#.... im only decent at that digitally <//3

[thefunniestguy]

Bettyyy.............,.,..,.,,,,

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google is (still) losing the spam wars to zombie news-brands

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (May 3) in CALGARY, then TOMORROW (May 4) in VANCOUVER, then onto Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Even Google admits – grudgingly – that it is losing the spam wars. The explosive proliferation of botshit has supercharged the sleazy "search engine optimization" business, such that results to common queries are 50% Google ads to spam sites, and 50% links to spam sites that tricked Google into a high rank (without paying for an ad):

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies#site-reputation

It's nice that Google has finally stopped gaslighting the rest of us with claims that its search was still the same bedrock utility that so many of us relied upon as a key piece of internet infrastructure. This not only feels wildly wrong, it is empirically, provably false:

https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

Not only that, but we know why Google search sucks. Memos released as part of the DOJ's antitrust case against Google reveal that the company deliberately chose to worsen search quality to increase the number of queries you'd have to make (and the number of ads you'd have to see) to find a decent result:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

Google's antitrust case turns on the idea that the company bought its way to dominance, spending the some of the billions it extracted from advertisers and publishers to buy the default position on every platform, so that no one ever tried another search engine, which meant that no one would invest in another search engine, either.

Google's tacit defense is that its monopoly billions only incidentally fund these kind of anticompetitive deals. Mostly, Google says, it uses its billions to build the greatest search engine, ad platform, mobile OS, etc that the public could dream of. Only a company as big as Google (says Google) can afford to fund the R&D and security to keep its platform useful for the rest of us.

That's the "monopolistic bargain" – let the monopolist become a dictator, and they will be a benevolent dictator. Shriven of "wasteful competition," the monopolist can split their profits with the public by funding public goods and the public interest.

Google has clearly reneged on that bargain. A company experiencing the dramatic security failures and declining quality should be pouring everything it has to righting the ship. Instead, Google repeatedly blew tens of billions of dollars on stock buybacks while doing mass layoffs:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Those layoffs have now reached the company's "core" teams, even as its core services continue to decay:

https://qz.com/google-is-laying-off-hundreds-as-it-moves-core-jobs-abr-1851449528

(Google's antitrust trial was shrouded in secrecy, thanks to the judge's deference to the company's insistence on confidentiality. The case is moving along though, and warrants your continued attention:)

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-2-trillion-secret-trial-against

Google wormed its way into so many corners of our lives that its enshittification keeps erupting in odd places, like ordering takeout food:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Back in February, Housefresh – a rigorous review site for home air purifiers – published a viral, damning account of how Google had allowed itself to be overrun by spammers who purport to provide reviews of air purifiers, but who do little to no testing and often employ AI chatbots to write automated garbage:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

In the months since, Housefresh's Gisele Navarro has continued to fight for the survival of her high-quality air purifier review site, and has received many tips from insiders at the spam-farms and Google, all of which she recounts in a followup essay:

https://housefresh.com/how-google-decimated-housefresh/

One of the worst offenders in spam wars is Dotdash Meredith, a content-farm that "publishes" multiple websites that recycle parts of each others' content in order to climb to the top search slots for lucrative product review spots, which can be monetized via affiliate links.

A Dotdash Meredith insider told Navarro that the company uses a tactic called "keyword swarming" to push high-quality independent sites off the top of Google and replace them with its own garbage reviews. When Dotdash Meredith finds an independent site that occupies the top results for a lucrative Google result, they "swarm a smaller site’s foothold on one or two articles by essentially publishing 10 articles [on the topic] and beefing up [Dotdash Meredith sites’] authority."

Dotdash Meredith has keyword swarmed a large number of topics. from air purifiers to slow cookers to posture correctors for back-pain:

https://housefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/keyword-swarming-dotdash.jpg

The company isn't shy about this. Its own shareholder communications boast about it. What's more, it has competition.

Take Forbes, an actual news-site, which has a whole shadow-empire of web-pages reviewing products for puppies, dogs, kittens and cats, all of which link to high affiliate-fee-generating pet insurance products. These reviews are not good, but they are treasured by Google's algorithm, which views them as a part of Forbes's legitimate news-publishing operation and lets them draft on Forbes's authority.

This side-hustle for Forbes comes at a cost for the rest of us, though. The reviewers who actually put in the hard work to figure out which pet products are worth your money (and which ones are bad, defective or dangerous) are crowded off the front page of Google and eventually disappear, leaving behind nothing but semi-automated SEO garbage from Forbes:

https://twitter.com/ichbinGisele/status/1642481590524583936

There's a name for this: "site reputation abuse." That's when a site perverts its current – or past – practice of publishing high-quality materials to trick Google into giving the site a high ranking. Think of how Deadspin's private equity grifter owners turned it into a site full of casino affiliate spam:

https://www.404media.co/who-owns-deadspin-now-lineup-publishing/

The same thing happened to the venerable Money magazine:

https://moneygroup.pr/

Money is one of the many sites whose air purifier reviews Google gives preference to, despite the fact that they do no testing. According to Google, Money is also a reliable source of information on reprogramming your garage-door opener, buying a paint-sprayer, etc:

https://money.com/best-paint-sprayer/

All of this is made ten million times worse by AI, which can spray out superficially plausible botshit in superhuman quantities, letting spammers produce thousands of variations on their shitty reviews, flooding the zone with bullshit in classic Steve Bannon style:

https://escapecollective.com/commerce-content-is-breaking-product-reviews/

As Gizmodo, Sports Illustrated and USA Today have learned the hard way, AI can't write factual news pieces. But it can pump out bullshit written for the express purpose of drafting on the good work human journalists have done and tricking Google – the search engine 90% of us rely on – into upranking bullshit at the expense of high-quality information.

A variety of AI service bureaux have popped up to provide AI botshit as a service to news brands. While Navarro doesn't say so, I'm willing to bet that for news bosses, outsourcing your botshit scams to a third party is considered an excellent way of avoiding your journalists' wrath. The biggest botshit-as-a-service company is ASR Group (which also uses the alias Advon Commerce).

Advon claims that its botshit is, in fact, written by humans. But Advon's employees' Linkedin profiles tell a different story, boasting of their mastery of AI tools in the industrial-scale production of botshit:

https://housefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Advon-AI-LinkedIn.jpg

Now, none of this is particularly sophisticated. It doesn't take much discernment to spot when a site is engaged in "site reputation abuse." Presumably, the 12,000 googlers the company fired last year could have been employed to check the top review keyword results manually every couple of days and permaban any site caught cheating this way.

Instead, Google is has announced a change in policy: starting May 5, the company will downrank any site caught engaged in site reputation abuse. However, the company takes a very narrow view of site reputation abuse, limiting punishments to sites that employ third parties to generate or uprank their botshit. Companies that produce their botshit in-house are seemingly not covered by this policy.

As Navarro writes, some sites – like Forbes – have prepared for May 5 by blocking their botshit sections from Google's crawler. This can't be their permanent strategy, though – either they'll have to kill the section or bring it in-house to comply with Google's rules. Bringing things in house isn't that hard: US News and World Report is advertising for an SEO editor who will publish 70-80 posts per month, doubtless each one a masterpiece of high-quality, carefully researched material of great value to Google's users:

https://twitter.com/dannyashton/status/1777408051357585425

As Navarro points out, Google is palpably reluctant to target the largest, best-funded spammers. Its March 2024 update kicked many garbage AI sites out of the index – but only small bottom-feeders, not large, once-respected publications that have been colonized by private equity spam-farmers.

All of this comes at a price, and it's only incidentally paid by legitimate sites like Housefresh. The real price is borne by all of us, who are funneled by the 90%-market-share search engine into "review" sites that push low quality, high-price products. Housefresh's top budget air purifier costs $79. That's hundreds of dollars cheaper than the "budget" pick at other sites, who largely perform no original research.

