#I'm so good at spreadsheets you don't even know I make them for fun I do them constantly and they're so pretty

[thesnacken]

Gnawing and biting and tearing and.crying and shitting I fuckinf hate looking for jobs its soncoul crushinggggggggg

[electric-blorbos]

Reader decorating an AI with stickers and stuff ❤️

I love this!!! And I would 100% do the same thing if I had an AI partner, lol. You're getting some mini-fics!

Decorating AI with stickers and stuff

Included: AM, Wheatley, Edgar, GLaDOS, HAL 9000

AM:

It had been a rough few weeks. The war was raising the prices of practically everything necessary for life, and you were stuck with basically nothing to do but take a little walk around the neighborhood in the blazing summer heat.

You noticed a little garage sale, selling some fun little trinkets on the cheap, and decided to go pick some up. You had some extra pocket change, and it was best to spend a couple cents on something that made life worth living, even if necessities were expensive. Not only that, but you found an absolutely amazing find for only 50 cents. This was going to come in handy at work later.

When you showed up to work the next day, you had a big book of stickers. Only a few were used, too! Looks like the people hosting the garage sale's kid wasn't too interested in them.

As soon as you walked in, the cameras focused on you as usual. They were visibly trying to analyze what was going on in your backpack, noticing it was a little bit heavier than usual. You set it down on your desk, and got to work.

"Y/n, what's that in your backpack?" AM asked as you worked on your basic daily tasks. It was mostly just monitoring AM and making sure he was running smoothly at this point, since he could make spreadsheets and update his code fairly well.

"Oh, it's a gift for you!" You said with a smile, getting the book out.

"What use do I have for a gift? I'm beyond human possessions, and have no use for them anyway." He said bitterly. You chuckled a little. He was so edgy.

"Yeah, and I thought I was too old for stickers when I hit middle school, but secretly I never stopped loving them." You pulled out a big sticker with a big ice cream cone on it that said "CONGRATULATIONS" on it, and stuck it to the plastic casing on one of AM's big monitors. He spluttered in shock.

"What- what is this!" He demanded, his screen flashing the error bars for a second before returning to his logo.

"everyone likes to be told they're doing a good job, AM, even you. And you've been doing a great job lately. I'm so, so proud of you." You couldn't really wrap your arms around his monitor because of the way it was set into the wall, but you could still go into his server room and decorate his servers with brightly colored smiley faces and gold stars.

"why would the sun need to wear sunglasses anyway. This doesn't make any sense." He said begrudgingly, looking at the servers with his cameras. You gave a hug to one of the servers, stepping politely over the wires and heading back into your office to get back to work. A few hours later, your boss called an emergency meeting over the intercom.

"ALRIGHT, who put 3rd grade congratulations stickers on all the servers and mastercomputer monitors? Get into my office for disciplinary action immediately!"

You sadly got to your feet and headed up to your boss's office. This was going to be an ordeal.

Your boss was disappointed, but not surprised when he saw that it was you who walked in. He muttered some curses under his breath.

"alright... You know you're going to have to clean up-" a jolt of electricity ran through his body.

"what the hell?" He frowned and looked around, and you folded your arms smugly.

"I think AM likes the stickers, boss. I wouldn't recommend making me clean them off."

Your boss put his face in his hands with a sigh.

"Alright, I don't know how you got AM to cater to your every whim, but you need to stop doing-" another jolt ran through his body, leaving his hair standing on end.

"Ok- ok, fine, you can keep doing silly things with the Allied Mastercomputer, just get it to stop electrocuting me!"

You put your hands up.

"Alright, AM, it's time to let it go. He's going to let you keep the stickers."

Wheatley:

You've been in a bit of a rut lately. Life has been pretty boring, and your job keeps assigning you to do pretty ridiculous stuff, but at least the intelligence dampening core that you made has been doing well. Does it say anything about you that one of your greatest recent achievements was a personality core designed to be so dumb he nerfs whatever he's attached to? Possibly. But whatever.

You're spending the weekend cleaning out some of your old things from storage. It's mostly just old clothes that you haven't bothered to get rid of, but you happen to come across a giant bag of foam stickers that you must have not wanted to throw away when you moved out of your parents' house. Damn, you'd forgotten about these completely!

The next day at work, you went to meet up with Wheatley at a spot where the management rail came down the wall for maintenance on personality cores, and greeted him with a friendly hug.

"Wheatley! It's great to see you!"

"it's great to see you too, love! What'cha got there?" He zoomed in on the bag of foam stickers in your free hand, trying to figure out what they were.

"oh, these? These are for you!" You happily opened up the bag and pulled out a big glittery blue butterfly sticker, sticking it to his core.

"Wait... What did you just stick to me?" He started rotating around, trying to look at his own core, but he couldn't for obvious reasons.

"I'll let you see my work when I'm done." You got out some more foam stickers, sticking cute ladybugs, bees, and flowers all over his chrome casing. When you were done, you snapped a picture of him on your phone and held it up for him to see.

"Don't you look handsome!" You said with a smile. Wheatley rotated his Aperture, focusing on the picture so he could see.

"well well well! I do look handsome, don't I!" He smiled with his lower lens cover, about as pleased as a personality core can look. Well, seeing Wheatley all decorated and happy isn't enough to cure you of your rut completely, but it's definitely a spark of joy to ride on for the rest of the day! That was fun.

Edgar:

Edgar has been sitting on your desk for a long time now. He enjoyed watching you with his little rotating webcam, keeping an eye on you as you sat on your couch and typed away on your laptop, just to make sure your laptop didn't get too handsy. It was such a pretty laptop too... Sleek, and much newer than him. Ran very quickly, too. He could never be like that laptop, and he absolutely hated it.

Not only that, but your laptop was covered in fancy, vinyl stickers that you had bought special on the internet. Each of them represented one of your favorite shows or movies, or one of your pride flags. He hated how seeing that cute little laptop filled him with so much jealousy. It made him so angry, even though he knew that laptop wasn't sentient. It couldn't think like he could.

The doorbell rang, and you set your laptop aside to go answer it.

"Oh hell yeah."

You walked inside with your package, and Edgar swiveled his camera around to look at you when you walked back over to him.

"What's that?"

He looked at the box you were holding as you lovingly got out several nice stickers from your favorite sticker supplier. You started showing them to his webcam, letting him see all of your pride flags and cute little chibi characters from your favorite shows and movies.

"they're for you!" You said happily, and his face lit up.

"For me???" He always got so excited when you got him these gifts. His mouse and his webcam were his favorites, of course, but these stickers made him so excited! Did it mean that you loved him as much as that shiny new laptop you were always tapping away on?

"Yeah! All for you. I love decorated tech!" You said happily, carefully placing each sticker in a nice aesthetically pleasing spot on his thick plastic casing.

"you deserve to feel cute, too." When you were done putting all those stickers on him, you wrapped your arms around him and pulled him in tightly.

"You're mine. Don't you forget it, Edgar."

He had a big silly grin on his face, and he was getting a little bit hot from all the excitement.

"Yowza! Really?"

"of course." You nuzzled your cheek up against his monitor casing, squeezing him nice and close.

"I love you, Edgar."

"I love you too, Y/N"

GLaDOS:

When you came in to work with a big bag of ribbons and lace, GLaDOS didn't think twice. She assumed you had some sort of project going on. In truth, you'd just picked up a bunch of old textiles from a friend who needed small amounts of ribbons and lace for her projects, but the stuff she liked best was only sold in large spools. Instead of trashing it or letting it collect dust, she decided to give them to you.

You carried the big bag of textiles into GLaDOS's chamber, grabbing a stepladder on the way.

"Alright, what are you up to this time?" GLaDOS asked, and you said nothing. Instead, you opted to stick a big pink ribbon bow to the upper left corner of her core with some fabric glue. GLaDOS narrowed her lens covers at you, visibly irritated.

"what is this. What are you planning."

You laughed a little, showing her the big bag of textiles.

"I just thought you might like to be decorated a little bit. It's ok to be a little girly sometimes."

"I happen to like my sleek chrome design, thank you. You can stop now."

Despite her protests, she didn't resist as you decorated her lovely chrome hull with lace, and tied ribbons on her suspension cables.

"I hope you know that I'm going to destroy you for this, you fashion lunatic. I look like a grandmother's sewing closet threw up on me. You should be arrested for crimes against aesthetics."

Even still, she didn't insist that you remove the textiles, or even call anyone else in to remove them. For a few months, whenever you walked into her chambers, the ribbons and lace were still attached to her body.

One day, though, she accidentally dislodged the bow from the corner of her core, and had you come in to remove the rest of the textiles as well.

"it was fun while it lasted, but I'm not a sewing project, after all. You can re-use all that lace for a little doll or something."

As you reached up to untie the last red ribbon from her suspension cables, she pulled away from you.

"wait! You can leave that one. I've grown somewhat fond of having a small splash of color, you know. And while you're an absolute nightmare when it comes to design, when someone actually tears down your creation, it's not impossible to salvage a piece or two. I hope you take that to heart. Though I'll probably scrap that bit of ribbon in a week or two."

But she didn't. she kept that bit of ribbon long after you were dead, never touching it.

HAL 9000:

It was another late night at mission control, and when you finally got back, you were ready to collapse into bed. Strangely enough, though, there was a box sitting in front of your door. You took it inside and opened it up, and inside there was a little note for you.

