#Negative Option Programs

[nationallawreview]

FTC Finalizes “Click-to-Cancel” Rule

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has finalized amendments to the Negative Option Rule, now retitled the “Rule Concerning Recurring Subscriptions and Other Negative Option Programs“ (“Rule”), which represents a significant overhaul of the regulatory framework governing how companies handle subscription services and automatic renewals. Over the years, the FTC has received numerous complaints…

[once-ina-blue-moon]

tfw you go through an entire day waiting for meetings/calls/people to get back to you just to find 30 minutes before you were supposed to do any given thing that it’s been cancelled so now you’ve wasted the better part of your day waiting & preparing for stuff that didn’t even end up happening and now you have work you have to be doing instead of doing something else that’s actually enjoyable . 🙂

[solarsturniolo]

𝕾𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖞: in which Matt is failing his classes and at risk of having to repeat the semester, and his tutor is the reason behind it.

𝕯𝖎𝖘𝖈𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖗: This is a collaborative story that me and another person started on, but I am in charge of it now :) All characters in this story are of age. None of the characters are minors.

𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘: cursing / smut / switch!matt / switch!fem reader / male masturbation / wet dreams / use of good boy / virgin!matt / p in v / oral (fem receiving) / oral (male receiving) / overstimulation / breeding kink / praise kink / mommy kink / scenes mentioning anxiety

𝖂𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝕮𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖙: 5,906

Other Parts: Intro / One / Two / Three / Four /

“W-Wait, what?” Matt’s eyes widened, his eyebrows raising. “What do you mean I might not be able to graduate?”

The school counselor sighed, lifting her glasses from the bridge of her nose and placing them onto her desk. She leaned back in her plush swivel chair, looking at the nervous boy sitting across from her. Her office was comforting, a place that Matt had found solace in quite often on his bad days. She never used the overhead light, always opting for the warm glow of her floor lamps and the flicker of light from the flame in a scented candle. Her bookshelves were littered with not only books, but numerous knick-knacks and do-hickeys. Most people would have seen it as clutter, but Matt found comfort in the items she had, which more or less reminded him of his grandmother’s house.

She turned her monitor for him to see, and she visibly saw the blood drain from his face. Her screen glowed with a much harsher light, the gradebook showing Matt’s transcript laid out in front of him. “You’re proficient in your American History class, but the rest of your classes for the semester are in the gutter. Socioeconomics, U.S. Government, European Literature, and Chemistry are all greatly negatively impacting your overall grade point average.” Matt’s head fell, his hands coming up to rub his face. How could I have let it get this bad? How could I be so negligent? How was it even possible? She clasped her hands together and leaned forward, resting her arms on her desk. She had grown to like Matt, he was polite and always greeted her with a smile, he was very open with his thoughts and feelings, and he really did work hard. She empathized with him, because she knew how it felt to be in this spot. “This is a reversible situation - we can fix this. You have options, Matt.”

Matt looked up from his lap, his hands falling onto his thighs. “W-We can?”

“Yes,” she replied with a smile. She swirled her chair around, unlocking one of the drawers in her filing cabinet and opening it to reveal a number of filing folders. She fingered through them before pulling out a sheet, turning her chair back towards her desk and placing it down in front of Matt. “We have a tutoring program available, and I think you would benefit greatly from it.”

“Tutoring?” Matt frowned, staring down at the paper. He never thought in his life that he would need tutoring. How embarrassing. I’m doing so bad in my classes that I need another student to teach me. What if I know them? What if they tell everybody? Matt looked back up at the counselor, hesitation clear on his face. “Are there any other options?”

She sighed, putting her glasses back on and turning the monitor to face her once again. Matt watched intently as she clicked her mouse a few times. Matt instinctively brought his hand to his face, subconsciously beginning to chew on his nails. I can’t choose tutoring. Chris and Nick will never let me hear the end of it. This is so embarrassing. Can’t I just retake a test or something? Why did I let it get this bad?

“Unfortunately, the only other option I have here is for you to retake these classes again…which would also mean repeating senior year.”

Matt hadn’t realized he had chewed his nail off. He dropped his hand back to his lap, discreetly spitting it out when she wasn’t looking at him. “I’ll take the tutoring,” Matt sighed. The thought of not graduating with Nick and Chris made him feel queasy. His stomach turned over just thinking about his brothers walking across that stage while he sat in the audience and watched. His brothers holding their diplomas up with cheesy smiles on their faces for their pictures that would surely be framed and hung on the walls of their parents’ house for the remainder of their lives; all while Matt would have to wait another year to meet the same fate. Another year of high school, this time without his brothers. Without Chris to make him laugh, to make the day move by just a little quicker. Without Nick, who always looked out for Matt, always offering to ask the teacher any questions that Matt had to take the heat off of him, to avoid any anxiety inducing feelings that Matt might have had. I can’t do it. I wouldn’t last a day without them. Any chance to avoid that outcome is one he would take, no questions asked.

x o x o x o

I should have asked some fucking questions. Matt’s heart pounded as he pretended to look at something on his phone, switching between his social media apps anxiously; not that any of them were bustling with activity, he just needed something to make himself look busy. She was here. I wasn’t prepared to see her. Holy fuck.