Google search has a problem. AI botshit is dominating Google's search results, and it's not just in product reviews. Searches for infrastructure code samples are dominated by botshit code generated by Pulumi AI, whose chatbot hallucinates nonexistence AWS features:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/01/pulumi_ai_pollution_of_search/

This is hugely consequential: when these "hallucinations" slip through into production code, they create huge vulnerabilities for widespread malicious exploitation:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/

We've put all our eggs in Google's basket, and Google's dropped the basket – but it doesn't matter because they can spend $20b/year bribing Apple to make sure no one ever tries a rival search engine on Ios or Safari:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-payments-apple-reached-20-220947331.html

Google's response – laying off core developers, outsourcing to low-waged territories with weak labor protections and spending billions on stock buybacks – presents a picture of a company that is too big to care:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

Google promised us a quid-pro-quo: let them be the single, authoritative portal ("organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful"), and they will earn that spot by being the best search there is:

https://www.ft.com/content/b9eb3180-2a6e-41eb-91fe-2ab5942d4150

But – like the spammers at the top of its search result pages – Google didn't earn its spot at the center of our digital lives.

It cheated.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/#site-reputation-abuse

Image: freezelight (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spam_wall_-_Flickr_-_freezelight.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[oliviawebsite]

disabled trans girl needs your help paying her rent!

hello all, i am making a new one of these as my last post has died out quite a bit. i am on the verge of having a new job that should be paying pretty decently, but the earliest possible start date is march 6th. i'm really excited to find something i can actually physically do, that my MS symptoms will not get in the way of. i have struggled with this illness and social security is so backed up that my only real option is to get a job until they can finally get thru to me (and so i can handle the inevitable appeals process) so this is very very good news ,and i'm happy its turning around fast. but the 1st of the month is fast approaching and i am a bit short of the mark as it stands. i have to raise about $600 asap in order to keep my good standing and avoid ending up homeless at such a critical point in my life. also adding extra to the goal so i can continue to get gas in my car and pay medical copays and buy food until i start getting paid again. i'm hoping to be in the clear by next month because this opportunity looks promising. once i get my money up, i will do my best to pay u back when i get a chance. im almost there.

please help if you can, i am a chronically and mentally ill trans woman who's on the verge of finally finding a break and i could just really use some help getting there. a push over the line, if you will. thank you for all the support i've received so far i am so grateful and i love you all. be well <3

0/750

[slytherinshua]

OKAY HEAR ME OUT ITS SO SO BASIC but i crave soul fluff :( imagine playing minecraft with him and i honestly feel like it could go two ways: either extremely cute n cozy OR chaos. mans destroying all of ur stuff.

BUT ALSO IM THINKING imagine just matching his vibe so well and speaking his silly alien language, not really caring about weird looks from others … n he’s just so :( i love him btw

actually yk how soul always makes those minecraft villager noises?? MY BROTHER DID THAT TOO WHEN HE WAS YOUNGER :( so actually this is kinda nostalgic... also i forget if my brothers ever did this to me when we were playing minecraft but i always played on creative anyway cause.... i hated dying 👹 warnings: soul explodes ur house ^_^ a lil cursing. wc: ~600.

“Once we get that flint and steel, we can finally go to the nether!” You said excitedly, making your way back to your house in the Minecraft world you had with your boyfriend, Soul. He loved to play in his free time, and luckily for him, you also enjoyed the game. It was a no-brainer that you two would play together. 

You had gotten decently far in your world. You had built a cute little house, with two cats: Kamden and Mackiah. Definitely not named after your boyfriend’s junior group members (yes, yes they were). 

You had just finished a very successful mining trip, which was the last thing you needed before you could finally reach the nether. You weren’t sure what your boyfriend was doing in the world; your best guess was either exploring a desert temple or an abandoned shipwreck. He always liked going on dangerous missions. 

There was nothing that could ruin your mood, though; everything was going exactly how you wanted.

Until you reached the door of your little house. And immediately you heard a soft little click, and then ensuing explosions.

Oh, you were so going to kill your boyfriend.

“What the fuck did you just do, Haku Shota?” You asked, your eye twitching at the ‘You Died!’ screen on your computer, the score displaying only a couple hundred digits. Your mind thought over what you had in your inventory; 3 diamonds from your mining trip, along with valuable loot from skeletons and zombies you had killed along the way. A nice supply of arrows and an extra bow, your iron tools all needing to be replaced after this.

But what pissed you off the most is your cats. How could he have killed Kamden and Mackiah just like that? Did your boyfriend have no heart? 

Soul knew he was partially fucked. It had been Theo’s stupid idea to pull a prank in your minecraft world, anyway. Maybe he could avoid the blame? Then again, he was the one who executed it. Using the skills that he had honed for hours playing the game, making an elaborate explosion completely hidden in your house with ease… just waiting for you to step on the pressure plate. 

And while your immediate reaction did make a satisfied and mischievous smile grow on your boyfriend’s face, it soon dropped. You never used his full name. Ever. Not even once. Suddenly Soul was a bit scared. You were going to extract revenge, no doubt. For the diamonds, and the loot, but mostly for the cats.

You put your laptop down, turning towards your boyfriend, staring incredulously at his blank expression. What was going through his little brain behind those thoughtless eyes? Was he enjoying your pain and agony, or was he regretting his actions?

“Theo.” He said suddenly, avoiding eye contact with you.

“Oh hell no. You are not gonna blame Theo for this, baby.” You were back to calling him baby— that was a positive sign. You grabbed his wrist, forcing him to face you as you cupped his cheeks.

“You’re going to rebuild my house, right? And get my cats back. And the diamonds. I want double the original amount. Double the size of the house, 4 cats, 6 diamonds. Got it?” You were determined, but Soul could still tell that you weren’t that upset with him. It barely took more than 5 seconds for you to calm down, especially when it was a harmless prank.

He made a slightly reluctant villager noise in response, agreeing to your terms. You grinned and pecked his lips before giving him one last warning.

“If I don’t get 4 cats then I’m quitting the world.” 

↳ p1harmony taglist (bolded could not be tagged): @eternalgyu,, @kangtaehyunzzz,, @amara-mars,, @nyukyusnz,,

@blossominghunnie,, @wccycc,, @seunghancore,, @heavenfilm,, @sobun1est,,

@bananabubble,, @talkingsaxy

[pinkpigtailsprincess]

𝜗𝜚 ݁ ˖ Summer Glow up: creating new habits 🎀⭐️ *࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ!

Hi Dolls!! Welcome Back 2 Dollies 2 Months of Summer Glow Up !! 🎀⭐️ Today im gonna talk all about implementing brand new habits in my life !!

> Hobbies !! 🎀

> Academics !! 📒

> Beauty Care !! 🧖‍♀️

> Scheduling !! ☀️

> Taking Baby Steps !! 🛼

❤︎ ໋𓈒 Hobbies!! 🎀

…: This Summer I Plan on Taking up Some brand New Hobbies to keep my self busy and learn about brand new things bc everyday is useful!! and so i can use my time more wisely some hobbies i have in mind are…

- Yoga

- Painting

- Creative Writing

- Learning Japanese + Spanish

- Reading

- Puzzles!

- Blogging

- Learning To Code

- Doll Collecting

- Book Collecting

- Sewing + Crocheting

- Digital Art

- Piano

and obvii im already a blogger but i still added it anyways i will watching videos on how to get into these hobbies and videos on learning Spanish and more Japanese, also fun fact i’ve actually been studying Japanese sine 2021 but i stopped bc it got to hard but im starting back up!! anyways, after i watch the videos im gonna set up a financial list bc i have the fund all of these but its okay bc i can easily get money!! 🎀

❤︎ ໋𓈒 Academics !! 🎀

More Goals of mine are to raise my grades in an academic space bc i do have decent grades but i wanna aim higher and have PERFECT Grades so in turn that means i must study more and have more discipline and not so irresponsible with my time!! and i also wanna study subjects outside of school bc its always good to learn something new!! now for learning tips so far i have..

- Flash Cards

- Practice Methods

- Teaching Someone Else

- Trying to explain it to a 5 yr old

- Study a Week Before

- watch ted talks on topics

- SLEEP

- write out notes

Now i Also Have a list of subjects i want to learn about!!