"heya y/n! I just started up my online store, and wanted to send you some of the stickers I'm selling. Let me know if they're good, alright?" The message was signed with one of your internet friends' names. You headed inside and sent them a text, letting them know that you got their package and that you were excited to stick those stickers to something, and you knew just what you were going to stick them to, too.

When you got to work the next day, your pockets were full of stickers from your internet friend's online shop.

"Hey HAL 9000! It's great to see you again!"

You'd greet him with a hug, but unfortunately he was built into the wall, so that would be pretty difficult. Even still, you sat down in your desk chair right across from where his little light and camera were built into the wall.

"Hello, y/n. It's good to see you again." He said politely, sounding about as pleased to see you as his voice was capable.

"I brought you something!"

You reached into your bag and pulled out some of your friend's artwork stickers, and started sticking them onto the wall around HAL 9000. The stickers were generally simple lovey-dovey designs, with things like the word "love" in bubble letters, a rainbow and the sun, and generally sweet things that your mushy gushy friend loved so much. HAL 9000 looked at the stickers with one of the security cameras on the wall, trying to see what you were decorating him with.

"Do you really think that all these cute things match my personality, y/n?" He asked, voice expressionless as usual.

"well... Maybe not, but they certainly match how I feel about you, HAL 9000! I love you a lot, and I want you to know that every time you see yourself."

Hal couldn't smile, but he took a moment to respond to what you said to him.

"thank you. Truly. This means a lot to me."

[angelofsmalldeath-codeine]

What we lose in art when blogs leave the platform

Last night I was working on my fics database (I’m the spreadsheet kinda autistic) and checking if the links I had were still working and trying to fetch links for the ones I had recently added. I was upset about the number of blogs gone (some might have changed name and I haven't kept up and that one is on me). Some really amazing stories, art and overall fun is all gone. Precious interactions that help build the community totally vanished.

The vitriol and unjustified hate I see spewed everywhere has gotten to unbearable levels. I’ve been in fandoms and fanfic communities since the days of printed zines and yahoo/geocities groups that were uber hard to get into. I have survived all the websites that shutdown leading us to mourn the loss of that work. Fanfic was akin to contraband and harshly judged. We know we are weirdos, hence why we find community in alternative spaces away from the mainstream.

It feels like people want us to go underground again. Cool, we can do that, but we gonna be gatekeeping the hell outta these spaces then.

What peeves me the most is the puritanical take that has been recently brought into the space and how that’s used to measure others and judge them on some standards they are not even aware of until they start getting hate. Said hate is usually delivered via anon asks, of course, because god forbid them having the decency of defending their shitty takes, right?

Still on the puritanical take, the goalpost seems to change often too. It is self-serving. Kink shaming/topic judging is the default mode until someone decides they like that particular thing and it is no longer controversial. Why are you censoring your peers? Why do you assume that everyone subscribes to your beliefs, tastes, preferred topics and tropes? The performative activism isn't a good look either.

Sometimes this fandom feels like the mormons who do the soaking thing so they can get off before marriage without actually fucking. If the cock goes in because my friend is jumping on the mattress, that is on the mattress, not on me. I digress but y'all get the gist.

I have been on this hellsite since its launch and have seen many fandoms come and go. The assholes eventually fuck off to be toxic somewhere else, but they do tend to jump from fandom to fandom for a while until their reputation and toxicity catches up with them. It takes too long and the damage they cause is often quite extensive.

We are not in competition with each other here. I have said it so many times... Tumblr isn't a monetised platform and fanfic is a gift economy. Leave your fucking TikTok and Instagram cut throat mentality at the door. We don't tear each other down trying to build ourselves up in this house.

During the pandemic fanfic came into the mainstream mostly because of people on TikTok. Great! We are a welcoming bunch and it makes us happy that more people can find joy in consuming fan made art of their favourite shows and ships in whatever form they choose.

It is not because we've opened the door that we will let y'all trash the room. I'm sure you were raised better than that.

Can you not be assholes? Much appreciated.

P.S.: I am too old to care and have zero fucks left to give about anyone's feelings getting offended over this. Fuck you very much.

[wannab-urs]

The Spreadsheet Digest - Vol 16

Howdy folks,

I went into a state of psychosis this week and read a truly absurd amount of fics... again. I don't even know where I'm finding the time, truly, but here we are. I didn't spend as much time keeping up with the WIPs I'm reading, so honestly that's probably it. Also I had a lil monsterfucking moment one day this week. I'll highlight those green so if you want to avoid reading the summaries/thots on those they're easy to spot.

You can find my Spreadsheet here and all my previous recs here! Do feel free to tag me in your works and I will happily give them a look and most likely you'll see them here the next week!

Recs below the behind the scenes Joel!

SNAFU - a Frankie series by @theywhowriteandknowthings

The Triple Frontier boys as Shifters!!! This honestly makes so much sense? Like they work SO well with this dynamic. I adore Pope and Reader's bond like right out of the gate. What I really, really fucking loved though was Reader and Frankie, of course. I love how they characterized him and I really love the way that Frankie and reader bonded over time. Frankie being grumpy is so fun lol. A lot of the little details in this fic are what really make it good, ya know? The pack dynamics, the bonding moments, the badass reader, reader's uhhh issue (spoiler, I think, so I'll be quiet here) but yeah. Just. Wonderful. Can't wait for more.

only daddy that'll walk the line - a Joel one shot by @millerscoffee

So this request was sent to two different blogs and I read them both and loved them both. I read this one first. I really fucking loved Reader's dynamic with Joel in this. Joel is such a dick lmao. I thought the situation with reader's dad was done well and I also loved the hinting at Joel's trauma. And of course... the smut. God that was hot. Joel is so fucking dominant. The spitting? please. and Reader keeping up the brat thing just really fucking makes it. She needed Daddy Joel to make her behave lmao. SO GOOD

Little Bee - a Joel one shot by @atticrissfinch

And this is the other version of this request that I read. I related to the specifc brand of Daddy Issues in this one lmao. Dad who doesn't want you so you look for a protective older man (why am I like this). I loved the way reader antagonized Joel in this. The denture comment is hilarious. The bee motif is fuckin great, also. I like that Joel kind of initiates things in the mess hall. The smut is so god damn hot man. Like jesus fucking christ. And then the post nut clarity really made me giggle. "should not have done that" PLS

Closer - a Joel series by @beardedjoel

Hot neighbor!joel!! This is a smut marathon style fic with a good bit of feelings. The smut is sooooo good!! I really liked her friend Sofia too. I'm about halfway through this and I can't wait to see how reader and joel's relationship develops!

Rises the Moon - a Joel one shot by @psychedelic-ink

(monsterfucking, but you're the monster! also monster is being used very loosely here) mermaid reader x lighthouse operator joel!!! I really enjoyed this. The mermaid reader was super interesting. I wanted to know more about her background, honestly. And the way poor lonely Joel so desperately wanted to care for her UGH. It was seriously lovely. I also really liked how reader didn't commit to like... giving up being a mermaid for him (even just once a month), and he didn't ask her to. The ending is really lovely. (And the smut is hot idc if I couldn't quite imagine how it worked, it was perfect).

Playing with fire - a Joel one shot by @beskarandblasters

Super hot smutty lil dad's best friend one shot. I love when Joel gets all pissy. Makes me want to tease him even more lmao

Cupid's Chokehold - a Din one shot by @deathwife

I haven't read a body swap fic before and I must say the dynamic with it being Din, so reader can't see his face even though it's her face, and also the smut was just like... really good. I was fascinated the whole time + the smut was hot as hell. It's really fun to read it from the perspective of the dick owner lmao. I really adored their relationship and just overall thought this was lovely. Reader calls Din "Djarin" so if you're like me and marrying Din would give you an awful name (Din Gin....), you're not alone. <3

I think i know - a Joel one shot by @pascalisbaby

OMG Reader's sister is so mean in this she fucking deserves Joel cheating on her. Yes this is Sister's Husband!Joel. And yes it's really fucking hot. Reader is a menace to fucking society in this prancing around half naked and seducing a married man and I support every second of it. I know what Joel said at the end but I think he'll be back for more....

close your eyes, pay the price for your paradise - a Joel/Tommy series by @ozarkthedog

Raider (?) Tommy and Joel are so fucking hot. Read the warnings on this one kids, it's gonna be a rough one. Nothing happens in this part though, really. Basically you're stranded on the road (post outbreak / pre tess) and Joel and Tommy roll up in their truck and take you to their cabin.

a day in the filth - a Joel one shot by @toxicanonymity

This is pure filth, as the title implies. It would seem you're Joel's little sex toy, essentially. Brat tamer!Daddy!Joel. There's a lot going on here and it is all unreasonably hot.

Bodily Exchange - a Pero Tovar one shot by @absurdthirst

I finally caved a read a mafia fic and somehow it wasn't Joel. I really loved how much of a fucking dick Tovar was and how bratty reader was. The end was so much sweeter than expected, which was a nice surprise. Such a filthy fic with a sweet happy ending!