For the past four years, Monday through Friday, once the bell rang after the final class of the day, Matt had booked it for the locker room. Shuffling through a crowd of boys, shoving Chris (and getting shoved right back), listening to a variety of music through his headphones, and throwing on his gear for lacrosse or hockey. Today, however, he sat awkwardly in the school library, leg bouncing, chewing at the skin around his pinky fingernail. His airpods tucked away in his pocket. No music to drown out his thoughts. Why didn’t I ask more questions? I can’t do this; I can’t be here with her. This can’t be happening. She…looks so pretty.

Across from him, a few tables over, she sat on the table itself, cross-legged and completely at ease. A light blue sweater hung off her shoulders, a pair of khaki cargos crinkled over her legs, worn-out white air forces, and a pair of hoop earrings rounded out the simple, gut-wrenching outfit.

Matt hated feeling this way. She drove him insane, and she had no idea who he was. That was a lie - they had a few classes together. Incidentally, those same classes glowed red in the gradebook. It didn’t take him very long to figure out why.

For the past four years, Matt had walked into school every morning hoping in equal measure that she had shown up and that she had suddenly become homeschooled. Every single class, he would stare at the door just hoping he’d catch a glimpse of her, whether she was walking into the classroom or just passing by in the hallway. He knew where to look for her in the hallways between classes, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel his heart rate pick up when he’d see her in the flood of other students chaotically herding through the halls.

Now she was his tutor. She was the reason he was failing, and she was his tutor. His counselor had no way of knowing, but she had just doomed Matt to repeat senior year. He was not about to sit down with that girl and make a complete idiot out of himself.

Lifting his backpack and hooking the strap over his shoulder, he got up and turned for the door. At that moment she looked up from her book, her eyes locking with his, and he froze.

Her hair fell softly along the edges of her face, and she looked at him with mild curiosity. Matt’s breath hitched in his throat. Years of her never even noticing me, and now she’s looking at me and…smiling. Oh god.

Don’t you dare fuck this up, he heard Chris whisper in the back of his mind. “Fuck off,” he muttered and began to walk towards her.

“Is this where I’m supposed to be for uh…” He didn’t want to say it. Normally people would jump in and finish sentences anyway to avoid uncomfortable silences. She did not. She just continued to look at him with minimal interest, her smile growing a little in amusement. Oh god. This isn’t happening. Somebody please pinch me. Or shoot me.

Matt felt the heat rising to his face, his breath catching in his throat as she stared at him. “Tutoring. I’m here for tutoring.”

She slipped a bookmark between the pages of the book she was reading and pulled a knee up to her chest. Matt caught a glimpse of the cover of the novel, furrowing his eyebrows a bit. A hockey player? I play hockey. Should I say that? Does she like hockey players? Lacrosse is like hockey… in some ways. Lacrosse season is coming up. Should I-

“You’re Matt, right? One of the triplets?”

Matt blinked. “Yeah.”

She smiled again, placing her book down onto the table. Icebreaker? Matt made a mental note to look that up later. “I think we share a few classes, right?”

“We have Socioeconomics, European Literature, and Chemistry together, and when Chorus comes into the auditorium to practice, I run the soundboard for you. You took Workshop with me and Chris, and I could never focus on a single project me and him had together. We had Math and Introduction to Culinary together last year, all of our electives the year before that, and in ninth grade you were in my home room and study hall. You’ve always been in my lunch block, and you like to eat out in the courtyard under the willow tree far away from the picnic benches. You’re in the photography and Yearbook club because you love to take pictures, and you also run the school’s yearbook account on Instagram. You never get breakfast because it hurts your stomach to eat in the mornings but if you forgot to have dinner the night before, you’ll go through the line in the cafeteria and get an old-fashioned donut and a cup of mixed fruit. You prefer peppermint gum over spearmint, you always wear shimmer lip gloss instead of clear, you chew on your lip when you’re thinking really hard, you write sloppily when taking notes, but your papers are written in cursive. You’re terrifyingly beautiful, and I’ve wanted to talk to you for four years.”

That’s what Matt thought about saying. Instead of opting for that particular route of social suicide, however, he simply went with, “Yeah, I think we have one or two together, right?” and sat his bag down.

Don’t fuck this up. You cannot fuck this up.

x o x o x o

“Ms. Coleman said you were behind in some classes,” she said, pulling out her laptop from her bag. “Which ones?”

‘All of them’, He thought to himself. Matt sighed, running a hand through his messy hair. “What am I not behind in?” he mumbled.