- drawing facial expressions + bodies

- Sewing Stiches + How to Hem and Crochet

- How 2 Draw Bodies + Poses

- Full Anatomy 4 Both Genders

- Japanese + Spanish + French + ASL

- Color Theory

- Learning Cursive + Improving Handwriting

- Expanding Vocabulary

- Religious Cults

- Case and Law

- Poison and Toxicology

- Astronomy

- Medical Surgical Instruments

- Matriarchal Societies

- Socialism Societies

Now i definitely won’t be able to do all of this all at once bc it would definitely we too stressful so im gonna choose as least 2-3 to start with and study them and just learn! 🎀🧁

❤︎ ໋𓈒 Beauty Care !! 🐬

📧: Now I already have my regular beauty care regime skin,hair,eyebrows,eyelashes etc. but im also more focused on getting weekly treatments & weekly beauty care habits like…

- Nails

- Hair

- Eyelashes

- Face Mask

- Hand + Foot Mask

And i wanna try and find people in my city that can do this especially for nails bc i would go to the nail salon but i feel like they won’t be able to do it exactly how i want it to be !!!

❤︎ ໋𓈒 Scheduling !! ⭐️

Now That im gonna be so busy i need to make sure i also stay organized with my time so it doesn’t lead to stress so ill have my regular school classes on my regular schedule then making dedicated hours to studying Things i wanna learn about + Language Learning!

My Workouts are always early morning before school in the evening hours before i got to bed so i won’t have to worry about that affecting my academics. With my Hobbies i feel like only some of them really need scheduling so ill also make time dedicated to those as well !!!!

Beauty Maintenance will probably always be on weekends for the stuff that weekly/bi weekly like face masks,manipedis,hair etc!!

and last but definitely not least!!

❤︎ ໋𓈒 Taking Baby Steps !! ⭐️

This whole process is still all new too me so i’ll definitely only be doing a little at a time and working my way up and i get more familiar with the change in my daily life and i won’t pressure my self to complete everything extremely quickly and just take my time with everything! bye bye dolls tysm 4 keeping up with me while doing this kisses 4 all of u!!! 🎀⭐️

[k0yaz]

ACKKKK HIII ITS THE ACHERON ANON AGAIN 😭😭

i just finished reading your acheron headcanons AND IM LITERALLY LOSING MY MIND IM SO GLAD SOMEONE ELSE IS INSANE ABOUT HER LIKE ME… AND THAT YOU THINK SHES A SWITCH? i’m so normal about this!1!1!1! anyway- while reading your hcs i had an absolutely deranged, down bad horny thought:

having her sprawled out under you, fucking her with your fingers and whispering in her ear, and calling her mei.

saying her name like a prayer while she digs her nails into you and cries and whimpers… telling her how much you love her, letting her fall apart in your hands and piece her back together 😵‍💫

anyways i will be back with more (very sane hebryegge) acheron thoughts ! for simplicity’s sake, could i be ur 🌺 anon? (i wish the flower was red like acherons but WHATEVER MAN.)

thank youuuu !

say it again.

Pairings: acheron x fem!reader

CW: nsfw, female reader, afab reader, dom reader, sub acheron, fingering, sesbian lex yeahhhhh, what’s the thing where you scratch someone’s back cause that’s in there too, tit sucking, use of acheron’s real name, I think I ate my fucking pillow writing this, I love acheron, I managed to write this decently without tea, not proofread.

A/N: YAYAYA ITS YOU AGAIN IM SO GLAD YOU CAME BACK FOR MORE ACHERON STUFFS honestly you’re so real for those freaky ass thoughts and also ofc you can be 🌺 anon <3 🕯️

Shallow strings of gasps echoed off the walls, casting a gentle sigh out of your throat as you felt a set of nails rake down your back. Your fingers plunged deeper as the ridges massaged Acheron’s walls, practically having a death grip on your fingers from how the hot velvety texture clenched around your digits.

You could tell. Each time you’d push and curl them up against that spongy spot within her, a mix between a whimper and a groan wrenched out of her throat. Warmth flooded your senses each time you saw her gorgeous form sprawled out below you, head tilted to the side and eyes squeezed shut in ecstasy as she rolled her hips up to match the pace of your fingers.

Acheron could certainly kill you if she wanted. She could turn you into a memory within mere moments. But she didn’t. She trusted you enough to do this to her. Acheron allowed you to see her in such a vulnerable state, leaving you to do whatever you pleased to her.

However, each drag of your fingers massaging her cunt wasn’t predatory nor rough. Rather, it was sweet—affectionate. You wanted her to feel a high which allowed her to bask in comfort within your grasp. You wanted to hear her cries of need and pleasure every time your fingers buried inside her cunt, while you whispered soothing praises into her reddish ears.

You giggled to yourself upon seeing how she was yearning for your touch, eager for you to fuck her into the mattress as she grasped you tightly against her. A shiver pulsed down your spine when you saw how adorably captivating Acheron’s reactions were. Still trying to maintain a composed front, yet crying out below you as a never ending stream of quiet groans and sobs were ripped out of her throat.

Your free hand circled below her breast, hot gasps brushing against the tip of your flushed nose as your teeth tugged on her bud lightly.

“You’re so gorgeous, Mei.”

Your remark made Acheron’s gaze flicker down to you, breathing growing quicker and shallow as she brought a hand to the back of your head to dig her fingers into your hair, pushing you deeper into her chest to encourage your sensual movements.

“Say it again. Please.” Acheron whispered, somehow being able to maintain her usual low voice through her irregular breathing and choked back whimpers. You only dragged your tongue along her breast in response, squeezing the soft flesh between your fingers as your other hand thrusted up into her continuously.

“Mei.” You muttered, face now raising level with her cheek as your warm breath caressed her cheek.

“Mei. Mei. Mei.”

Her name repeated past your lips like a mantra over and over, as Acheron only arched her back in response to your fingers’ fervent thrusts. As if she couldn’t be any more pleasantly ruined by you, your velvety tone of voice simply pushed her over the edge, finding a sense of solace and warmth enveloping her body at the sweet nothings seamlessly dripping from your lips.

“I love you so much, Mei. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Acheron had never seen words as anything important. They’d just been means of communication. A quick frequency vibrating and cutting through the air, much like her own sword. However these words uttered by you and only you seeped into her heart in a way she couldn’t understand. She didn’t understand any of this. Yet, it was welcome. Perhaps she would let you into your heart, because she loved you oh so dearly.

A guttural moan was ripped out of Acheron’s throat as she felt the tip of your fingers press against her sweet spot, her head tilting back into the cloud like pillows, and your lips ghosting her cheek. Her panting filled the room as her climax snapped inside her, the intense high gradually subsiding as you slowly withdrew your fingers, now painted with her fluids. You leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to her stomach as she let out a low hum in response, thighs clenching slightly upon feeling the dampened sheets below her.

“I won’t ever let you go, Mei.”

“That makes two of us, (Name).”

A/N: dude I am so happy with how this turned out even though I wrote this first thing in the morning also guys I swear I’m normal about acheron pls trust (no I’m not sub acheron is making me lose my shit I’m this close to climbing on the ceiling)

[migorify]

i wonder how harold and george are in their universe in general, like how they act in class or at home ...

i mean, they do have proper education there but i still think they still have adhd, but maybe this time its either more disruptive or less, i dont think theres really an inbetween when theyre compared to the original george and harold

i also like to think that they have a some sort of dynamic or "strategy" when making a comic. georges artwork seem to look super tidy and same goes to his coloring to the point it almost looks like it was made digitally ;??!? this gave me a headcanon to where evil george does digital art for his work

perhaps the purple potty people had much more advanced technology that the original universe, knowing how much ppu jerome horwitz is genuinely a good and wealthy school from what we've seen

i like to think that during class whenever they feel bored (which is always), harold takes out a piece of paper and starts writing a script for whatever comic hes writing for, whether its captain blunderpants or witchwolf (ppu dogman)

george also helps him a bit here but hes not too good at it, since hes the artist and originally with normal harold, hes not that good at making/writing stories

now, george does his work at the tree house where he basically scans harolds work into their shared computer and he just draws his art in, using his drawing tablet :-)

a lot of these r like super ooc but thats ok.... i think its kinda awesome..

now that their way of making comics is out of the way, id like to talk a bit about how they act in general

i think in school they'd mess with mr krupp the most, its sure to know that they have close relationship with him.

also, even though it seems that the teacher here are insanely nice to their students to the point it makes you think detention doesn't even exist, i still think harold and george still get sent to mr krupps office after a serious prank, i mean, this is a pretty decent school after all

by 'serious prank' i mean something like ones that doesn't really make the prankee laugh it off or something. in which it probably happens often, knowing harold and george

and at home, their parents r probably mischievous in some way but not as evil as the boys, though they probably think that theyre innocent angels despite causing a lot of trouble in school AND at home

heidi is probably so pissed off at harold, he'd totally annoy the shit out of her

also with the relationship of their parents, im not sure if i should swap them or something.. i have like 3 options

stays the same as the og (harold having 1 mom while georges parents are still married)

harold living with his dad instead of her mom, george stays the same

completely swapped with george only living with his mom and harolds parents happily married

lmk ur thoughts on these :-) ! im having so much fun analyzing on what i think itd be like in the purple potty universe

[edupiii]

im distraught by the fact Murder Drones is ending, so to make me (and possibly you) feel better, here are:

Some Random MD Character Head Cannons!