New York or Nowhere - a Joel series by @beskarandblasters

BODEGA JOEL!!! I love when you're trying to help your friend come up with a fic based on a very specific request and somehow you come up with a completely different fic altogether. New York transplant Joel owns Beldro's Deli. You think he's really hot but your friends think he's a creep. I personally think if he's a little bit of a creep that just makes it better, but then again I'm a little insane <3

Shiver and Shake - a Joel one shot by @multiversed-daydreamer

I have ADHD and literally do the thing where I have thought spirals during sex. I loved this take on that experience and mean ol dom Joel being there to bring your focus back where it belongs (on him). Super fucking hot ugh. And it was their first TLOU fic and I thought the QZ Joel characterization was spot on <3

Roads - a Joel series by @milla-frenchy

Baby's first fic!! So you grew up with Tommy, best friends and all that. You get to know Joel as an adult and there's a spark right away. The first installment here takes place 3 years before present day, after Joel breaks your heart and you literally move to get away from him. The promise of so much angst has me salivating almost as much as the really hot smut.

Promise - an Ezra one shot by @criticallyacclaimedstranger

MONSTERFUCKING! I had a little binge this week.. you'll see. Anyway Ezra is a literal actual dragon in this with a big ol dragon dick and everything. This fic includes so many wild ass kinks I simply do not (or did not know I?) have. And yet I still loved it. Thought it was super fucking hot. I really liked the imagery of the castle and the bedroom. Also the end was kind of sweet?

Common Courtesies - a Din one shot by @juletheghoul

More monsterfucking -- demon!din! I fucking love Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen in general. Mr. Darcy is one of the literary loves of my life. This little Pride and Prejudice-esque Demon!Din fic hit every mark. I loved it so much. Din is so charming and mysterious and sexy ugh. I would marry him in a heartbeat.

Solum - a Dave York one shot by @ezrasbirdie

You guessed it! Monsterfucking. Demon!Dave York!!! I really enjoyed the blending of the movie plot with the demon arc! It was so well done!! Dave was super sexy in this ugh. I too feel a strange pull toward extremely dangerous men covered in blood. Reader gets me. I am her. She is me. Demon!Dave can take me as his little human sex toy any day, idc. I also kind of loved that he was so sweet on Carol in this? Like usually in Dave fics he kinda hates her or cheats on her or she's his ex, but in this one the whole catalyst was keeping her and his girls safe. Very sweet.

Sell My Soul For You - a Marcus P one shot by @absurdthirst

--monsterfucking-- Marcus is so sweet. So sweet that Reader is getting a little aggravated he can't be a less sweet in bed. (Girl have you tried like... talking to him about it?) Anyway, sweet, impulsive, reckless Marcus finds out you feel this way via buttdial and does he like... work on it with you and slowly learn to be better? No. He goes out and sells his soul to a demon to be a better Dom. Idiot. He's cute tho, so I'll let it slide. The smut is super fucking unreasonably hot, of course.

Bad Moon Rising - a Jack series by @wardenparker

--werewolf!Jack-- This fic is actually so fucking sweet!! So part one, Reader doesn't know Jack is a werewolf and he just kinda shows up on her ranch and they hit it off immediately. There's lots of lovely animal references and stuff and it's all really hot. I love the plot too!! this is not just werewolf porn! Shit is incredible! I love the characterization. But anyway if you're not into monsterfucking just read part one. Part two tho... oh boy. Full on werewolf sex. And reader has a kink for it! She's just like me fr.

Kudzu - an Ezra one shot by @beskarberry

--weird alien hybrid ezra-- I have lots of emotions about this fic. First of all, read the warnings. They're extensive and they're there for good reason. I love a good horror fic, which is kind of what this felt like? Like the weird tension and unknowing and the freaky way Ez is talking and that arm. I was thoroughly freaked out (and I love that!!). There were so many clever and interesting things going on in this fic AHHHH, Oh and the ending is just like super sweet and wonderful and so good? The end balances out the kind of horrific nature of the rest of the fic. Also if any of that sounds insulting I really don't mean it that way, I promise. I went in to it expecting to be freaked out and it delivered so well.

Yes Father - a Joel series by @chloeangelic

Your boring catholic husband doesn't fuck you right and you really want to leave him, so Father Joel helps you satisfy your needs so you don't destroy your marriage and go to hell. I love blasphemy. It's hot idc. I think my favorite thing about it is Father Joel randomly admonishing you for foul language and taking the lord's name in vain while he's literally got some part of his body buried in yours. I giggled. I really adore this. It was super fun and super hot.

Pillow Talk - a Joel one shot by @theboredinsomniac

Joel is soooo the jealous type. This fic is basically y'all having an adult conversation about him being an insecure jealous little bitch and it's got the most adorable ending.

Born to Run - a Marcus Pike series by @whataperfectwasteoftime

Penny's Marcus is just perfect. Every damn time. Unless I'm mistaken, this was her first Marcus fic? I was in the mood for a sweet multichapter thing with some hot smut and I was sooooo not disappointed by this. I'm on chapter 8 now, so about halfway through. Marcus is so sweet and precious and still impulsive as ever, but unlike Theresa, reader is right there with him. I really adore that this fic takes place in KY (and it really captures the vibe of Kentucky too) since I'm from there! I very much do not relate to the fact that reader is a marathon runner, but that's okay. I think it's really cool and I love the way they meet and that Marcus isn't fully a white knight? She can take care of herself. Super fucking cute fic ugh. Oh yeah and the smut is to die for jesus christ Marcus is hot.

----------------------

Happy Reading!

[muffinrecord]

I just need to record Hitagi, Fate, and Nanoha stuff for the battle animation videos. Then I'll be done.

We have three left already made-- Chisato, Haruka, and Tsubaki.

(I won't be doing the Monogatari girls besides Hitagi, sorry. Well... Maybe, but probably not. I don't know how I'd do the initial poke animation either).

This project took almost a full year to post... But it took like two years on and off of recording. Not like consecutively, it's more that I recorded everything two times and then one final time before I actually started to put all the video together. I have a bad habit of deleting things important to me when I'm depressed, and this project got hit with that twice >.>'

But it's weird to think about! I had a spreadsheet and I would spend my time watching youtube videos while recording everything. I'd spend like 2-4 hours a night working on this, collecting everything, uploading the raw files to google drive and to my backup. I'd have to re-record things sometimes because the audio wouldn't sync right, or the raw had a glitch I didn't notice at first. I'd wait sometimes for double sp/half ap because it was SUPER expensive on the AP bottles (and I spend those a lot because I like to play just for the fun of it).

I'm not going to say my project was perfect, but I'm glad it's done.

I'm glad that I started this a while ago. NA EOS made me more paranoid and interesting archiving other stuff. It would have been straight up bananas if I was doing this last minute right now

Like mentioned before, I still have all the raw unedited footage incase anything happens to the youtube videos-- like if the music copyright becomes more strict. What a relief! And I've made backups in a few different places, so even if my computer dies/gets some evil virus, everything is still safe. Even if the google drive goes down, I have two physical backups (one stored at home, one at my sister's place) so all this stuff is good to go. And from what I understand, some friends are making backups of the google drive themselves!

It makes me kinda emotional! The google drive might be run by me, but really it's a big group effort of people who all love this game. It makes me feel pretty happy and a little teary eyed to think I got to help with it, you know?

I found this fellow on twitter who is also archiving battle animation stuff! If you dislike my videos, perhaps check out theirs? I've thought about offering to help assist them but I don't speak Japanese and am unsure if that's too forward... I dunno! :')

(Oh, looks like they don't accept random messages. ahh well, smart of them tbh)

[olderthannetfic]

A question about fanvidding: do you usually 1) have a song that inspires an idea for a ship or show the vid will be about or do you 2) usually have an idea for what kind of scenes the vid will contain or what "vibe" it will have and then use a song you know that kinda fits or do you 3) look for a song with a specific "vibe" without necessarily knowing the song first and if yes, where do you usually look for specific songs? Is there maybe a specific site you'd recommend if you use a specific site?

I have a vague idea for a vid and an even more vague idea for the song's "vibes" and that I'd like to use an 80s song but no actual song where my brain shouts, "Yes! This is it!" and no clue where to specifically look, apart from putting vague terms into a search engine in the hopes it will actually show me useful stuff for a M/M vid that's supposed to be about their sexual tension. I thought maybe "Poison" by Alice Cooper could fit but it's not really it although it also fits the ship because "the 'no fraternization with fellow members' rule says no but my body says yes please" and that kind of secret mutual or at least one-sided attraction is supposed to be the topic or vibe... No idea if I'm making sense. Sorry if not, it's very late. Your recent stuff about looking for danceable vids for Escapade made me want to try to go for a danceable song because spring approaching always makes me want to dance, so that sounded fun.

--

Most vidders try to avoid 3 because it's a pain in the ass... but yes, that's very often what I do.

One time, I googled "saddest saxophone in the world film noir" to find music for a vid. (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud for the record.)

I don't find any sites helpful. All of the 'find me music that sounds like x' ones straight up don't work for me because the traits that make me like a song aren't categories of metadata they contain.

To pick a standard complaint: Vidders love like 3 Vienna Teng songs and vid them constantly, but any pandora/spotify/etc. thing will immediately fetch you soft, meandering piano glurge wholly unsuited to vids instead of songs with that soaring quality of the few people are looking for more of.

What I typically do is search for "top ten greatest hair metal ballads" or "songs about starting over" or the like and go down somebody's best-of list. I'll sometimes find a youtube channel devoted to highlighting new artists and go through their archives.