She looked up at him through her lashes. Matt felt his stomach twist up in knots. He had imagined her looking at him like this more times than he could count. Usually late at night when he was in bed, his hand wrapped around his cock, his eyes screwed shut as he bit back soft whines and whimpers as his arousal leaked into his fist. He couldn’t help but feel his pants tightening around his crotch as filthy thought after filthy thought played in his head.

She smiled at him again, and Matt suddenly realized that she had been speaking. His stomach dropped. “S-Sorry, what?” he stammered. She laughed softly, a sound that made Matt’s heart leap up into his throat. “I asked if you could be a little more specific.”

Matt cleared his throat. “Um, Government, English, Socioeconomics, and Chem.” He looked down at his hands in his lap, the thoughts from earlier looming over him. I won’t graduate. Mom will be so disappointed. Dad won’t speak to me for a year. Chris and Nick will move on in life without me. She probably thinks I’m an idiot. Who the fuck fails almost every class in their last semester?

He could have sworn he felt his heart come to a full stop when he felt her hand on his shoulder, his head snapping up in an instant. “Hey,” she cooed as Matt met her gaze once more. “We’ll fix this. We have four months until graduation. You have time.”

Yeah, time to spend my afternoons drooling over you and retaining no information. Four months to sit here and gawk at you every fucking afternoon while my grades continue to plummet. Four months of me rushing home after these tutor sessions to beat off before Nick and Chris get home from their after school extra curriculars. Either way, I’m failing this semester.

“Why don’t we start with English, hm? I’m in that class with you, third period. We have a paper due on Friday.” She opened her laptop, pressing the power button repeatedly. Matt swallowed the lump in his throat – fuck. The paper… he was hoping to avoid it altogether. Sensing his hesitation, she raised her eyebrows. “Have you started it?”

Matt blinked. He licked his lips, suddenly noticing how dry they were. “...No.”

“Me neither,” she grinned, and Matt felt his shoulders relax. She had a beautiful smile, and it so rarely appeared on the Somerville High property, even less so in the classes they’d shared. It made him wonder what else he could do or say to make it stay for longer.

“It’s okay,” she continued, tapping away at her keyboard, urging the ancient relic to awaken and let her log on. “We can write it together.”

“Yeah, sure…together,” he said, taking out his own laptop, proud that he had enough focus to keep his hands steady. He wanted to make her smile again, but he hadn’t the faintest idea how. Matt also wanted to crawl into the floor and sleep for an eternity, but his wishes seemed to have no substance. His grades did, and more than anything, he knew he wouldn’t forgive himself if he made Chris and Nick leave him behind. Punctuating his thoughts with a deep sigh, Matt pulled up the assignment rubric. “Three pages, double spaced - that’s not bad - third page sources cited…” As he scanned the page, she, still waiting on her dinosaur of a computer to come to life, leaned closer to him to see for herself.

Her perfume. Waves of vanilla with floral notes. Undertones of musk. It was strong but intoxicating. Matt used every ounce of self-control to not turn towards her and inhale as much of it as he could. She had been using this perfume for the past three years, and Matt had become obsessed with it. He was like a stoner catching a whiff of weed, he could identify it from a mile away. He could sniff her out like a bloodhound if he really wanted to. Matt begged his brain to behave.

It didn’t.

The aching in his pants grew. Matt pulled his hoodie down to cover his lap, he could not let her see what she did to him. He felt his face heat up as embarrassment flooded his brain. Still, his cock remained half hard and his balls felt heavy with arousal. Despite knowing how wrong it was, he wanted nothing more than to rub one out. Matt used every iota of his self-control to focus on puling the assignment up on his computer. One hour. I just need to get through this one hour.

x o x o x o

“How long have you been tutoring?” Matt wanted to know more about her. It was a near-feverish affliction that kept his leg bouncing continuously, releasing nervous energy at speeds that could power the entire city of Boston.

She didn’t look up at him, pulling up the assignment on her computer. “I started last year…gave me a chance to get out of Johnson’s eighth period. Do you know why you’re falling behind in Philosophy?”

Matt didn’t hear her question at all. The stickers on her laptop were incredibly distracting - he caught a glimpse of Homer Simpson, the Monster logo, a few Pokémon, numerous band logos, Marilyn Monroe, a sick vaporwave statue head, and a plethora of raccoons. I like raccoons. Now is probably not the best time to tell her that. “Huh?”

She glanced over through her lashes, and Matt felt his air supply vaporize. “I asked why you’re failing.”

Because you walk into the room and I forget how to speak my own damn language. Because I want to talk to you so bad, but my throat closes up when you look at me. Because when you smile it makes my legs heavy…But more than anything, because I want you in ways that I have never wanted anyone before, and it is all that I can think about. No matter where I am at or who I am with, you manage to take over every thought in my head. Movie nights with my brothers where I can drown out the movie, daydreaming of what you might look like waking up next to me in one of my shirts. Dinner with my family, wondering if you like whatever it is that we’re eating that night. In the shower, wondering what your routine is like. Late nights in my room, the door locked and the lights off, clothes discarded onto the floor, my hand tugging at my cock. You are always there. You’re the reason why I’m failing, and you don’t even know it.