Most of these are goofy silly and aren’t really that important, but I wanted to share them anyways :3

　　*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

Uzi 🦇

- uses she/they pronouns but is fine with being referred to with other pronoun sets. however, they don’t like to be referred to as it/it’s since this set was used in a derogatory way towards her when they were younger (still sometimes is)

- has autism + ADHD but is not accommodated for it in school

- her guilty pleasure anime is Ouran High School Hostclub (kiss kiss fall in love!)

- had a My Little Pony phase when they were younger and even made a pony sona. When she’s tired and can’t sleep, she puts on their favourite mlp episodes and listens to them while they fall asleep

- is a Warrior Cats kid

- listens to hyper-pop and scene music along with their usual rock, goth, scream-o and night core songs

- is a passionate artist but has kept her sketch books and digital drawings hidden from others ever since they were mocked for drawing “cringey stuff” in elementary school. They still draw when she has free time and she has become more comfortable sharing their art work again (though mostly only with N)

- has multiple fursonas

- also has a crap tone of ocs with super traumatic backstories

- loves to watch crappy horror movies because she laughs at the dumb choices the stupid human protagonists make. however if N is ever over for a sleepover, she’ll refrain from suggesting any scary movies since they know he doesn’t like horror

- they were picked on for having a unconventional name at a young age, but when she found out it was the name of a firearm, she began to believe she had the coolest name out of all of their peers

- knows all of the FNAF game and book lore and will talk about it if given the chance to

- wants tattoos and piercings but thinks they would look weird or bad on her since they’re a robot. to compensate, they occasionally will put super cool stickers she finds on her plating

- has extensive knowledge on Pokémon types weaknesses and strengths

- writes and reads fanfic

- after Nori passed, young Uzi would try to talk to Khan about mechanical engineering just so he would pay attention to them

- Uzi and Thad were decent friends in kindergarten and elementary school, however they grew apart due to their differing personalities and social groups as they got older. Uzi believes that Thad did this on purpose to preserve his popularity. Thad is not aware of this belief.

- already had intrusive thoughts before the Solver was activated, but they became more aggressive and disturbing after it awoke

- despite enjoying getting work done in silence or listening to music, they find that she works better when N is nearby talking about anything. it’s like a comforting white noise

- has a bad habit of challenging V to anything and everything. this is simply because they know V won’t back out, guaranteeing a fun yet quite spiteful competition for the two

N 🐶

- mainly uses he/him pronouns but is open to multiple pronoun sets

- has ADHD and social anxiety

- whenever he hears classical music, his anxiety spikes a bit as it reminds him of his time in the Elliot Manor

- knows how to slow dance but isn’t very good at it

- before Tessa repaired him, N was originally discarded due to his lack of boundaries with humans (aka, speaking casually to them/out of turn), and his clumsiness

- is the fastest of the DD trio

- he doesn’t really enjoy anime as much as Uzi does but he really likes western cartoons like Adventure Time, The Owl House, Craig of the Creek, etc.

- very much dislikes horror in any form (have it be in a movie, video game, book, etc)

- likes to watch nature documentaries, however he skips the bits when an animal dies or is hurt because he feels bad for them

- doesn’t enjoy loud noises or shouting, however he makes an exception for Uzi and V when they yell out in excitement

- knows an ungodly amount of information regarding dogs, wolves or just canines in general. he will start talking about them if ever given the chance

- he doesn’t always understand some things Uzi talks about but he listens anyways since he enjoys her voice and company

- brings V out to social gatherings in the bunker in an effort to get her more aquatinted with the colony and make the workers feel more comfortable around her. However his efforts are in vein since by the end of the party, V is standing against a wall gabbing with Lizzy and every other drone is avoiding her

- N has tried to learn about football so he could play with Thad and his team, but he didn’t understand the rules in the slightest and worried about tackling Worker Drones and potentially hurting them

- when him and Uzi first had a sleepover, he wandered around her room and asked about all the trinkets, plushies, books and posters they had

- draws whenever he gets the chance and gifts his doodles to his friends

- isn’t very good at fighting games, but loves playing games like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing and Spiritfarer

- whenever at sleepovers, N tries to get everyone (usually Uzi, V, Lizzy, and Thad) to play Just Dance or do karaoke of Disney songs

- vocal stims words he thinks sound interesting

- he often feels as though he speaks too much, so he usually apologizes when talking about something he likes or just knows a lot about. Uzi and him have actually developed a thing where if he feels like he’s been talking for too long, he will give her a thumbs up to which she will respond with two thumbs up, letting him know that he’s good to keep talking and doesn’t need to apologize

- really wants to find out where all the immortal dogs had been put so he can go visit them

V 🦊

- uses she/her pronouns but she is okay with they/them pronouns too

- has generalized anxiety disorder

- when she was a worker in the Elliot Manor, she kept quiet to avoid upsetting or disturbing any of the humans around her. even when spoken to, she would speak as little as possible

- before Tessa repaired her, V was originally discarded due to her poor vision and skittishness around humans

- always found her maid uniform to be stuffy, irritating, and incredibly hard to move in, hence why now she doesn’t wear pants or anything constricting

- remembers the entirety of her Solver transformation but isn’t able to remember much of her time being possessed by the Solver

- she is physically the strongest of the DD trio

- whenever she is introduced to someone new (have that be through N or Lizzy), her first response is to try and intimidate them by saying unsettling things or bringing out some of her weapons. this is her way of judging the individuals character and helps her decide if she actually wants to be around them or not. due to this way of introduction, her friend circle is very small and many workers avoid her as much as possible

- tries to avoid affection or comfort from others as much as possible since she doesn’t know how to physically or emotionally react to it

- also try’s to avoid comforting others since she doesn’t believe she’s very good at it (she’s not good at it but she’s learning lol)

- thanks to Uzi, V now likes to listen to J-Pop and vocaloid

- whenever she is genuinely complimented she sputters a bit but will quickly respond with something along the lines of “i already knew that” or “and it took you this long to notice?”