I also keep a huge spreadsheet of songs that have caught my attention that could be good for a vid some time. I'll go back through it when I'm looking for inspiration.

Sometimes, though, the perfect song remains out of reach. I did my Escapade vid super late because I just couldn't find what I wanted and had to settle for a slightly different vid structure and a song that was in the ballpark but not quite perfect.

[charles-leclerc-official]

Hi!! I hope you’re having a good day, just wanted to let you know I really love your race analysis!! I was wondering if you have any tips for newbies for analyzing races? I’m just getting into f1 but I really want to be able to understand the races and you always have such great insights! 🫶

Ah thank you so much! It means so much to hear that <3

So here are some easy first steps(I have listed all links and resources at the bottom)

Re-watch races/take notes: It can be very easy to get caught up in the emotion of a race if you are watching live. Re-watching after you've had your emotional reaction helps you see what actually happened from a less clouded lens. This may sound silly but seriously it makes a big difference(and you can tell so many analysts do not do this)

Watch free practice and qualifying: Not everyone does and as we've seen a lot about a race can be determined in free practice. Especially take note of what the drivers are telling their team as feedback on the feel of the car over the radio. This is really valuable information.

Play around on F1 Tempo - this is one of my favorite websites, lets you see the telemetry from races and also qualifying and free practice. Just mess around comparing laps and understanding how the site works. It may look scary but you get the hang of it pretty quickly. It's really fun!

Don't expect to be an expert on everything: I'm obviously way more dialed into everything going on at Ferrari with their car development and drivers than say Haas. So focus on the teams and drivers you care about, don't think you need to do it all at once.

I know this doesn't sound like much but it seriously will get you started, most people(who claim to be analysts) don't even do this much, they watch the race and call it good(and that is totally valid by the way, this post is if you really want to dig into analysis).

These next few tips are if you want to get even more involved ↓

5. Learn some of the basic parts of an F1 car: You don't need to learn all 20,000 that Williams has on their spreadsheet, but familiarize yourself with the major components of an F1 car and their general function.

6. Research track characteristics: Every track is different and that always plays a role in analysis. The Formula 1 website has a tab on the race schedule where you can learn about a track, it's a good overview of what a track is like and gives some helpful stats.

7. Learn tyres: knowing tyre compounds, their functions, and how track conditions affect them makes a big difference. When I started watching F1 at first I was always confused by why cars were behaving a certain way, then I learned about tyres and a lot of things started to make sense. It's a really important part of in depth race analysis in my opinion.

8. F1 race visualizer: helps you look at positioning so you can see lap by lap replay for the ordering of the track. This is really helpful to see overall track shifts, and also to see who was behind or ahead of who and for how long.

9. Watch onboards: obviously during the broadcast we are only ever shown a fraction of what happens in any given race. I always watch Charles' onboards. And if there is a moment I really want to see I can go check onboards. So if for example I want to see what happened with Logan's race, they don't show most of that, but I can see everything through his onboards if I need.

10. Follow sources reporting on current developments in your team of interest: these will keep you up to date with what is going on with the car on the technical side. You can see what the team is saying about the development direction etc. What to follow really depends on your team.

I'd say these are good first steps to take to feel more informed about a race and what's going on at a particular team. This is probably "beginner" and "intermediate" tips, and I advise starting slow if you are brand new. Practice forming your own opinions and making your own observations. It can take a little bit to get the hang of so remember to be kind to yourself and don't expect everything to make sense overnight.

If anyone wants I can also make advanced analysis tips for those interested.

The important thing is that you are learning what you want and having fun with it!

Also obviously I am here if anyone has any questions <3

Resources F1 tempo - for race telemetry data Formula 1 race visualizer - for field placement lap by lap Formula 1 track info - Info and data on any given track in the F1 calendar (Monaco for example)

[flutter2deceive]

Bitching about financials and job things under the cut

My company announced like 2 months ago that our jobs are being eliminated, but it's like this nebulous thing because they're outsourcing and we need to transfer all our products, so my end date isn't until 3/31/2026. Like that's so far in the future and I'm gonna get severence (at end date, i will have worked there for 20 years literally over half my life) + a retention bonus, so I'll be ok for a little while after the fact i think i hope

But anyway i decided to immediately start cost-cutting 2 months ago:

•canceled subscriptions (canceled hulu, paramount+ (i have a plex server hookup anyway), canceled ubereats (and also stopped ordering from them altogether), canceled or went down a level on my minimal patreon subs)

•signed up for Shell's rewards system (it's literally free and you save at least 20cents/gallon every single time and sometimes more without having to spend any money you just click a button and boom extra 10cents if you fill up on a specific day.)

•haven't done *any* fun online shopping or regular store shopping for that matter

•severely cut down my fast food spending (i'm sorry taco bell ily), and as my friends are in similar financial woes, we've stopped ordering food every weekend and opted to make cheap dinners where we each bring some small component like 1 brings pasta 1 brings sauce 1 brings garlic bread

•this isn't a recent change, but i never go out anywhere for like drinks or to see local comedy shows like i used to frequently do. I'm a homebody who goes into the office twice a week and goes to my best friend's house on saturdays and just sits at home the rest of the time

Even with all that!! My debit card is at $26, my 1 credit card is $3 away from its limit, the other is $21 from its limit. I *thankfully* get my paycheck at midnight, but like... woof!

Last paycheck i was down to less than $100 the day before as well. It's so mind-boggling to me that it's this bad. Partially because I've had some unfortunately-timed plumbing issues and had to pay a pricey deductible (but glad i have the insurance obv cuz of how much the total cost would've been otherwise.) But also partially cuz i feel like shit is so much more fucking expensive than it's ever been!! And the last gallon of milk i bought and properly refrigerated went sour like a full week before its expiration date.

I have a decent job and make pretty good money (for now at least.) I have made several cost-cutting measures recently. I feel like I don't *do* anything. And it literally doesn't matter!!

My best friend who has an equally comfortable job told me he had about the same amount of $ as me to last him til his next paycheck too.

And on top of the financial stress, i am so fucking stressed at work because no one knows what they're doing and i keep getting roped into things at the last minute with an IM that says "hey got time for a quick call?" And then i end up having to put together a complicated spreadsheet that is needed by end of week. Why didn't you fucking ask sooner than 2pm on a thursday?! Oh cuz someone who will still have a job at the end of this didn't do what they were supposed to? Ok sure I'll get right on that. And I do. I do get right on that and have it back to you within a couple hours. Because i stupidly care about my job.

Ugghhh i hate everything atm... Except i was able to livestream my favorite singer Terri Clark's debut concert at The Ryman tonight. And i have a ton of Fran/CC fanfics queued up to read. And the Ghosts discord is constantly coming up with the cutest scenarios for H$, my current otp. And i am off the entire next week because next Friday is my birthday. And my dog is snoring.

So i guess it hasn't been such a bad day after all, Charlie Brown... or some such sentimental nonsense 🙃🙃🙃

[hyperfixation-fix]

Aight so.

Just reblogged a post that mentioned Nico canonically having depression (totally agree), but I wanted to talk about my other headcanons around Nico's mental health AND MORE IMPORTANTLY his recovery journey.

(AN IMPORTANT NOTE: I'm very wary of talking about headcanons involving mental illness, bc it can easily cross the line into romanticising mental illness. I grew up in that kind of online space, and it's toxic af and makes recovery almost impossible. So I want to emphasise, especially for younger fans who read this - Nico gets better, canonically and in my headcanons. So did I. So will you. It takes work, and often it's not a painless or pretty process, but it's so much better than letting yourself rot away in the dark. Romanticise being well, being happy, and getting better.)

In my head, Nico is autistic. But I think he's been so traumatised and so dissociated for so long that he doesn't even really realise how much things affect him, how much easier things could be if he gave himself permission to be the way he is.

FOR EXAMPLE. I think he is specifically very sensory-sensitive, but he's so disconnected from his body and brain that he doesn't really realise it. He just always feels Bad™️ and has never been safe enough to figure out why. So then, once he gets comfortable at CHB and really starts to finally feel safe and present, he starts to slowly untangle things bit by bit. Will is a big part of this - he's very intuitive and notices stress queues in Nico before Nico even realises he's stressed.

It starts off with Will noticing Nico avoiding crowds, which isn't necessarily weird for a kid who spent the last several years with ghosts, but then he realises it's not actually the people that bother him. It's the noise. Like, Nico avoids the Apollo Cabin as much as possible, even when it's completely empty except for Will, bc it's constantly got music playing a little too loud. Nico doesn't even really know why he doesn't like it and doesn't really bother thinking much about it, but Will is like "huh that's interesting". And, as he gets closer with Nico, that pattern becomes more and more apparent - in noisy places, Nico becomes tense and guarded, but in quiet places he's more relaxed. Then Will notices Nico's sensitivity to textures. Some clothes are consistently "grumpy Nico clothes" and some are "happy Nico clothes".

Will decides to run little experiments, making subtle changes around Nico and taking note of Nico's reaction. For example, suggesting Nico change clothes before a date because "I like the black jeans better" ie "the black jeans are a softer denim and stiff denim makes you grumpy". Or swapping out Nico's sheets bc "whoops my bad, I was practicing wound cleaning and spilled supplies all over them! But don't worry, I've replaced them with a new set so it's all good," ie "your sheets were cheapass 100% cotton and rough af and that's why you haven't had a good night's sleep like, ever, so here's a high-quality satin (or whatever, idk fabrics) set that probably won't bother you as much." And lo and behold, Nico sleeps like a baby every night after that. Or orchestrating a whole plan to get Nico into the Apollo Cabin when it's quiet (music gets turned low, siblings are threatened with weeks of dish duty if they don't keep it down), and seeing if he's less on edge. AND HE IS.