Matt settled on, “It’s hard to focus in there.” Not a lie. But not even close to the truth.

She nodded. “She talks in circles sometimes.” A pause made his eyes dart up to hers, terrified that he’d missed something again. But no, she was…studying him.

Her head tilted slightly, and her hazy eyes rested on his. He wondered what she was thinking about, and something primitive in his mind was screaming at him to hide. He felt vulnerable, weak under her gaze. His cock throbbed. Matt did his best to bite back the soft groan that fought to escape his throat.

“I think you might just need a body double.”

He blinked.

She continued. “The classes you’re failing, those are the only ones you don’t have with one of your brothers or your other friends, right?”

Matt nodded, wondering how she could possibly know that. He bookmarked that thought for later.

“Well, your brain probably knows that they expect you to do your work, and you don’t want to let them down, so the work gets done. Not in English or History, apparently. So, I’m your body double. And I expect you to do your work.” She grinned. “It’s corny as fuck but you’d be surprised how much you get done. Ready to start?”

Matt decided to process that particular heap of information later. “Yeah, sure.”

“I’m sending you my sources. You know how to cite them?”

His brain couldn’t register her words. It all made sense, but his brain felt too fuzzy to put the pieces together. “Sources, right. Y-Yeah, I uh…yes.”

“Good boy,” she purred. Matt nearly choked, his dick now fully hard. There’s no way she just said that. She gestured to his keyboard, and Matt began to shakily type the name of the website he needed into the search bar. Maybe I just imagined it…It’s been a weird day. Matt could feel her gaze burning into his skin like the heat of a thousand suns. His heart was lodged in his throat, he had begun manually breathing, not wanting his breaths to sound too heavy or too short.

Her hands kept brushing his arm, and Matt realized if he wasn’t careful, she would notice the way his face turned a bright red when she touched him, or worse… she’d see the bulge that could barely even be hidden by his hoodie. He turned away from her, pretending to look for something in his bag. “I um…thanks.”

“Go ahead and read those, throw all the relevant information into a messy doc, and then let me know when you’re done, okay?” Matt looked up and she leaned once more against the concrete column behind her, earbuds in, typing away in her own empty doc for the same assignment. He glanced at the stickers on her laptop, eyeing the one in the dead center with the name of a band he had never heard of. I wonder what she’s listening to. Would she like my music? Would I like hers?

Pulling out his own headphones, Matt shuffled his own playlist, and tried desperately to focus on the article in front of him.

x o x o x o

Forty two minutes later (he counted), Matt finally reached the end of the mind-numbing wall of text. No closer to understanding what the fuck he was doing, he reached out to tap the table near her knee. Her cargos sported faded stitching on their edges, proof of intentional wear as opposed to fashion wear.

When the flash of motion moved into her line of sight, she looked up from her own article, brows raised expectantly and eyes locked onto his. “How’s it going?”

“Well…It’s not perfect but…it’s better than nothing right?.”

“Mhmm.” She leaned forward, staring at his screen. “One and a half pages? Atta boy.”

Matt’s face flushed, his lips parting to speak but silence was all that followed.

“Did you do what I said earlier?”

“Yes ma’am.” Where the FUCK did THAT come from?

She wrinkled her face, her lips tugging up into a smile. “Down, boy.”

Matt almost puked. A lightning bolt struck his lungs, and they withered in his ribcage. “Sorry- sorry,” he stuttered. He ripped his gaze away from hers, blinking rapidly.

She laughed softly, the ghost of a smile passing over her lips. Matt’s head shot up faster than he’d ever admit. “Little weirdo,” she muttered, turning away from him to put her laptop in her bag.

“Oh, are we-”

“Mhm. Bell’s about to ring.”

He blinked again, opening his own backpack.

“Give me your snap.”

“Huh?”

“Your snapchat. So we can talk about your assignments and schedule tutoring for sometime other than boy’s athletics.”

How did she-

“Wouldn’t want you to miss hockey,” She tilted her head to punctuate her all-knowing tone, and put her phone in Matt’s hand.

As he typed megamett_44, Matt reevaluated the entirety of his life’s choices, and hoped she’d just…ignore it. Or not see it at all, that was preferable.

Neither of those things happened.

“Mega. Mett. Forty four?” she questioned, raising an eyebrow at him.

“...Yep.”

“You, um…” She gestured, sarcasm beginning to drip from her lips. “You wanna explain?”

“No I do not,” he replied, grinning nervously, avoiding her gaze.