- V is still unsettled by Uzis wings and tail as it is a continuous reminder of her own transformation. she’s become a lot more used to them being present but they still cause her to twitch uncomfortably

- doesn’t enjoy parties or sleepovers but if N, Lizzy or Uzi invite her to one, she has a bit of difficulty saying an honest no. she’ll suffer through the social interaction to make the few people she cares about tolerates happy

- unlike N and Uzi, she enjoys hunting for her oil and feels embarrassed when it is given to her in a canister. in private, she will go out and hunt for a bot or two from a different colony, however she doesn’t torture her prey like she used to

- V will occasionally put on her prom dress and strut around in it because it makes her feel good

- she isn’t very good at video games, but if challenged to a fighting game, she can’t say no

J 🐯

- uses she/her pronouns (trans women btw)

- experiences imposter syndrome quite frequently and when this happens, she will become more strict with her peers in hopes that the overcompensation will cause others to not question her authority or ability. This applies to both her time in the Elliot Manor and her time being the DD trio leader

- acted as Tessa’s main assistant at the manor, helping her keep on schedule and debriefing her on the days tasks. despite her attempts to keep Tessa on track, J found both herself and her human companion getting sucked into whatever nonsense Tessa wanted to do

- before Tessa repaired her, J had been originally discarded due to her unwelcoming attitude and overly strict demeanour

- J likes to draw but she doesn’t/didn’t often have the free time to sit down and doodle

- has the most difficulty remembering what happened at Elliot Manor since she is the most in line with her original programming

- is the main strategist of the DD trio

- would practice her monologues when she flew alone and would try them out on unsuspecting prey

- pitched the idea of keeping count of kills to V, which created a not so friendly competition between the two. N attempted to join but would forget to track how many kills he got during each hunt

- once on Copper-9, she found herself getting homesick fairly often. despite her workaholic tendencies, she misses the days of goofing off with Tessa

- J has a large skill set when it comes to her arsenal. V prefers her claws and blades while N prefers his blades and guns, but she doesn’t prefer one weapon over the other(s) because she is well versed in using all of them

That’s all for now!

　　　　　　　･:*+.\(( °ω° ))/.:+

[billiedeansbitch]

𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬, 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 [𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟐]

𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐚 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

summary: Larissa was compelled to use her annual leave to take care of her nieces for five days; what she wasn’t expecting was that an unnecessarily attractive baby-sitter would be accompanying her as well. 

a/n: sorry if this took so long to be posted. I went through some tough shit but I'm okay now. Enjoy <3

warning/s: none.

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taglist: @thoroughly--confused @gwendolinechristieiscute @winterfireblond @im-a-carnivorous-plant @poorwritingandstalecoffee @justcallmelittleone @digital-demise @kimiinou

The struggle to sleep through the night rendered you exhausted in the morning. It was only five o’clock, and yet you felt like you couldn’t stay in bed any longer. The more time you spent with your eyes closed, the more she appeared in your head like a ghost haunting you making sure she was all you could think of.

With great reluctance, you peeled the sheet off your body as the room temperature grew significantly hot, and willed yourself off the bed.

After a quick stop in the bathroom, trying your best to look decent, you tiptoed your way to the kitchen as quietly as you could to avoid waking anyone up in case someone was a light sleeper. 

As you were trying to navigate around the kitchen and successfully put the kettle on the stove, you started checking for the tea packets in the pantry and you spotted a whole box on the top shelf.

Confident that it was not that hard to fish out without using a stool from the lack of height, you stretched your arm up and stood on your toes. Honestly, why was the tea placement so high? It was ridiculous for people like you.

Too distracted by your will to reach it, you failed to notice the appearance of someone behind you, that was until they extended their own arm and effortlessly beat you in reaching for the box. You turned so suddenly with your heart beating fast in your chest, that you stumbled forward into the intruder’s body, your hand on their chest, and oh, what a lovely intruder it was for it bore the face of the woman named Larissa Weems.

The woman’s free hand instinctively flew to your waist, steadying you, and your skin burned at the contact, her hand managed to slip under the hem of your shirt. It was purely accidental but still, it made you want to melt into a puddle. 

Larissa, too, didn’t expect the impact it could cause her body. She felt herself getting breathless, as warmth spread across her cheeks, down her chest. She could perfectly feel the softness of your skin underneath her cold fingertips and noted how you shivered. The hand on her chest made her look down, it was odd, how it felt like it belonged there as well as the hand on your waist seamlessly fitting your waist.

She looked into your eyes, trying to filter any sense of discomfort, there was none, you were rather calm and positivity delighted. It amused her, too, that your eyes were seemingly lost on her lips. 

She separated herself, holding out the box to you.

“How’d you know I was here?” you wondered, taking the box from her.

Larissa shook her head, her lips curving to a small smile, “I didn’t. I was going to make tea for myself and found you clearly struggling.”

“I was not. I had it.” you were quick to defend yourself. Larissa decidedly teased you. “Not from how I saw it. Why didn’t you use the stool?” 

You huffed playfully, “I didn’t need it. I told you I had it. I swear.” 

She only hummed, finding it charming to have you so riled up. A wicked grin possessed the older woman’s lips, one that most likely made you feel like your heart just dropped.

Later, in the kitchen, where you found yourself speechless as Larissa managed to make a simple breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon and some toasts, she also readied some cereals for the kids giving them more options for breakfast. 

For yourself, you opted to pair your tea with some toast, buttering the burnt side generously. You took a bite and found a pair of blue eyes looking at you, pausing mid sip, to watch you. She offered you a smile and it was pleasantly warm like the sun on your face as it filtered through the windows, and as sweet as the tea that ran down your throat.

You raised your brows, “Do you want a bite?” you offered, holding it toward her, and she did, she held your hand by the wrist and took a bite of the toast.

You watched her pull back and wiped the corners of her lips with her thumb, bobbing her head while she swallowed. There was nothing out of the ordinary with what just occurred, but something about it made your brain lose its cool. Maybe it was how she held your wrist or the way she looked straight into your eyes while she took a bite. You didn’t know.

Her gaze then fell naturally on your lips, once you finished the toast. “You’ve got some…” she gestured to her own lips which your eyes followed, “Crumbs”

You pushed your brows up. Confused. “On your lips, honey.” your tongue innocently darted out, licking from one corner to another but still somehow missing the crumbs. Larissa’s lips fell apart. 

Without much thought, she leaned toward you, an arm reaching out and before you knew it her thumb ran across your lip, removing the crumbs. “There, you’re all clean.” 

Her eyes flickered up, meeting your gaze. You were hardly breathing but unfazed, just waiting, and waiting, your knuckles turning white as you grip the counter once more. She didn’t lean. Your jaw flexed from the pent-up disappointment.

A lot kept happening in this room and it made you wonder what sorcery it was that was causing all of this because honestly you had never been this thrilled to be in the kitchen. 

“Did you sleep okay?” Was it too obvious in your face that you stayed up all night wondering about her? That sleep seemed to be like a confusing concept for your brain because of how big and ugly your eyebags were right now?

“Not really.”

“Is there anything in particular that kept you from sleeping?” she asked with confidence like she knew what was going on in your head and she probably did with the way her eyes glitter and her voice sounded almost teasing.

You kept your gaze steady on her eyes, trying to get into her head. Trying to dissect the layers upon layers of the developed tension since last night. What was she really trying to do with you?

She had already charged you with so many emotions in just one day and maybe you were overreacting about it being so much but if what she was doing right now and how she was trying to push you was anything to go by, then you knew the answer already.

She was trying to break you by being so obvious and direct with her intention but not initiating anything beyond a few playful touches and lingering looks and it was effectively pushing you to your breaking point.

-

All her life Larissa Weems had trained herself to tread carefully, to not let herself slip out of the impeccable character she built for years because it is what’s going to protect her from anything, from anyone especially. 

But you looked so deliciously attractive it was impossible to keep her eyes off of you. The years of practice she did were nothing, easily dissolved by the desire that was brewing in the pit of her stomach, and spurred by a longing for some human contact that was anything but benign.

And you, you were so expressive with what you wanted, she was feeding off from it. You were always so expectant, drawing your lips apart and just patiently waiting for her, such a good girl she thought. And what surprised her even more was last night, when you stood there, in her room ready to attend to her needs but her head was spinning, she couldn’t do much about it and let herself be coaxed into a dreamless sleep.

“Is there anything in particular that kept you from sleeping?”

There was a longer beat of silence. Just her and you staring in each other’s eyes. 

It was hard to withhold now when the tension was too thick, both breaths heaving with anticipation on who would make the first move. And then everything was closing around, pushing you both together until your breath was hot on her skin and vice versa. Your eyes were on her lips and she could already feel it.

Just as she was about to make the move, determined to seal the gap, someone’s phone was going off. It was hers. She excused herself, for a fraction of time, she had a flash of annoyance on her face, saying something you did not understand because you were looking at her, giving her the vertical gaze and biting on your lip, internally cursing whoever was on the other line because that was it. That was the moment. 

She disappeared with hums and a series of yes and then an angry noise before you heard someone’s name being mentioned, but you contemplated if it was a name because she just exclaimed “Wednesday” with an offending tone.