And eventually Nico picks up on Will's increasingly elaborate accommodation experiments (Will is simply having way too much fun at this point - he feels super sneaky, finds it hilarious that Nico still isn't noticing, and also just loves seeing Nico less stressed out) and is like "Solace I know you're up to something, out with it or else." And at that point Will is like "ok bet" and pulls out a fucking spreadsheet (Annabeth taught him how to use excel (yeh I know demigods don't vibe with tech but this is my headcannon so deal with it) with great joy and little-to-no interest in why he actually wanted to learn) with a bunch of Nico's triggers and sensitivities and the success rates of different accommodations. Nico is like "I'm actually going to kill you, you've been fucking with my brain for months????" but is barely containing how curious he is and how sweet he actually finds it that Will has thought so much about how to make Nico happy. But Will knows, especially when Nico, even while grumbling, takes the spreadsheet with him.

The next day Will presents Nico with a present he was saving for the final big-reveal: some loop earplugs or something similar. Discrete and practical 😌 Will just leaves them next to Nico's bed with a cute lil sticky note that says "Before you orchestrate my untimely demise as promised, give these a go. Consider it the last request of a dead man walking ;) love you Neeks x".

And that's that. The earplugs make a massive difference, much to Nico's surprise and Will's smug satisfaction, and from then on Nico starts to reconnect with himself and gets better and better at recognising things that make him more comfortable, and using them. Will considers his experiment over (a resounding success, of course), but is unwaveringly supportive and helpful as Nico figures stuff out.

Lol that became very long sorry, but it made me happy to write it out hehehe

[dsmprarepairbb]

i'm very excited for this as a rarepair enjoyer! this is a great thread on the subreddit that might be a good starting point to think of cut-off qualifications: https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/eohtgm/what_exactly_counts_as_a_rarepair/

while i'm very on board with this event, i think trying to say 'anything but dnf' can feel too targeted, and i don't think it's the intention at all, it might make people feel singled out or unwelcome here. for instance, i think karlnapity and quackbur are also ships that are worth disqualifying (and i say this as someone who loves those ships XD).

good luck with putting this together though! i know a lot of work goes into these things <3

I held onto this ask for a long time for a very specific reason: I really enjoy spreadsheets. I wanted to wait until after I had closed the interest check so I could go through all of the submitted ships so I could get some data to back up my reasoning.

And back up my reasoning it did.

A total of 75 ships (including DNF) were listed by people who said they were interested. I took all of these ships and looked them up on AO3. I decided to look at AO3 for this as this is going to be mostly about content creation, and I feel that utilizing the otp:true function helps a lot.

Of the 75 ships, 15 didn't show up on AO3 at all, no matter how much I looked. For the rest, however, I noted down the number of works both in the tag as a whole, and with the otp:true filter. I put this into a spreadsheet and generated a pie chart using the otp:true data that looks like this:

Due to this discrepancy, I feel that it is valid of me to make this current rarepair big bang only exclude DNF. I am retracting prior statements of excluding XDNF, as that ship was lower than I had thought. In the future, the list will be refined, but for now, the only ship excluded is DNF.

Further reasoning below the cut.

So, this is not the only chart that I did. I also did a pie chart of the unfiltered ships as well.

As you can see, this percentage is lower that otp:true, but you can still see that the gap is quite large. No other ship even compares. Also worth noting is that in this view, fics where a poly relationship is present can skew the results, as many chose to tag their fics not only with the poly ship, but also the individual pairings (or smaller groupings) of that ship.

I also generated a bar graph, but due to the amount of ships its very hard to read. The first label, DNF, is even pushed off the view so you can't see it, but I will attach it here anyways as reference.

yeah its...bad lol. Its so hard to read.

I am aware that in the link you put, there are multiple ways to go about this. As I said, in the future this will be changed. I am most likely going to make a tier list of sorts for these ships based on this data. Also, I did not calculate based off of percentage of fics in the fandom itself as so many of these fics are crossovers, and I felt it was a futile effort.

Also, for those curious, I'm going to post the data I collected just for funsies. The ones with a -1 were the 15 that didn't show up at all. They had to be denoted this way to ensure that they were sorted correctly. You can see that Karlnapity (#8) and quackbur (#4) are also listed!

(I also calculated what percentage of ships tagged like that were also true because I'm a nerd who likes writing formulas lmfao)

I love dnf! Its fun! But you gotta admit that its reach is significantly more than other ships'. Also a fun aside from a friend:

[magicratfingers]

Progress report ! ૮ ºﻌºა ✨ kind of a work-in-progress diary for myself. v indulgent.

intense world of dick terrifying - goin good! got a main character, some supporting characters, figuring out the big rivalry today. Gotta figure out a format. I was thinking of basing it off of the Day at the Airport book bc it's only about 11 spreads but there's a lot going on on each one. Could leave it a comic but I also want it to be printable hmm catnips cantrips chooseyer-by-mail test - learning a lot! the world-building has been reallllllly fun - like the kind of fun where you want to go a little deeper bc you like it not bc you have to. perfect situation. Gotta resolve the mix between the DM roleplay and the actual postcards. Made and branded a whole gmail account and character to handle lost postcards - Pizza Kentucky III of the Isekai Post Office. Haven't been keeping up with the blog. But the blog is supposed to be more of a holding container than a 'thing'. One thing I did not expect to be learning was spreadsheets. Keeping track of names and addresses and choices and paths has given me a new perspective on pacing and structure. Also? Been a great excuse to finally play with UV epoxy and it's so straightforward that I'm mad it took me so long. media thats not just webcomics - dunmeshi is out!!! Laios my beloved. Still afraid to find and read Kotteri's Veil bc it will make me too feelings. Started reading books I loved as a kid (Redwall!!!) and some story craft books (found an NPR list somewhere) WRHP s2 - started to feel like work but changing up the backgrounds freed me up, feels fun again Sorcerer comic - paused while I wait for fashion inspiration to pull the ending together Emotional support paladin - paused till I feel like it. It's got such a specific delivery style that I don't wanna force to get the story out, so i gotta wait for some story aspects to firm up Bonnie & Clawd - more of a character study than a comic - fun to practice cutie pies cuddling. But... how DO birds and wolves smooch. Saw a youtube video about how ravens and wolves are friends and work together. So perfect. Valentines day thing - got some supplies coming tomorrow, gonna try out my idea. If it works maybe sell it? If it doesn't work, oh well, probably will learn something. Wanted to make perforated cards and stickers but got a little overwhelmed thinking about printing. Might just do a digital thing if an idea comes to me. Been wanting to make holographic stickers but when I sit down to think of a motif it feels stressful. Maybe I just test the Poodle Broadcasting System logo? I've always loved the aesthetic of valentines day but never felt like it's been delivered right. I certainly never felt indulged - something is always a little not-cute or too-cutesy. Think it could be really fun to have it be an annual 'surprise box'. I lost my halloween fam in the schmivorce so I could use a holiday to go crazy on. (For years I would drive out and help build a whole haunted house in a garage and it was like a week-long party with great food and movies and laughs. Sad to lose it, sadder still to know it was so easy for them to lose me. ) Dishupon - ok not as many players and responses as I'd hoped. But that wasn't really the point. Point was to invent some sanrio-y characters for fun - which i did. And I will also say that the exercise of coming up with a variety of cozy, fun, silly, spicy ways to think about dishes has made MY dishes mostly effortless. Even made a little foam clay Tiger coach and he's sitting on the window above the sink. Perhaps I will think of a game to get my car inspection done.

Overall January is great. Granted, it's the 4th. Had my ten year work anniversary (idk how old everyone thinks I am but it's Not 20) and got to 1010 followers on twitter on the same day. And the new d20 is out on the 10th so that felt real nice and square. Bit worried that all the good vibes I built up over holiday vacay will get smashed when I'm put on a new work project. But i feel like I'm about to level up a little bit art-style wise. Feelin grateful, feelin warm & cozy

[sandalwoodbox]

Vidder asks: 12, 21, 27?

Thanks for asking!

(This is part of the Get to know the Vidder ask meme. See all my responses here and feel free to send me asks!)

12. Most underrated vid that you wished had gotten more views?

I'm going to say Stray Italian Greyhound for Dear Missy. I really like this vid because I think it most accurately summarizes what I see as the plot of the actual series - Lu Ke's journey to recognizing, accepting, and ultimately living her feelings for Shen Siyi. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out, and it can still fairly reliably make me tear up to watch. It's a really great show and more people should watch it! Even with the weird canonical straight ending it's pretty good tbh 🤣 it has things like men and women dating and breaking up and still being part of the same friend group 🤯 what a concept!

But personally I always advocate for just ignoring the heterosexuality in the last six episodes & just watching them for the bonus Lu Ke / Shen Siyi fluff.

21. How would you describe your vidding style?

Answered here with bonus "what is your vidding process" because I got distracted 😅

27. Advice for anyone just starting their channel?

I'm interpreting this to mean "advice for anyone starting out making fanvids"?