“Hmm…cute,” She smirked. Matt felt his heart swell and his pants tighten even more at the comment she had made, just barely crossing the line of being a praiseful remark. He wanted to ask more about what she meant; Why did she say cute? Does she think I’m cute? Was she just saying the username is cute? But before he could think of something, the bell rang, and in one fluid motion, she swung her bag over her shoulder and slipped off the table. “Later,” she hummed before she disappeared into a river of students escaping school grounds for the weekend.

Matt exhaled and slumped into his chair, hanging his head as he dropped his bag back onto the floor. The visible bulge under the fabric of his sweats and his hoodie taunted him, his mind raced, thinking of all the things he could have done instead of gawking at her and stuttering one or two words at a time in response to whatever she said to him. Matt ran his fingers through his messy hair. His cheeks remained a rosy pink. He rubbed his lips with his fingers, an anxious habit he had picked up over the years in a desperate attempt to help with his nail biting problem, though very little progress had been made there.

“I’m done for,” he said, nodding decisively. “Yep. This is the end of Matthew Sturniolo.” Matt looked down at his phone, numerous texts from his brothers flooding the screen.

Nick: where are you

Chris: where r u ?

Nick: why weren’t you at hockey practice

Chris: coach is not happy with you lmao

Chris: helloooooooo

Chris: the van is still here so we know ur here

Chris: unless 😏

Nick: enough

Chris: man come on nick is grumpy and bitching about the weather

Nick: it’s fucking FREEZING out and i’m shivering like a chihuahua. I’d appreciate getting into the vehicle that we OWN to blast the heat

Matt sighed and shoved his phone into his pocket. He looked around, making sure that nobody was nearby as he stood up. Grabbing his bag, Matt hurried out of the library and pushed his way through the halls to the nearest restroom.

Ensuring that the bathroom was completely empty, he slipped into the closest bathroom stall and locked it behind him. Matt quickly dropped his bag to the floor, lifting the hem of his hoodie up and holding it between his teeth. He pulled the band of his sweats down, groaning softly as the friction sent bolts of pleasure through him. He slipped his hand under the fabric of his boxers, his eyes fluttering closed as his hand wrapped around his shaft. He hummed ever so softly as he gave his cock a few strokes.

He opened his eyes, suddenly realizing what he was doing. No, this isn’t like you. This isn’t right. You don’t do this here. He pulled his cock up into the waistband of his boxers, dissatisfied above all else, but knowing he had to hide his unpleasant erection somehow. This was a new low for him. What kind of a creep can’t even keep it in his pants until he gets home? Matt pulled his sweatpants back up, dropping the hem of his hoodie from where it had been between his teeth. He stepped out of the bathroom stall, taking a quick once-over in the mirror to make sure he looked put together and not a flustered horny mess, before he slipped out of the bathroom, following the mass of students rushing for the exit out into the student parking lot.

x o x o x o

Matt saw Chris and Nick leaning against the edge of his car, bundled up in their heavy winter coats. Matt clicked the unlock button on his key, the vehicle chirping in response. Nick impatiently opened the door to the backseat, huffing something under his breath as he got into the car. “Where the hell were you?” Chris asked, opening the trunk to the van and tossing his hockey gear into the back. After closing the trunk, Chris walked around to the passenger side of the vehicle, slinging his bag into the back next to Nick’s foot, closing the door behind him.

“Library,” Matt muttered, clunking into the driverseat. Chris paralleled Matt’s actions, dropping himself into the passenger seat. “Library?” Chris repeated, tasting the word with furrowed eyebrows as he turned to look at Nick, expecting he might know more about Matt’s situation.

He did not. Nick scrunched his face. “Since when do you go to the library?”

Matt groaned. “Can we just go home.”

The other two didn’t ask too many questions after that. What normally would have been a debrief session of their individual experiences from that day while feasting on whatever fast-food place the three of them had voted on, was instead a deafening silence and a painfully tense atmosphere. Matt was secretly very appreciative of this, his mind was too scattered for him to hold a conversation with his brothers, never mind care about what they were discussing.

x o x o x o

When he collapsed onto his bed, Matt checked his phone, brows furrowed in surprise. He’d gotten a notification from Snapchat (a rarity), and his heart shot up into his throat when he saw who it was from. He tapped on the notification to see that she had sent him a photo of herself - her hair fell in waves around her face, and Matt could see the glint of her earrings. She wasn’t even looking at the camera, making the edge of her eyeliner effortlessly severe. Matt’s chest went aflutter, and he stared at that picture for a very long set of minutes. “Here’s my snap”, she had typed, and once he tapped out of the photo, Matt added her back.

But they hadn’t spoken past that.

He laid on his bed trying to think of something to say to keep talking to her, but everything sounded desperate and corny. He had so many things he wanted to say, so many questions he wanted to ask. He wanted to talk to her for hours, about anything and everything. He wanted to know everything about her.