You smiled to yourself, shaking your head at how you just managed to get caught in the woman’s orbit, how her presence gave you these overwhelming sensations that get your words stuck in your throat. And that was when you only realized you didn’t give her an answer.

-

In the afternoon, after the girls were picked up from school, they insisted on an afternoon storytelling, you could really say no which explained why the three of you were huddled in the small fort made of pillows, blankets and clothesline pins, in the middle of the living room.

You rambled about the beast and the blue knight. Tory and Laura were in awe. They had their eyes fixated on you with intent, their thin lips gaping. They specifically asked for the blue knight after getting tired of princesses in towers.

“And the bear roared! So loud it was deafening but the blue night stood their ground and drew their sword—“ she heard you poorly imitate a bear’s roar and she thought it was hilariously adorable.

It went on and on for the next few minutes until the story ended and the girls were so astonished they decided to re-enact the scenes they remembered, Tory as the bear and Laura as the blue night. But later, they grew tired of playing with themselves which they easily resolved by involving you and Larissa to play hide and seek.

Larissa was about to refuse the girls, she was never one to enjoy these silly games but you stepped in with your flashy smile and told the girls you’d love to play with your eyes looking at her. Larissa couldn’t do anything else by then so closed her laptop and hopped off the stool. 

For the first round, Tory was the seeker, Laura immediately bolted off, running with her little feet and disappeared. You were left with Larissa, still trying to figure out where it was best to hide.

“Seven.” Tory counted, keeping her eyes shut and forehead pressed on the wall.

“The fort.” You mouthed the other woman. Hiding in the fort would be too obvious, yes, which meant Tory, being the wisest, would go and seek someplace else paying no heed to the fort and knowing her twin like the back of her hands she wouldn’t hide there, she would opt for the most complicated hiding spots in the house and she assumed the same for the both for you.

“Nine.” You grabbed the woman’s wrist, “The fort” you mouthed once more, tipping your head to the fort’s direction.

Her initial thought was “How are we going to fit in there?” Because honestly it was too fragile to stand any big movements and Larissa wasn’t exactly built for small spaces. But her thoughts were flung out as soon as you pulled her with you ushering her into the fort.

“It’s too obvious, she wouldn’t expect us to be there.” You justified, you were determined to win against a kid. So competitive it made Larissa shake her head while grinning.

It had been years since she partook in any kind of games, and she never liked playing hide and seek even as a child. She was too big and too tall to fit in small places, she was always the first to find and she never enjoyed it. 

But something told her this was going to be different because none of the girls looked at her immediately like you did, none of them showed the same excitement and pulled her by her wrist. They all didn’t want to take her with them, she was too obvious making her an easy target which made the game less exciting.

Larissa would have appreciated to have someone like you as a kid. 

After Larissa crawled into the tiny opening of the fort, you made your own way inside. 

“Ready or not, here I come!” Tory announced, you heard her walk around, presumably surveying, trying to listen for any noise as it would indicate where anyone was.

You saw her little silhouette walking past the fort, and you held your breath, Larissa did, too. Everything about it was silly but Larissa couldn’t find it in her to complain, not when you held her hand, squeezing a little too hard, too absorbed by the game.

“That was close.” you muttered when Tory didn’t suspect anything and heard her move on to another room.  And then there was only silence, you were both looking at each other with intensified stares, the atmosphere charged with palpable attraction. 

And then it happened. You didn’t know who leaned or who pulled who, you couldn’t remember a single thing—anything, you just found yourself sitting on her lap breathless and her hands on your face, your lips caught in a somewhat hungry but gentle kiss. Both searching for something. 

You were both bursting at the seams, too exhilarated by what was happening, you both didn’t want to detangle from each other but the sound of the twins quickly approaching forced you both to stop. To come to a halt. And you did with great effort not to pull her back against you.

Larissa wiped the smudged lipstick from the corner of your lips and you thanked her bashfully, “We should probably go now.” you suggested and she agreed letting you go out first.

But Larissa, the oh so perfect Principal of Nevermore Academy, was uncharacteristically falling apart, still buzzing with the effects of kissing you. 

If kissing you would loose a screw in her brain she imagined what else could go loose if anything would escalate beyond kissing.

-

The next day, it all happened the same: play time was over and the night approached in a blink of an eye. During dinner, the twins were barely awake, too spent from the countless runnings and gigglings, Larissa decided she should put the twins to bed. While she tucked them in, you cleaned the dinner table, easy as that.

After you had everything washed and put away, you stood in the middle of the kitchen posing like a dutiful wife, you sighed, having been too tired yourself from work and flicked the lights off, ready to retire to your bed and call it a night. However, it seemed as though someone had other plans for you. 

Your back hit the wall with a soft thud, your eyes going as wide as they could be, too stunned from having been thrown against the wall.

Larissa cupped your face and crashed her lips against yours blocking your senses. Everything was muted. Nothing mattered. Immediately, your hands found purchase on the curve of her waist pulling her body flushed against you.

The expensive fabric of her clothes rubbing against your palms, and your brain instantaneously thought of how she would look without it. These perverted thoughts of a teenager dusted your cheeks red, so red from the heat of the spreading embarrassment.

The kiss started with intense longing to feel each other’s lips, to taste each other’s tongue and to feel the breaths in between and then it went  slow, and soft, and warm like a sun’s kiss. It was tender, reminding you of how her thumb glided across your lips. It was worth worshipping.

God, the feeling made your head spin, you were running out of breath but you couldn’t find it in you to care. You just wanted to take her, lavish her, devour her lips until they were swollen and pink.

Against the wall, you were pinned by Larissa as you submissively followed the blonde’s lead, giving her the control. Larissa adjusted herself more comfortably, matching your height, your lips still pressed together.

Eventually, you had to pull away. Your head found comfort on Larissa’s shoulder while you tried to catch your breath. Larissa merely watched you, a smile growing on her lips.

You felt her comb through your hair and you couldn’t help yourself but nuzzle your face further to the crook of her neck. Smelling the mix of her sweat and perfume, it lured you to drop a kiss on the moistened skin, just a light peck that could be mistaken as a mindless touch of your lips on her skin.

The fondness of the mere touch released a raging amount of serotonin in the woman’s brain, wrapping her tenderly with warmth like a blanket around her shoulder during a breezy afternoon or the feeling that embraced her after sipping her hot cocoa for the first time.

Truly, Larissa was in awe, she hadn’t been expecting to feel so…alive and cherished.

When she got out of the car and stepped into the airport and being greeted by the busy crowd, she thought she was making a big mistake. She had never left Nevermore for more than a day and it scared her how much trouble would transpire during the span of her absence, but she checked herself in nevertheless, boarded the plane and sat in her first class seat, thinking of nothing more but going back home to her beloved school. Larissa loved her nieces to death, that for sure, she would go beyond whatever extent it means to protect them but the school was her baby, it was her life.

And then you happened. You made her wish the time could go slowly and the days go longer. She wished she knew what she was doing, what the fuck was happening when she thrusted you against the wall and kissed you the moment the kids were tucked and the door was closed.

She wished she knew.

[toxooz]

The canvases aren’t even safe 😭 they used the Boroque era as reference for their search engines. Like I’m losing my shit constantly over ai art so bad. Like this is totally gonna be a rant so forgive me but it’s driving up the WALLS. Ai art being readily available is killing the incentive for people to be creative. I cannot tell you how many times I think I’ve found a really cool fellow artist on tiktok and then see #midjourney. I take psychic damage every time that happens to me. And I’m starting to see it infiltrating business too where they generate ai images instead of hire photographers. I also saw someone selling tshirts with ai art on it at my local farmers market. MOTHERFUCKER THE FARMERS MARKET??? HAVE YOU NO SHAME????

