never seemed to shut up about Senku.

The priestess in particular sought you out to make you tell her all about him, that´s how you found yourself gushing about him to her and she gushed right back, making you like her and be jealous of her at the same time.

“You like him quite the bit, do you not?” she chuckled and you gulped before nodding.

“But don´t tell him, I don´t want to make things awkward. We have more important things to worry about right now” you sighed.

The priestess looked at you with an amused expression before chuckling mischievously.

“But he likes you too, I can tell, he´s different around you. There are no rules in love, I think that´s what makes him scared and unsure, he keeps talking about the rules, how if you follow them you will always get the right solution. I think he´s scared that there is no solution in approaching you.” she thought out loud.

“Don´t give me false hopes, he doesn´t have time to be in love nor is he interested in it” you groaned, it hurt to say it out loud.

Not wanting to dive deeper into the matter, you went back to the village where the others were.

You noticed Senku sitting away from the fire, closed off to himself, deep in thought.

Despite your better knowledge, you grabbed a blanket , walking up to him, thinking about how you shouldn´t all the way.

But now it was too late and you were awkwardly standing two feet away from him, stretching out the blanket.

“What are you doing?” he stated, eyeing you and the blanket.

His cold attitude made your heart sink, this was a stupid idea after all.

“I thought you might be cold” you quietly said, sinking the blanket and your gaze.

“And why do you care?” he mumbled, you were interrupting him sulking about how he couldn´t seem to approach you right.

“I don´t want you to be cold” you said bluntly, pondering about when the right moment to leave would be.

“But wouldn´t you be cold if you gave me the blanket?” Senku questioned, cocking an eyebrow at you.

“Yeah, but I don´t care, I can just sit nearer to the fire. I´ll be fine as long as I know you are” you answered truthfully, cursing yourself for saying too much.

“That´s illogical” he told you, making you groan.

“I know, Senku. That´s the whole point” you never heard of anyone that love was logical.

“I mean we could always share the blanket” Senku smirked, looking you straight in the eyes like a smug bastard. That wasn´t like him at all, but he regretted his bold words as soon as they left his mouth. This could only backfire.

“You...want to share a blanket...with me?” you repeated the question like an idiot.

“We are both cold, it is the only logical solution” Oh. What else did you expect? Your heart sunk to your knees and you let your shoulders drop.

“I think I´ll go back to the others” you numbly said, throwing the blanket next to him.

Why did you even try? There was a reason he was avoiding you after all.

“(Y/N), wait! I really want to share a blanket with you, but… it´s not because I´m cold” he rambled, blushing a bit at his own awkwardness. Why did he have to be like this? Why couldn´t he be smooth in those things?

You stopped in your tracks, looking at him in disbelief.

“This isn´t funny, Senku” you coldly told him, thinking he was only fucking with you.

“I know. It´s really not. It´s also not logical, at all. Nothing makes sense to me when you´re around but also everything does? If that makes sense...and I can´t concentrate and I don´t know how to feel about that but I know how I feel and�� I´m an idiot” he fiddled with his fingers, wanting to take back every word he just said. You would just laugh at him. There was a reason why nobody liked him that way.

“It makes perfect sense, Senku. Because I´m an idiot too and I feel the same” you smiled at him clumsily.

Senku stood up abruptly, his eyes wide and shining with a ray of hope.

“(Y/N). Can I do the only thing that seems logical to me right now?” he said urgently.

You nodded subconsciously and before you could think about what he meant, his lips were on yours.

The suddenness of the kiss took your breath away for a minute, yet you adjusted quickly. It was like a mechanism which only worked when you two were together. You couldn´t help yourself but smile into the kiss as it commenced, you couldn´t believe this was happening. Senku´s hands were shaking as he put them on your waist, pulling you closer to him, making your heart jump.

It could´ve been a magical moment if it wasn´t for your stupid grin because you couldn´t help yourself and Senku´s clumsiness because how the fuck should he know how to kiss?

But none of that mattered, you´d figure it out together.

[thanksjro]

The Transformers #30- Chaos Part 4: Swerve’s Destiny is Revealed

It would seem that the Kimia nerds got rescued between issues, as they’ve left the escape pod and are currently being briefed by Arcee and Hardshell. Again. It’s a lot to go over, and, as pointed out by Brainstorm and Chromedome, they haven’t had the benefit of being able to actually think about what’s currently happening. They almost died like ten minutes ago, they’re probably still in shock over this whole thing, and that doesn’t make for good info retention.

Luckily, Swerve’s here, and breaking down the story so far is very much going to be his shtick from here on out.