As the sky darkened, Matt scrolled aimlessly on TikTok, then Instagram, then back to TikTok, avoiding Snapchat to the best of his ability. His mind refused to let go of her, and it was starting to piss him off. What is she doing? Does she stay home on school nights? Does she go out? What are her hobbies? Does she play video games? Would she play them with me? Does she like to read outside of school too? When does she go to bed? Does she like to stay up late? Does she go to bed early? Why can't I think of something normal to say to her?

Matt dragged himself out of bed, crumpling slowly to the floor. He leaned his head against the edge of his mattress and sighed - what a fucking day.

A knock at the door had him lifting his head from where it rested against the mattress. “Hi, honey.” Mom. “You eating dinner with us tonight?”

He stood up, crossed the empty floor of his room quickly, and pulled his door open. “Hey Mom.” Matt leaned into her, and Mary Lou slipped her arms around her son.

“Hi baby. Somethin’ on your mind?”

I’m failing.

I’m failing four classes.

You and dad would be so disappointed.

I feel tired and sick all the time.

I just want to go to sleep.

Graduation is in four months.

Nick and Chris are gonna leave me.

I’ll have to repeat senior year.

It’ll all be my fault.

The girl making me fail is the girl trying to help me pass.

I can’t focus on anything.

I’m so fucking tired.

“Just missed ya.” Matt sighed. He hummed when he felt his mother's loving arms embrace him just a little tighter. “I’ll be downstairs in a minute.”

x o x o x o

A dark room. The brush of fingers over silk. A candle flickering shadows against the walls. The faint scent of vanilla. Pleasure flowing through his body. The buzzing hum of a vibrator. More waves of soft tingling flowing from the center of his body.

“Good boy…”

He sighed, lips parted, eyes closed. His hips began to shift upwards, slowly at first, pushing against the vibrator, aching for more. Instead, his leaking, rock-hard cock met a soft hand. He whimpered, digging his pelvis into the pillowy skin. “Awww…d’you wanna hump Mommy’s hand?”

“Yes…” he pleaded, his head lolling to the side, chest heaving. “P-Please, I-I... Please.”

Her fist began to slip around the head of his cock. “Please what?”

“Nnnghh…please let me hump your hand. I need it s-so bad, p-please, it hurts Mommy, I just wanna…jus wanna feel your hand around my…my…”

Another hand cupped his balls, silky-soft thumb rubbing spine-tingling circles over his pleasure-filled skin. “Hmm? What was that, pretty boy? Mommy didn’t quite catch that.”

“My cock, miss, I…p-please reward me…please, I-I’ve been so good…”

She smiled, amused by how easy it was to get him riled up. “Go ahead, baby. You’ve been such a good boy. You deserve a little treat, don’t you?”

Matt didn’t need to be told twice. His hips lifted, his jaw going slack as his shaft slipped through her fist with ease, her hand already sticky with his arousal. A whimper grew at the back of his throat, his hips beginning to buck up into her grasp. Erotic sounds filled the room; heavy panting, his wet cock slipping in and out of her grasp, the bed frame creaking ever so quietly, her quiet praises that she’d whisper to him. “Atta boy, you’ve got it,” she hummed, earning a sound from Matt that he hadn’t even known he was capable of making. A mix between a sob and a whimper, a sound that made her press her thighs together, her core aching for him. “That’s it, baby, hump Mommy’s hand. Doesn’t that feel good?”

His pace quickened, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths as he began to rut against her hand. His desire was primal. It was animalistic. The way he craved her, unlike anything he had ever craved for in his life. His balls, heavy with his arousal, slapping against her wrist as her hand reached the base of his cock with every thrust he made. His tip, swollen and pink, leaking with his desire. She could feel the way his shaft throbbed, practically begging for more. Her hand gently squeezed his tip, a guttural moan falling from his rosy lips.

He began to whine now, desperate pleas pouring from his lips like thick sweet honey. “I’ve been so good, I’ll behave, I promise, I’ll be s-so good for you Mommy, please let me cum, please, I’m b-begging you, please Mommy… y-you’re so sweet and g-good to me, I jus’ wanna make you happy, please let me make you happy…f-fuck!” White-hot liquid spurted from his tip, coating her hand and his abdomen as she continued to stroke his sensitive shaft.. “Mmmph…Mommy…f-fuck…thank you, th-thank you, mmph Mommy…thank you, y-you’re so good to me…”

Breathlessly, he pushed himself up onto his elbows, looking up at the beautiful girl in front of him. His gaze flickered down to her hand, his cock throbbing as he saw how much of a mess he had made. Ropes of thick warm cum coated her hand, and Matt couldn’t help but think of what it’d look like leaking out of her. He watched with a dazed and aroused glisten in his eyes as she brought her hand up to his lips. Obediently he licked his mess off of her fingers, paying no mind to the taste. He didn’t care, he’d do anything she wanted, even if it meant having the lingering taste of his seed in his mouth. Once her hand was cleaned up, he pressed kisses up to her wrist, trailing up her arm, keeping his eyes low in reverence.