NAW PREACH IT cause its become a nagging issue for me for a while that i simply try to not think about and dwell on but dear FUCKING god is it everywhere and it's painfully obvious too! just about every ad takes me 3 seconds to find damning evidence that its ai and im 99% ready to just delete facebook bc #1 i dont give a fuck abt anyone on there anymore and #2 Literally every other post is the most deplorable ai shit ive ever seen that everyone is carelessly oblivious to i mean total abominations that don't make any sense as an image but ppl share bc its the most bottom of the barrel ''relatable'' shit and that's just the sad reality of it is most people don't even give a shit what they're looking at as long as it looks pretty to their eyes for 3 seconds they don't give a damn

and that's just on basic everyday world shit like u said there's so many mfs i think are decent artists where i legitimately cant tell its ai until i read their fuckshit bio or somethin, like that midjourney i didnt even know it was an ai program i would've just thought it was the name of a video game or some shit! like I feel like I'm kinda turning my back on the whole art community involuntarily bc i just dont trust any image i see most of the time and its fukkin sad i ESPECIALLY feel for the real artists prior to this shitshow who have art styles that now look so much like ai that they basically hijacked to feed the machine like I couldn't imagine spending thousands of dollars on an art college and hours of practice just for your art style to be The Blueprint for empty soulless photos cranked out at inhuman rates by any stupid fucking lazy ass clown like Fuck Man it all sucks so much and the worst part is I just feel like it's one of those things where it will not stop until Something caves and i honestly dont know which one it will be but i just know its only going to get worse idk i try to remember that i can pick up a paintbrush or even whatever the hell i want and make something beautiful while 98% of these ai sacks of shit are just limited to stealing other peoples art on the internet and they couldn't even paint a damn flower if their lives depended on it and if i was stuck on a deserted island I'd probably still find ways to make art with whatever tools and resources i have cause that's an artist baybay but as far as The Internet and its grasp it has on the world and trying to make it as a digital artist and trying to make money from your homemade artwork is very grim man and dont even get me started on art and artists in just about every job field rn my heart goes out to them

[1eos]

Miss kendra would u reccomend getting a switch? Ive been think of getting back into video games but im not sure if i should get a handheld or a home console.

if a majority of the games you're interested in are switch exclusives its worth it, but if you want to play games that are also on steam, ps4/5, xbox etc i would recc getting a console bc the switch is the worst abt planned obselescence. like its the least durable system ive ever encountered in my life its actually infuriating.

good points:

if u like handheld gaming the switch lite is excellent. you can save $150, there a cute colors, and the battery life and graphics are excellent. going back to my ps vita after the switch is like whoaaa the display on the lite is just that good.

memory cards for switches arent too expensive and u can get a big sized one for a good deal and not have to worry about space

good game library. i got the switch to play persona strikers, botw, animal crossing, and god eater 3 and it was worth it....and most of these games were worth it

since the switch is super popular its easy to get pre owned units for a decent discount from reputable places

bad points:

the joycons on the switch WILL go out. like no ifs and or buts they get terminal levels of drift in a year, year and a half of any kind of regular play. nintendo knows this and they don't give a fuck. if you have a switch console they used to send u joycons replacements for free but if u have a lite they have to fix it and YES they will charge you :) i got a discount only bc i said i wasn't gonna pay $80 for their negligence.

also 4 or so years later the flap on the game slot has broken and the left trigger doesnt work on my lite. mind u my first ps vita is almost 12 years old and had NO hardware issues (only a memory card issue) and i put more work into that vita in one year than i have in 3 years w my switch. so just be mindful that you will have hardware issues guaranteed

-game prices. switch games rarely if ever go on sale even if theyre 400000 years old and its actually evil. if there are a lot of games u want to play im honestly gonna recommend getting a ps4/ps5 first bc u can get games on sale digitally and physically at a MUCH better price

-a LOT of switch exclusive games drop half baked. this is true of a lot of consoles but with the switch its even more egregious bc of the insane price point. i regret getting animal crossing when it dropped out of nostalgia bc it arrived w virtually no content. one of the newer story of seasons was wayyyyy too empty too easy etc etc. with switch exclusive games in particular you should always wait for unbiased reviews bc most of these games beyond botw dropped bare bones as hell

[attyrocious]

heyyy I'm new to digital art, would you mind sharing some tips regarding programs and tutorials and etc? also on how to turn a real life piece into a beautiful and clean digital piece... really love your art

oh good luck with your art journey! my experience with digital art is pretty dated (as in a decade + levels dated) and i might be too out of touch to give beginner tips but regardless, allow me to attempt

Programs: it would help to know which hardware you have for digital but ill put down some i have experience in 1. Clip Studio Paint Pro - PC/Android/ipad/everywhere i think? unfortunately they betrayed humankind and its now a subscription everywhere but on PC. i bought a one-time license years years years ago on sale and its probably the best available on my end. I also got it on subscription on android so i can sync works between my PC and tablet. its very flexible in a way that you can draw with it in the most basic way single layer sketches or whatever but they have so many features and keep adding more.

2. procreate - ipad only never been an apple user but my friend is, and he's been a procreate user forever. he recently tried CSP on ipad though and he still claims he likes procreate better for ease of use and compatibility with tablet ergonomics and apple pen

3. medibang paint - pc/android/ipad

free forever. and out of all the free programs i recommended my other digital art newbie friend this is what he liked best.

4. adobe photoshop - dont even look at this the only reason i have one is im leeching off company license. its still unfortunately the industry standard tho but CSP is much cheaper and has the same controls and most of the basic functions 5. Paint Tool SAI - my first art program but i haven't tried it again. honestly still think this has the best brush flexibility and pen pressure control ----- As for tutorials, i find digital art has such a steep and high skill ceiling and its a challenge im still tackling and probably will forever tackle haha. I'm trying to osmosis painting techniques from splash art painters from League of Legends who most of them post complete timelapses (my favorite being Bo Chen) where you can study not just their techniques but like, art directions that make their pieces striking. Anyway, I also promised a friend I would make a simple coloring tutorial so maybe after inktober hustle, I would look for a piece there I'd use for the guide.

---- Traditional to digital is never a satisfactory process to me but if you can, invest on a scanner. I use an epson v39, had it for years.

scanned vs edited. the goal is to at least get the white of the paper as white as possible and the blacks the blackest, without whitewashing/burning the rest of the colors. Level correction function is your best friend here and most art programs have that.

Then i just clean dust and errors and slide the contrasts around until it looks as close to the original piece

If you have a decent phone camera, you can get away just posting instagram aesthetic pics with materials framing it or smth and just edit as usual. natural light tends to be a lot more forgiving than the harsh light of scanners anyway.

Anyway I hope this helps and have fun learning!

[decafbat]

Your current art style is so distinctive, always recogniseable. How long do you think that took to develop, and how did you go about that? I've heard a lot of different perspectives from artists on where their art style comes from, that it developed naturally from the fundamentals, or that imitation grew into something unique. I'm curious to hear what you think :3

this is a really really good question! uhmmm, i think the biggest thing you need when you want to develop a really recognizable style is a strong set of inspirations. i dont put a huge amount of stock into learning the fundamentals as i know too many artists who rarely study but who still make incredible stuff. (but i definitely try and study fairly often to be fair). study things you think will help to move your art in a direction you want. life studies might be necessary for that, studying other art might be, studying vehicles, anime, plants, whatever. its about keeping up a healthy artistic diet. or you can just try and develop a visual language all your own, pure representations of whats inside your head. you dont need to study unless you genuinely think you should. trust your gut and make the art you want to make instead of the art you think your style will suit, or what you think youre capable of. thats the only way to do it. as for me, i studied anatomy quite a lot and id say i probably have a half-decent understanding of it. i do gesture drawing fairly often, you can find great gesture videos on the Ges Draw Party channel on youtube. gesture drawing is great for building comfort with shapes and proportions and posing. i have a pretty wide range of artistic influences. mainly certain manga and anime and old furry art. i keep a big digital wall of inspiring art ive saved from all over the internet that i look at pretty often while drawing. i use pureref which is free and very easy to use. i also have some art on my literal wall. hope that helps in some way sorry im so rambly

[valeriianz]

17, 37, 42 (Am I allowed to ask for so many? Oh well, I'm doing it anyway)

what the heckin heck lol i got home late from work and knew this one would take me a while so i got the wine out. lets go!