So here’s what you need to know:

Galvatron has the Heart of Darkness, which can bring things back to life and allows them to be controlled by the wielder of said Heart of Darkness

The Heart of Darkness is supposed to be able to stop the D-Void from destroying the universe

The D-Void is basically the personification of the Dead Universe, which is a strictly BAD place to be

The Heart of Darkness is probably actually a part of the D-Void

The Heart of Darkness can open a portal on Cybertron to let the D-Void into this universe

That’s bad

Everyone please thank Swerve for breaking this down, because the alternative was having to actually read Heart of Darkness, and I just don’t have the constitution to put myself through that train wreck.

Down on Cybertron, Bluestreak’s having a minor crisis, seeing as everything’s gone to shit and doesn’t really seem like it’ll be improving any time soon. Wheelie shows up and starts slapping the back half of his rifle against a wall, making music much like he did back when he was pulling a Castaway. To anyone wondering: no, this is not good gun safety. I don’t care if they’re giant robots and the rifle fires a laser.

I guess Bluestreak wasn’t made aware of Wheelie’s whole deal, because Cliffjumper starts explaining what exactly he’s doing, when a Sweep falls out of a pile overhead. There’s this very visceral moment where they’re all questioning why the fuck they’re still on Cybertron, as the focus shifts to Megatron fighting the big ugly monster combiner, from which the Sweep fell. It’s looking pretty up in the air as to who’s going to win this fight, and Cliffjumper isn’t too keen to stick around to find out the outcome.

Down inside the planet, Rodimus is still freaking out about Drift’s grievous chest wound, because he’s a good friend. He’s also completely aware of what the hell Galvatron’s going to do- he’s going to throw the Heart of Darkness at Vector Sigma, the source of Cybertronian life and also maybe god. How does Rodimus know this? Matrix wisdom. He’s not carrying the Matrix at present, but he’s nearby the thing, and it seems to like him.

Optimus tells Ironhide to take Drift up to the surface to get patched up. Ironhide tries to argue that his job is to keep Optimus safe- which it is- but both he and Rodimus tell him that he’s punched enough holes in his “miraculous death and resurrection” punchcard to get a free pass on this one.

Back with Megatron, he’s having a one-way screaming match with the monster, telling it to kiss his ass, because he’s too powerful and awesome and Megatronny to be controlled and made into a part of the collective. Then he gets struck by lightning.

Or maybe he shoots it out of his chest? Let’s go with the second one, because Galvatron felt that hit, and he’s not exactly sure why. Galvatron doesn’t know how to use context clues, it would seem. Optimus and Rodimus catch up to him and Jhiaxus, telling him not to do the thing.

Ah, crap, he did the thing.

This results in the instruments in Arcee and Hardshell’s ship to go haywire, not even reading Cybertron as existing anymore. Good thing they still have functional eyes, so they can land by sight.

Too bad the planet’s falling apart around them. They have to jump ship before the crash, which they do.

Rewind looks fucking huge back there. He could probably kick my ass.

Of course, the ship still has to hit the ground somewhere, and it decides to go for a bit of dramatic irony as it smacks into Galvatron.

Who is at the center of the planet currently.

Terminal velocity must be on a whole other level on Cybertron.

Galvatron is fine, by the way. He runs off, and the D-Void eats Vector Sigma and also everything else. Rodimus and Optimus watch in horror, but they differ in one regard: Rodimus offers a goddamn solution to their problem. He says to throw the Matrix at it, and is pretty sure it’ll work, based on zero evidence. Optimus doesn’t want to, because if they lose the Matrix, that would really suck, because they’ve already lost Sector Sigma and also might lose Cybertron.

Even though the Dead Universe is going to destroy literally everything, so it wouldn’t even matter. I’m not sure why he’s suddenly gotten sentimental over the Matrix, it doesn’t seem like he even likes the thing.

While Optimus is having a moment, Galvatron takes the opportunity to shoot both of them.

Cue Cyclonus.

Cyclonus doesn’t take too kindly to the destruction of Cybertron, because Cyclonus is a patriot. He’s also not too bright, if this is the point where he’s decided things have gone too far, as opposed to using Kimia to slap a hole into the crust and mantle of the planet. There might have been some mind control involved there, but honestly it’s a bit vague in terms of how deep that went.

Galvatron throws Cyclonus off of him, only to start being eaten by the Dead Universe himself, and screaming in terror as his deeds come back to haunt him. It’s at this point that Optimus gets with the program and runs at Vector Sigma, titties-first.

He jumps into Vector Sigma, then we get a fade to white.

When the art fades back in, Optimus is kneeling in what looks like an abandoned lot under the stars. The Matrix is on the ground, and it’s seen better days.

Oh man, it broke clean in half. That’s real mysterious. Someone should go on a quest to see what that’s all about.

And that’s the end of IDW’s The Transformers (2009). Maybe next run they’ll think up a title that hasn’t been beaten like a dead horse.

No. No, they won’t.

Up next, The Death of Optimus Prime.