She lifted his head with a finger under his jaw. “You’re welcome, baby. You did so good for me, hmm?” she murmured, kissing his forehead. Matt closed his eyes, never wanting to leave this moment. “Were you a good boy for mommy?”

Matt shot up in his bed and his chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. He pulled his duvet cover off of him, and in the dark of his bedroom he could still see his mess leaking through the fabric of his boxers. His torso was slick with a sheen layer of sweat. Despite having already finished, his cock refused to soften.

“Oh fuck me,” he snarled, rubbing his tired face with his hands. This is going to be the hardest four months of my life.

𖥔‧₊˚ ⊹ Tags 𖥔‧₊˚ ⊹

@flowerxbunnie @megamett44-lover @xtravrgnoliveoil @mattsturnswife @sturniolofan4lifee @soursturniolo @sturnioz @luverboychris @meerkatzthings @soupuurr @gemofthenight @hi-7-hi @blahbel668 @mattspleasure @sturnybabes @jjmaybankswifes-blog @sturniolosreads @bernardsleftbootycheek @egirlshit @nonamegirlxsturniolo @chrizz333 @sturniolopowers @mattsleftnipple03 @worldlxvlys @hearts4chriss @janiellasblog @creamoncreamoncream2 @meg-sturniolo @ellie-luvsfics @lustfulslxt @braindead4l @ghostlythinggoingaround @taekwite @querenciasturniolo @m4ttslvr @mqttittude @bewtyschooldropout @lovesturni0l0s @zebonos @h3arts4harry @riowritesitall @freshloveforthefit @esioleren @colorthecosmos444 @mbbsgf @kitkatbar1275 @fratbrochrisgf @sturnslutz @favsdti @sturnsmia

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for belconna behind the cut, who asked for Billy/Damian fluff and is getting “Damian gets a Pocket”. The fluffy aspects admittedly got a bit less focused on than I intended them to, but in my defense, we're dealing with a displaced ten year-old with extremely skewed perceptions who knows how to do a murder but does not know how to admit to having a single human weakness. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“Love love, love love,” Beloved sing-songs contentedly as he slings his new and newly-packed bag onto his back and the eraser bag over his shoulder and secures them both. Damian is–surprised, somewhat, that Beloved has not abandoned such an unworthy offering as the eraser bag now that he has been provided a clearly more suitable option for his purposes. 

Beloved’s mere existence is already surprising, though, so Damian supposes such peculiar choices are to be expected from him. Admittedly far less peculiar than Beloved attempting to ensure that Damian has eaten instead of being concerned with securing his own sustenance, but peculiar all the same. 

Beloved’s point of origin would likely find him peculiar too, he supposes. Most people seem to, since his arrival in Gotham. It seems . . . unavoidable, here. 

Damian finds many things about Gotham very tiring, though he is aware that he is expected to perform to expectation despite that fact. To improve himself to Father’s standards and surpass expectation, because, of course, how could he be the Heir to the Bat if he did not? 

He is no longer with the League, but he is well-aware that Father holds himself to even higher standards than theirs, and ones that seem senseless and difficult and that Damian has yet to deduce the purposes behind. 

Father does not kill his opponents; Father insists that they all waste Pennyworth’s time. Father complicates simple matters, and simplifies the complicated. A foe is not to be slain even in open combat, nor even particularly maimed if at all avoidable. “Manners” are performative distractions, and blending into civilian life is mandatory. 

Damian finds it all very tiring, though making such comments is unappreciated, he has learned. Which is understandable, of course. Father expects better of him. 

It remains–frustrating, all the same, when Drake and Brown and everyone else under Father’s mantle can make such statements without reprimand, and often even with approval. But Damian is Father’s blood son and one day will bear his mantle, so he understands that he must meet higher standards to perform to Father’s expectations. It is only logical that he must, in fact. 

Though it is frustrating that when Brown cuts short a training program or sparring match and announces her exhaustion to Father’s face, he allows and even instructs her to step back and recover her energy, even if she is still perfectly capable of standing and holding a weapon, but if Damian informs anyone that he finds anything about the process of acclimating to Father’s endless list of illogical rules tiring, the response is always negative–short or irritable or outright hostile, as opposed to the neutral acceptance that Drake receives whenever informing Father that he is tired. 

But he is the blood son, Damian reminds himself, so it is natural–and perfectly reasonable–that Father should expect more from him than Brown or Drake or any other ally to his cause. As he well should, in fact. It is preferable that Father does not consider him to be weak or incompetent. That Father considers him capable of meeting his expectations; his standards. 

Even if it is–tiring, as well. 