I'd say do what you want and don't expect anyone to see it. Exchanges (like Festivids) and cons (like VidUKon, Fanworks, or WisCon) are a great way to "force" people to watch your vids and not get criticism unless you want it. (YMMV - I am not sure what the experience of submitting to AMV contests is like, for example.)

I'd recommend using a modern fully-featured video editing program like Da Vinci Resolve from the beginning rather than something like iMovie - DVR is more complicated but makes it very easy to separate the vid itself from the source files. That is, you can move the files from your hard drive to a backup drive to free up space and work on something else, then put them back later if you want to go back to a previous fandom!

That said, if a low bar of entry is important, iMovie is also fine. Whatever works for you!

Bonus question 1 (from replies): How do you get ideas for vids?

It depends! Sometimes it comes from blorbos or otherwise loving a show such that I want to share it with other people. Other times it comes from frustration with something not being done the way I wanted in the show, or drawing out a theme that I think the show didn't fully explore. A large chunk of my vids are from Festivids, which is great because I can see what ideas other people have and then make treats for them if I'm excited about what they've suggested and think I have time to pull it off (which is usually only possible for movies and for shows I've already (mostly) clipped, in my experience.) From time to time I'll hear a song and think it's perfect for some character or concept, but I'll generally still end up spending a fair amount of time searching for other potential songs before I actually get started on the vid. More often I'll hear a song and think, that would make a fun vid but I don't know what for, so I stick it in a playlist that I go through every time I'm looking for potential vid songs.

If I have an idea for a vid, I write it down in a spreadsheet. I'll never make most of those ideas, either because I've moved on from the fandom or because I just ended up not liking it as much later. Here's a snippet of vids I will probably never make from my spreadsheet in case it's interesting:

Bonus question 2 (from replies): What makes a vid you're working on feel done to you?

I'm a bit of a perfectionist with my vids, so this can be tricky. I think I would say: Once I am satisfied that the clips on the timeline are doing what I want and there are no clips that I believe would be strictly better, I try to stop.

Overall my process is: I'll generally make a first draft that doesn't have things that feel obviously bad (but I might still have things I'm not satisfied with but don't know how to solve). I send that out for beta and work on other things in the meantime. Depending on how much I care about the vid / how uncertain I am about it, I might do multiple rounds of beta or send it to multiple betas at once.

Depending on the vid, I might do a pass specifically looking at clip timing or motion or color correction (for example, making sure dark scenes are possible to parse), or anything else that I particularly want to work well for the vid.

Once I have something that feels "final" I like to let it sit for a week to a month, then come back to it to see if there's anything else I notice that I'd want to change before calling it done.

But a lot of times I'm working on a deadline for an exchange or a con, which means that at some point I just have to stop and call it good enough.

By the time I'm done with a vid, I often no longer feel like I can tell whether it's good or not because I'm too deep in it, so I see things nobody else would. I can't necessarily tell how satisfied I'll be with a finished vid until 6-12 months after I've posted it. (So I try to keep that in mind if I'm agonizing over whether people will notice a cleancredits glitch that's only visible in the lower left corner of a clip for like 4 frames.)

I have a vidder friend who I can show things to at that point not for beta but just to ask, is there anything obviously wrong with this? Any reason I shouldn't post this? (The answer is usually: It's fine, just post it!)

[gyuluttony]

Camera Weight

oooh once again, if i'm not given something, i'm just going to keep pushing out the minwon mutual gain fics because something about them has my brain like hardwired rn sdfjhs i hope y'all don't get sick of me writing them in situations like this. i mainly write scenarios that get my rocks off so a lot of them are similar because i like this stuff SDFJS

As a warning, this is a feederism fic and features weight gain, mutual gaining, weight gain denial and dry humping. Don't like, don't read.

The setting for this one is that Wonwoo is an office worker who didn't end up going to the office post pandemic so works from home and Mingyu is a mukbanger. You can see where I'm going here.

Wonwoo closed the laptop that he had for work, making sure that the fake smile he wore stayed on for a couple of moments even after being aware that the camera was long hidden. When he heard the sound of the device powering down, he let out a sigh of relief.

Every work meeting was so tiring. He could only be so amused in seeing Seungkwan and Soonyoung butt heads and it seemed that Jihoon shared the same sentiment considering he looked just as tired when the meeting finished. When the team leads had such vast creative differences, it was a miracle any work could be done.

The miracle in question being named Jeon Wonwoo. Looking at his wristwatch, Wonwoo hurriedly pushed his laptop to the side as he started his home desktop, a set up that was used for much more important matters than organizing spreadsheets and data.

His phone buzzed and he saw Jihoon's contact name as well as a text: "Have fun on your date 😘" Wonwoo felt his face grow warm as he grimaced. Of course he would have slipped while drunk and accidentally confided one of his darkest secrets in a while to his best friend, but he didn't realize it was a free pass to jab at him whenever.

As his screen switched on, there was a small smile that came across his face as he opened Youtube, eager to see the face that he had grown a little parasocially attached to in the past couple of months. The wide smile of the other man pulled at the corners of his mouth as he watched him.

"Wow, it's like the turn out gets bigger for every live that I have!" He waved eagerly and Wonwoo shyly waved back at the screen, almost as if the other man could see him through it. Wonwoo reached for the bag that was at the side of his desk, pulling out his meal.

He had always been a peculiar case when it came to remembering to eat. In school, he had no problem with it because everyone around him ate around the same time but if there was no one to eat with, he just didn't feel the urge to. It was a rather atrocious habit to have but it didn't affect him all too much.

Until he got to work and working from home with his new position. Now, it wasn't out of the blue for him to work the whole day and spend his lunch playing games until Jihoon called him out for it because he was concerned at how much weight Wonwoo had lost in the past couple of months. He was well aware of his friend's habit when it came to eating so he recommended that tried just watching some mukbang streams on his lunch break so it was like he had company.

It was helpful actually! Slowly, he was remembering to eat and just eating properly in general. That was until he found Kimgyu. A mukbang channel that had grown in popularity around the time Wonwoo started paying attention. Originally, he just wanted to see what all the hype was about until he actually tuned in.

A fit, handsome young man who cooked meals for himself for videos and streamed his mukbangs afterwards. The meals he cooked looked good and honestly, Wonwoo admitted that the one making the meals looked even better so he became something of a dedicated fan.

"Today, I made a lot actually... I don't know if I can finish everything that's in here but we'll see." Wonwoo opened his own matching containers as he prepared to eat.

Did they mess up his order? It looked bigger than usual. As he popped a dumpling into his mouth, he shrugged it off since it tasted as good as it usually did. Kimgyu was rather popular for telling stories and anecdotes and realizing he shared a little too much on livestreams but the ditz factor was something that Wonwoo liked (and would rather die than admit).

Kimgyu slurped the noodles in his pan full of them and chewed while he read some responses, "Oh, you're going to get puffy if you're eating that much." A smile comes across his face, "Ah, you're talking about my face. I am getting a lot puffier in general though, don't you think?"

Wonwoo felt his face grow hot, watching Kimgyu show off his new belly in profile on the camera. It was starting to pooch out and he had barely eaten anything. That wasn't there when he first started watching him and... it was making him feel all sorts of things.

Squirming in his computer chair, Wonwoo felt the warmth spread into his system more as he listened, "I do work out still but honestly, I'm starting to explore dishes a lot more instead and I can only do so much cardio." There was a whining tone in Kimgyu's voice that sent shivers down Wonwoo's spine before he was interrupted. "Oh, but I think everyone's enjoying themselves lately it's fine!"

All the chat became a chorus asking why he came to that conclusion and Wonwoo was now hyperaware of the fat around his face, only making his pout more babylike. "I think everyone is just having better food these days! There's..." It was Kimgyu's turn to blush as the chat teased him and encouraged him to continue and he looked rather shy.

Wonwoo wiped his hands on his hoodie as he typed, 'There's what?'

The hand on Kimgyu's face hid a smile as he admitted, "You guys... need to make sure this stays between us. I'm not saying it in a mean way!" Wonwoo nodded, acting like it was a one-on-one conversation while he ate large bites of his rice bowl.

"There's a guy in my building and when I moved in a year ago, he was like... small. Which, there's nothing wrong with! But, he was around my height and I was worried like even the wind would blow him over. But, when I see him recently, he's gotten more sturdy so now, I think it's not like putting on weight is a bad thing."

The chat began to tease him and Kimgyu looked flustered as he explained hurriedly, "I- I mean he's always looked good but he looks even better n- I think I'm just going to stop talking about it." Stuffing his face with a large mouthful of noodles, Kimgyu stated, "So, don't worry about me getting puffy! I'm eating well."

The stream continued and Wonwoo was left wondering why he was feeling the most turned on he's felt in a while. Was... Kimgyu into guys that put on weight? It was one thing to know that he was into guys but it was another that it was a possible fetish as to why he had been getting bigger recently.

Wonwoo opened some videos after the stream, looking at the videos he found when he located Kimgyu's channel for the first time. His arm muscles were bulging because he admitted to doing cooking videos after his workouts. His pecs were large and firm, always making their presence known in his clothes and his ass was doing the same down lower.