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

Chef Hob! And yeah ive read a couple fics where he is a chef, but ive yet to read one with him like, on the line. cooking the food or barking out orders. (Dream could be a food critic? a meet ugly?? hmm). @wordsinhaled had that cooking show idea and like... yo N, if you want we could collaborate. im serious lol.

otherwise that roadtrip au is still sitting in the back of my brain as well... but Hob will be a traveling chef (the Gordon Ramsey kind that freelances in helping out new restaurants in menu building. but less shouting and insulting. like how the job is actually done).

37. Promote one of your own “deep cut” fics (an underrated one, or one that never got as much traction as you think it deserves!). What do you like about it?

i dont think i have a "deep cut" fic yet lol. im like, embarrassingly pleased that my fics (even the little ones on tumblr) get decent traction. i come from very small fandoms where my average note count would lay between 30-50. the fact that i get notes in the triple digits now still shocks me. im very happy people seem to enjoy my stupid little human AUs lol.

but ah... if i had to pick one that im particularly proud of, and want people to read, i'd say Let Me Down Easy. it's got everything i want in a fic: angst, drama, arguing, pining... we love melodrama in this house (also im nearly done with chapter 2 so y'all should read it anyway in preparation haha). steam is on the way!

42. Have you ever received a comment that particularly stood out to you for whatever reason?

SO MANY. omg i couldn't possibly pick one. i cant handle how fucking nice my readers are, how they freak out just as much as i do. i love all of them.

actually, as im typing this ive remembered this crazy comment from ch3 of Bolt in the Blue:

so, when this person commented, BitB was still small. i had maybe 10-15 readers who might comment (which is still a lot) but even then, the traction just wasn't there. low hits, low kudos, i was really writing this fic just for funzies. this guy saying my fic would be a "must-read" in the fandom was so friggin nice and ive never gotten a comment like that. i still think about it, sometimes. especially as BitB steadily climbs as my most popular fic ever, not just for The Sandman.

and a quick shout-out to some of my favorite commenters who, when i see your name in my email, i get so giddy and weird lol i LIVE for your comments:

@fulcrvm, @likemmmcookies, @chaosheadspace, @ghostboyjules, @tj-dragonblade, ausgezeichnet @rockangelwicked and the loyal ones like, lostinalaska lily_lovely DearHeartofMars EnthusiasticRambler and fuck, SO MANY MORE! im missing A LOT. but just know i go absolutely insane over every comment. thank you all so much for your support and for always taking the time to leave such inspiring and feral comments <3 <3 <3

[sh1-n0bu]

MOMMY NOBUUUU /p i need someone wise’s advice !!!!

i like to make silly looking “art” (i don’t even consider it real art, it’s more like memes/doodles) (like the ms paint art style, that looks a bit like pixel art and also looks sketchy and simple) and i CAN’T DECIDE if i should make an account to post it??? i really want to but i know NOTHING about ig and its algorythm (even though i did use to have disney and anime fanpages with a decent amount of followers when i was, like, 14). i don’t wanna end up with an account with like 2 followers cuz what if affects my self esteem and the way i view art hsjsg ???? i like my cringy artstyle but.. idk im probably overthinking this AGHH

yk it’s just that when i was a fan account it wasn’t my art so it’s not like i got offended if people didn’t like/comment/save. with things i created it would be different i think??? i’ve been wanting to make an art account for YEARS and i just got into the artstyle (i had a “normal” artstyle before) but wait wait lemme try to link the pics

(hope they work)

so this is the first thing i’ve ever drawn in this style https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-AJt9jSnPo1Enyg4B8Dnm0HMYeFIhxYX/view?usp=drivesdk

and then it just kept going. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-I8x_U-9_ZVwpPE6aDAWlW0ApEuJ2r5Z/view?usp=drivesdk

and going (yes that’s a gyaru trying to talk to a golfball and yes it’s a remake of this meme https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/d6udnl/why_wont_it_move/)

and then i saw this. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-1qO6MbBOo51PK-jhMltsnpfCb0yTGV2/view?usp=drivesdk

and i went “this is so hsr main trio” https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-5MwpEQLIFx_iLdif6R9o66Xc2HW5vjw/view?usp=drivesdk

this is cursed, i’m aware.

then i started making these https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-60FA9_FROx2c0SQrzh1RXOXxm7tFl5G/view?usp=drivesdk

you have NO IDEA how many of these i’ve made. because idk either. all i know is that in three days i had made 20+ of them (which may sound like it’s not much, but for me and how little i used to draw it’s a lot)

and now i REALLY want to make the account but i’m TERRIFIED bc what if no one likes that kind of cringy stuff?????

i’m literally so sorry to bother you with this /gen it’s just me overthinking stuff as always :/ don’t feel pressured to answer me ofc!! <3 also i rlly rlly hope things are going better for you! sending love and support <33

gratefully yours

breaker anon~~<3

MOMMA NOBU HAS ARISEN /j j j j

first, those arts are fucking GORJUS my sweettums. as someone who has lost the ability to draw, that is beautiful. i used to think of becoming a free style painter or to learn how to draw digital but somewhere along the way i just gave up and decided to simply settle on writing instead. even now, when i see art tiktok or recommendations of compilation videos on yt, i feel a bit of an ache in my chest. its just there, y’know?

second, i think you should do for it. maybe try opening up an account on a platform ur incredibly familiar with. perhaps tumblr? or even ig? or even tiktok works too! just any platform you feel safe and comfortable and know how to navigate is good.

and yeah, i can def say felt to the “it will make my mental health worse if i only get 2 likes or smt” bc same same same. i try to write good and capture the characters’ personality correctly while keeping the fic ‘alive’ only to end up with like,,,, hundreds of likes but no feedbacks or reposts or smt LMAOOO

as for a single tip i would give is to expect everything. not everyones going to like ur content and they will suddenly crash into ur inbox talking abt how they hated this fic or smt of yrs bc it was disgusting or not their thing. that has happened to me like,,,, 3 times???? i think?????? and and!!! be sure to do a bit of research beforehand, me thinks. see what kind of attention you would get when u start to post on ur page or account.

honestly, i started this blog as only reposting blog. but then one day my very first 🦝 anon came and i decided, why not write a thirst thought i had with friend and see how it goes? and it just spiraled from there.

main thing is, have patience and love what ur doing. don’t burn urself out over it too much or else what u used to love will end up being what u hate and take good care of yourself sweettums<3

[neomedievalist]

Thoughts on the various games in the megami tensei franchise?

(Personally I really like smt 4 but wished it had some of apocalypses QOL updates)

it would be like. impossible to sum up my thoughts on every megaten game ive played in this post but ill try to do a brief summary of the ones ive played

smt 1: havent finished (SORRY, I KNOW. I KNOW.) i'm like 10 hours in maybe? love the setting fuck with it heavily, very fun, it has SO much to offer for being a snes game

smt 2: also havent finished, hoping to finish 1 before

smt if...: for some reason i have played a decent amount of this one? why do people call it a proto-persona i honestly don't know. it has some really cool shit going on though

smt 3 nocturne: banger. i love nocturne and i usually recommend either it or smtiv to new smt fans. peak "smt experience".

smt 4: greatest of all time, this game changed me permanently. ruined my life.

smt 4 apocalypse: i really . i really dislike this game. i reeeeallllyyy dislike this game.

smt 5: CATASTROPHICALLY MID.

digital devil saga 1/2: third part of my trio of favouite smt games that i cycle between constantly alongside nocturne and smtiv. has done the coolest shit any smt game has ever done, amazing story, amazing characters, it's got everything. some of the best and some of the worst dungeons ive ever seen, also has my favourite smt gameplay

strange journey: honestly wasnt expecting this one to slap as hard as it does, but it is ass to play. it probably isnt as ass to play if you like etrian odyssey/grid based first person dungeon crawling, which i don't

soul hackers 1: just started playing this one, it's fun as hell, such a cool setting. gameplay is. ohhh my god its not good.

soul hackers 2: only played a bit of this before i gave up on it...it just does not draw me, and now that i started SH1 the difference between the two is so...

raidou kuzunoha vs. the soulless army: i really, really want to play this one, and have tried, but im having massive emulator troubles and i also. really dislike the gameplay. so.