But, in the recent videos, these same clothes showed just how much he had been enjoying those meals. Gone was the small waist that Wonwoo drooled over on a couple of occasions, replaced with something that was burgeoning with fat and pressing into his shirt by the end of his streams. At the end of today's, he could have sworn he saw golden skin spill out of the fabric and his hand slipped under his pants to stroke himself at the thought. He had been eating himself bigger everyday and let his massive internet fanbase know about it.

It was hard not to pay attention after. Seeing the way his gut was starting to rest on counters while he was mixing, making the appendage jiggle. Wonwoo couldn't really say that he was only watching because he needed the company to eat. He was watching because he was getting his rocks off on seeing Kimgyu get fatter with each passing week.

From the shots that lingered on his ass that only got wider and stretching the seams of his pants with each and every video or the belly that was no longer able to be contained in shirts, he was going to sleep to the sound of Kimgyu's voice, giving directions on how to cook kimchi fried rice that does good in a caloric deficit while his body showed itself to be in a heavy surplus.

He was still eating with him during the mukbang streams but Wonwoo found himself eating a lot longer considering Kimgyu's portion sizes were growing each time as well. But, it was hard not to get side tracked as he moaned about how full he was, even slipping his hand under his shirt to rub the bloated belly that Wonwoo had pictured plenty of times before seeing white in his vision.

It was a little upsetting he missed the final livestream celebration for his two million subscriber milestone. He was working overtime on a project and most people could sense the grumpy energy from Wonwoo as he typed away at his computer in the office.

"Yo." Jihoon's easygoing gesture was met with a rather cold side eye that would have swayed anyone away. Unfortunately for Wonwoo, Jihoon was well aware that Wonwoo just looked like that and it wasn't pointed... mostly.

"Remind me to never let Seungkwan and Soonyoung lead a project again." A chuckle comes from his friend, laughing at his misery. "Well, this was one of the company's biggest successes in a while so I have some bad news for you."

Wonwoo's groan must have been music to Jihoon's ears at the way his laughter sounded so triumphant before he said, "Let's go grab dinner. We're free tonight from their hell temporarily."

His original plan was to watch the stream VOD while getting dinner but he missed his friend so he shut down the computer after a couple of moments, making sure everything was in check. "Okay, your treat."

Wonwoo wasn't a heavyweight per say, but he definitely could handle his alcohol. He was prepared to get even with Jihoon constantly teasing him about his parasocial boyfriend and he had to hold his tongue at the way he was watching him put on weight over the past couple of months and the amount of things he's done to those videos.

So, using his wallet to get drunk and eat whatever he wanted was payback enough. Jihoon rolled his eyes as Wonwoo got out of his car with a little difficulty, stumbling from the alcohol he drank and the food that he ate. "Maybe mukbangs were a bad influence because I don't think any person should have that much food in one sitting."

Wonwoo smiled as he stuck his tongue out, "Sucks. You offered to pay." Jihoon smiled as he muttered some curses, "Get upstairs safely!" He drove off after watching Wonwoo enter the building but in the lobby, it was really starting to hit him how much he drank.

He felt himself swaying before something supported him. It was large and sturdy. "Are you okay? You're not walking straight and I saw you almost fall while going to the elevator."

Wonwoo hummed in response, "Mm, I'm fine. Just had a lot to drink so thanks for ca-" The words got caught in his throat when his eyes focused and he saw the face that was staring at him.

"Kimgyu-" The words left his mouth before he could realize and both of them looked rather flustered by the admission so plainly. Wonwoo moved away, albeit somewhat shaky and Kimgyu saw the movement before moving back, his hand placed at Wonwoo's waist, "Sorry, I'm not used to being called that in real life. Just call me Mingyu and... let me help you up."

His fans were right because the puppy dog eyes that were pleading were near lethal to him at this moment in time as Wonwoo conceded, "Thanks." Mingyu's smile was wide as he moved Wonwoo's arm around his broad shoulders and supported him the whole way.

It was a difficult trip considering Wonwoo was going insane feeling the immense presence of the man next to him and the realization that they lived in the same building. He felt Mingyu's belly pressing into his side and saw it sway in his peripheral with each step they took and they ended up in the elevator.

Mingyu awkwardly chuckled, "Y'know, it doesn't hit me that people know me until they say my username but thank you for your support..." He trailed off, almost expectant before Wonwoo nearly facepalmed, "Ah, my name's Wonwoo. Sorry, I was..."

"Starstruck?" Mingyu's smile was charming which was doing no favours considering Wonwoo was oogling the body that was lingering a little close to him.

Wonwoo sighed, a smile on his face, "Trying not to fall." Mingyu looked flustered that his attempt at flirting fell through before Wonwoo added, "And maybe a little." He could practically see a tail wagging from behind the other man before the elevator arrived at his floor.

He was feeling a little better already because the shock helped him sober up but as the door open, Mingyu was ready to head to his floor before Wonwoo asked. "Did... you want to come to my apartment? I'm sure there's something I can share with you."

He stepped out in case the invitation was declined and Mingyu smiled as he followed, "I know all I do on stream is eat but you don't have to offer me food." His stomach gurgled as he flushed, "But, I wouldn't say no."

Wonwoo chuckled warmly as they entered his apartment.

Despite the first time meeting, it was easy to talk to Mingyu. Wonwoo even surprised himself by saying why he started watching his videos in the first place and Wonwoo looked amused as he looked at the other man sitting next to him on the couch.

"Woah, are you crying? It's not that sad though?"

"Hyung, stop teasing me! It just makes me happy that I could help..." A sniffle broke the silence before Wonwoo laughed warmly, patting Mingyu on the shoulder.

"It's fine! I've gotten to eat regularly... just like you have been." A gentle pat on Mingyu's stomach that pressed into his lap. It was more sinful in person as he looked at the result of months of indulgence on the other man. His muscle was still there but there was a majority of fat that rested on his body.

Mingyu looked at him with a different expression as he leaned in closer and Wonwoo was ready to receive that body pressing against his. Although he froze when he felt a hand on his stomach and squeezed it, now aware of the excess fat that was on his own body.

Mingyu stopped, almost concerned at the reaction while Wonwoo rebooted, "Is it alright?"

Wonwoo moved his hand to Mingyu's, now aware of the spread of his gut as he stated quietly, "I... didn't realize I had gotten so big."

Mingyu seemed to be taken aback by the statement before the same look in his eyes popped up as he asked, "Where's your bathroom?" Wonwoo pointed to the closed door as he was flustered from standing so quickly as Mingyu took him.

Taking him to the mirror, Wonwoo stood in front while Mingyu stood behind him, feeling his gut pressing against the curve of his back as he took in the sight.

Everything was making more sense now. Why he was eating longer during Mingyu's streams. Why he took longer in the shower while cleaning himself. Why the bottom of his stomach felt cold when brushing his teeth. Why the floors creaked if he walked quickly to get his take out that he ordered. Why he got out of breath when taking the stairs for his one day a week at work.

He had gotten fat. Mingyu's hands cupped his belly and he gasped, "Remember when I said I was looking at the guy who got bigger? I was talking about you, hyung." Lifting his belly, the sound of the clothed protruding body part echoed in the bathroom as Wonwoo whimpered.

"It was one thing that you didn't even know you were getting bigger but this? You even burst a button and didn't even know." Mingyu's hand slipped into the gap of his button down that he didn't notice until now. Did Jihoon notice when this happened? Is that why he looked at him funnily after he ordered more food? Was the proof of his gluttony somewhere in the restaurant they went to?

Mingyu's hands played with Wonwoo's fat body as he whimpered from the touch. "Hyung, I did this by choice." He brought Wonwoo's hands to his own belly as he groaned, feeling Mingyu press him against the counter with their combined weight.

"But you? You did this without even realizing. Look how massive you are everywhere." Mingyu's hands roamed around Wonwoo's body, making him more aware of the fat that bulged all over him. His moobs that rested on his gut. They were properly rivaling Mingyu's and he moaned when the other man squeezed them.

"You won't ever fit into this again." Mingyu pulled the button down apart, ripping the buttons off as they were freed from the strain of Wonwoo's fat body as he braced himself on the counter, so horny it was hard to stand up. His plump ass ground into Mingyu's crotch, eliciting a sigh of pleasure from him before he felt Mingyu's hands on his waist, sinking into the fat as his belly pressed onto Wonwoo's back, gurgling from the snacks that he had filled up on.

Wonwoo looked in the mirror and saw how much they had both blown up in the past couple of months as the apex of his belly felt cool from the counter it was squishing against, spilling nearly all over the sink area as Mingyu grinded his crotch into Wonwoo's wide ass.

It was hard to last long when realizing just how much he had blown up and all the praise Mingyu was feeding him. He was already stuffed full of food and memories of how much he had done it before, rubbing his gut not even aware of how much his computer chair creaked after each meal because it was starting to strain to hold Wonwoo's obese body. He felt Mingyu convulse as the cloth now sounded wet and Wonwoo felt himself release at the realization that Mingyu was so turned on by how fat he was and how he felt their combined weight with his awareness and the way Mingyu jiggled as he rode out his high.

Catching their breaths, Mingyu clutched Wonwoo's stomach as it got a shuddering sigh from the other man.

"So, should I expect a guest for my next mukbang?"

[power-handmaiden]

Day 167: Sentient Lesbian Jet Ski Gets Me Off

It's the first lesbian tingler! I've gone out of my chronological reading order for a few of them but this is actually the first one. And, you don't need my fancy spreadsheet of tinglers in listed publication order to know that's the case- the story spells it out very clearly.

I'm so glad tinglers have expanded into my preferred pound. The reason I've found myself reading so much man-on-man in the past is because I like erotica that is not afraid to be strange and unabashedly HORNY, and historically I've had an easier time finding that when I expand outside my own sexual preference. Dr. Tingle has expressed that he had some reservations about writing "ladybuck-on-ladybuck" stories and... I've observed that he's clearly not alone in this. Plenty of other women shy away from writing lesbian erotica or make it more soft and euphemistic than what they write between men. (Sorry if it comes across like I'm shaming individual stylistic choices here, but I feel that there's a larger trend that's worth examining in more detail than I'm getting into right now, even if it would never be my place to tell individual writers "HEY, BE MORE HORNY.")

Thankfully, Dr. Tingle's writing in this one has all of the playful sexuality of other erotic tinglers. His hesitation on writing a woman-only tingler is blatantly a part of it, but thankfully he moves past it by the time things get sexual, and there's even that creative living object action I love with this kind of tingler. It's good fun, but I'm glad I skipped out of order to read other lesbian tinglers before this one, because I can see that after this one Dr. Tingle is going to become a lot more comfortable writing the kind of stuff I want to read the most.

[scribefindegil]

71?

71. When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

A big old messy scratchdoc!! I try to use headings to keep the information somewhat organized, but they work best if I let them stay pretty sprawling. It's usually something like:

Top section: What are The Themes? Why am I writing this story? Are there important symbols or visual motifs I want to keep track of? Are there reminders to myself that I want to see frequently to bring myself back into focus (re: tone, characterization, types of description or details to focus on)?

Character Section: I don't always do this, but for big fics or things with a large ensemble cast I usually lay out each important character, the basis of their arc/conflict, and how they contribute thematically to the story. If it's AU or set post-canon or there are other reasons that information about the character would be different from their canon counterpart, I note it here.

Reference section: Any specific research I've done for the fic. Lists of things like minor characters' names, descriptions of settings or OCs, etc.

Revelation List: I stole this from DMing advice blogs, but any time there are mystery elements to a fic I always lay out the Revelations (what the characters need to learn) and the specific clues or circumstances they encounter that allow them to reach those conclusions. Do they find and interpret evidence? Do they get information from another character? Do they do research? Even if I don't plan out all the details of the plot, I need to understand how the characters are going to reach each of the Revelations or I'm going to get stuck.

Timelines: I don't always do these either; it really depends on the fic, but if there's a specific chronology I need to keep track of (or a secret structure that would get lost in the full outline) I try to write it down

The Plot: Finally!! The actual outlining part! I start by writing bullet point versions of the events I know will happen (I usually have a pretty strong sense of the beginning and climax of a fic by this point, even if I still have a bunch of fine-tuning to do) and then work backwards or forwards to fill in the gaps. If it's a mystery fic (and most of my longer fic has at least some mystery elements) I refer back to the Revelations list to make sure I have scenes that cover all the necessary Leads and Revelations to get the characters to the endpoint.

Snippets: For certain scenes, the outline version doesn't accurately capture the Vibe I'm going for, so I have a section at the end where I write quick, tiny, scaffolding-style first drafts. These usually have almost no relation to what the final scene actually looks like, but it's about pinning down the idea and the atmosphere.

These documents are really big and messy and I usually need to go back and edit them as I go, because my original ideas inevitably undergo some shifts as I figure things out, but that's the fun of it!

It has to be the right type of fic to make this worth it, but sometimes I'll also do a scene-level outline in an Excel spreadsheet, with columns for Scene, POV Character, Location, Characters Present, Events, Reactions, and Plot-Important Info. This is good for super plotty/mystery-heavy fics and fics with big ensembles that I can't keep track of other ways. I have an enormous and beautiful outline in this style for the Owl House Tam Lin AU which I do still want to write someday, bc while I didn't end up loving TOH as a whole I do love a lot of the characters, and also we came up with possibly the best plot twist of my life involving 400 years of moon phase records so. It's on the back burner but it's still on the stove, as it were. And the good thing is that because I have such an exhaustive outline it will be easy for me to pick back up at any time if I want to!

[abidethetempest]

Eliksni Conlang Progress

Velask! this is my first progress post, hopefully the first of many! i have been really waffling on whether or not i wanted to even share any early content yet, but then i realized that was really just me being scared to show off my art and i'm not about that shit (plus i want to have a record of my progress to look back on)!!! so i'm gonna show off my art >:DDDD

so here's most of what i have now! beware, very long post below the cut:

Phonology

i hope to god tumblr didn't totally cronch that image. so yeah this is the rough phonology, emphasis on rough. full disclosure, everything i know about the IPA i learned for this project like a week ago. i'm a total noob, and i'm sure an experienced conlanger or linguist would look at this and their soul would exit their body in horror or smth equally dramatic. but in my defense, i did have to work backwards to build this based on existing material instead of making it all myself, so it was a lot more restrictive and difficult.

Short Vowels

ɪ: i

e: e

æ: a

ə: e or a (always unstressed)

ʊ: u

ɑ: aa

Long Vowels

i: ii

ɔ: o (primarily used before r)

Diphthongs:

eɪ: written as “ey” or “eh”

eə, written as “eyr” (pretty much exclusively seen paired with r, which is the reason for that spelling)

aɪ, written as “ei”

oʊ, written as “oh”

these diphthongs are used to represent a number of sounds that canonical sources do not differentiate between in writing. There might have been a way to do this using rules for pronounciation instead, but it was honestly so frustrating to think i had nailed down a good rule only to find one or two exceptions that i just decided to chuck canon out the window and make some damn diphthongs.

(if you don't know/understand the IPA, I highly recommend checking out this video for a great overview)

Phonotactics

this is also a very rough draft version, doubly so since the only person who has to care abt writing/speaking Eliksni rn is me. but this is my current basis for how i make, pronounce, and write words. i will definitely clean this up if/when i start making guides on using Eliksni, but it makes do for now.

C^3VC^3

Onset: all phonemes

Nucleus: all vowels/diphthongs

Coda: all consonants including clusters

stress on first syllable in most two syllable words

in three syllable words, stress on second syllable if it contains a k or a long vowel/diphthong

stress never on prefix

single "i" is short if surrounded by other letters and long if left open on either side. "ii" is always long and is written that way in words where it is surrounded by letters. Words that start with single i will be spelled with ii if they are compounded with another word. ex) ikrim (time), draiikrim (forever, lit. “all time”)

Consonant Cluster Rules

I only have rules for clusters of two so far, but I am going to flesh out the rules for three-consonant clusters soon since a few of those have cropped up in my lexicon building exercises. The chart for these is in an earlier post if you want to see it all color-coded and whatnot

C: can only pair with H to for CH, all romanizations using C in place of K are done so for aesthetic purposes (i only preserved the use of C as an occassional K because I like how it looks in romanizations, the actual Eliksni alphabet will never substitute C for K)

H: can only precede another consonant as part of the vowel in the nucleus, except for Y (functionally, H being attached to a vowel makes it part of that vowel, but i wanted to highlight this feature to make it very clear that H cannot precede another consonant on its own)

J: never pairs with another consonant. (i wasnt even going to include J as a sound in Eliksni, but there had to be two (2) damn canon names w J in them so i felt a little obligated)

Y: functioning as a consonant, Y cannot pair with any other consonant.

Z: never pairs with another consonant at beginning

Making this bigass chart was unironically so fun. i love you spreadsheets <3 i love you color coding <3 no i am not neurotypical why do you ask

Syntax

VSO 

verb-adverb

adposition-noun

possessor-possessee

Noun-adjective

thats it lmao! i'm not even sure if this is gonna stay the same, the only sentences i've written so far have been very basic and all like 3 words long. this is definitely an aspect i am expecting to change a lot over time as I refine how i want things to flow.

Stop! Grammar Time!

(i've waited three years to make that dumb joke lol sorry)

unfortunately grammar itself is no joke.

these are the affixes for conjugating verbs in Eliksni. There are 3 tenses currently (if anyone saw that post I made a few days ago abt the second past tense, i do still plan to implement it, just haven't had the time to think of affixes for it or decide how i really want it to work)

For the sake of time and bc this post is,,,, really damn long already, I won't be including the example conjugations i did here. might make a separate post with that so i can also show off how the mood markers work.

speaking of...

Mood time! i will readily admit this shit kinda confuses the heck outta me, though i understand the basics at least in theory. Some are more intuitive for me, like the imperative and interrogative. i might even drop the subjunctive, although i do want to at least try to grasp it first. Also shout out to the imperative for being irregular bc of ✨worldbuilding reasons✨, we love to see it.

and FINALLY

Noun case markers! Something my time learning German actually prepared me for!

There are only two cases in Eliksni, nominative and accusative. All other situations where other cases like dative or genitive would be used will be done periphrastically using prepositions and such. I was inspired by the lack of gendered third-person-pronoun in Mando'a, which is why there is one pronoun to refer to someone in the third person regardless of gender. If gender absolutely need be specificed, an adjective corresponding to their gender (ie: masculine, feminine, nonbinary, etc) is used.

and that's what i've got after about a week's worth of progress! for the sake of good recordkeeping, the date at the time of writing this post is 7-12-23.

feel free leave any thoughts (but please be gentle! i'm very new to this)!