Damian will meet Father’s expectations, of course–meet Father’s standards–and will prove that he is worthy of such expectations, and then Father will acknowledge his worth as his heir, and will trust him as his heir, and then all of Damian’s efforts will prove worthwhile. Father will not doubt him, after that; will accept his opinions as worthy of consideration and will not feel the need to doubt his loyalty or compare reports of how he allocates his time when outside of the manor. 

So . . . not, Beloved will not last, and neither will whatever Pocket came from Damian himself. Such a distraction from Father’s mission would not be worthwhile, in Father’s eyes. Not be acceptable, in Father’s eyes. 

Certainly not for the heir to his mantle, at least. 

Upon arrival to the manor, Damian stows his purchases for Beloved in his school bag and sets Beloved himself upon his shoulder where the strap lays, then heads inside while Pennyworth returns the towncar to the garage. Beloved buttons the coat’s shoulder strap across his lap in a manner akin to a seatbelt and settles in with his bags, his hands hooked over the edge of the strap as if expecting potential–turbulence, for lack of a more suitable term. Damian appreciates the obvious instinct of preparation on Beloved’s part, given how frequently “turbulence” has been a concern in his life. It will certainly prove useful on patrol, he reflects as he crosses the threshold into the manor, and he has in fact already sketched out several potential plans for arranging something more secure to actually– 

Beloved freezes on his shoulder, then very suddenly throws himself and his bags into the collar of his coat and hides against the back of his neck. Damian–frowns, briefly. Beloved’s instinct to conceal himself is another instinct that he approves of, but he is uncertain as to why Beloved just did so that quickly. The previous occasions he has concealed himself upon, he was much less rushed. So why . . . ? 

“Welcome home, Damian,” Father says, and Damian is immediately mortified to realize he was distracted enough by Beloved’s behavior to not notice Father approaching the foyer from the stairs. He locks his spine in perfect posture and represses any physical reaction to that sense of mortification, because he is certain Father already knows he has caught him unawares, and equally certain that the only worse thing would be to attempt to excuse being caught unaware, even by the Batman. Father is going to no more effort to conceal or quiet himself than he typically does inside the manor, and Damian knows better than to allow himself such distractions. 

Any distractions, but especially the distraction of a soulmate. 

“Thank you, Father,” Damian says, because he has been informed that is the appropriate response to such greetings. He supposes it makes sense, to continually thank Father for his hospitality. He is well-aware that Father has many potential heirs, and he is the youngest and least physically mature of those, and also the one that Father has spent the least time personally training. 

And Father did not give him Robin to begin with: Grayson did, in his absence. Because in Father’s absence, Grayson had inherited his mantle, and Damian . . . he had not been Father’s heir, but . . . 

Grayson had accepted his service as his partner long before Father had even considered the idea. 

[dark-corner-cunning]

Transmutation Warding: Feeding Off The Haters

• Welcome Back, Seekers! Within my local coven, we’ve turned our focus to warding and protection magick as we prepare for the year ahead. I adore transmutation magick for warding! It’s one of my favorite ways to craft shields for myself, my work, my growth, and my success. Instead of constantly bracing for every hex, evil eye, or ill wish, this approach flips the narrative. Transmutation wards work proactively, taking any negativity sent your way and alchemizing it into fuel for your growth and power. Why waste energy defending against haters or uncovering their identities when you can let their spite feed your fire? Let them send their malice—it’ll only make you more powerful.

As always, take what resonates with your spirit and weave it into your own unique magick! My spells and workings are here to spark your creativity and inspire your craft. ✨

--------

Tools & Ingredients:

1 black candle (to absorb negativity)

1 purple candle (for transmutation and spiritual power)

Thread or Cord (any color)

A mirror (to summon your Fetch Spirit or reflect your essence)

1 clear quartz crystal or any charm you’re called to that can be left on your altar or within your space -  As a subtle sentinel of the ward’s power, clear quartz is a cherished ally in magick. Its ability to be easily programmed makes it a perfect vessel for your intention, while its amplifying nature ensures the energy of your working radiates far and wide. To the untrained eye, it appears as nothing more than a beautiful crystal resting upon your altar or within your sacred space—a discreet guardian cloaked in plain sight, silently weaving its protective spell.

Optional: Chalk or something to draw a circle (for creating a sacred boundary to hold the enchantment of your crystal or charm. If chalk is unavailable, let your finger become the wand. You can also use salt or any symbols you would like to use to draw out a circle.

--------

Preparation:

Cleanse your workspace and tools with smoke, salt water, or another method of your choosing.

Candle preparation, take your black candle and anoint it with a neutral oil, something simple like canola oil—or any oil you feel connected to for protection. Once it’s dressed in oil, sprinkle it with herbs known for protection, such as basil, bay, black pepper, cinnamon, or clove—or any protection herbs that resonate with your magick. For the purple candle, I like to use a neutral oil as well, then dress it with herbs that are perfect for transmutation, like lady’s mantle and yucca. Along with those, I often add a pinch of herbs that represent success and abundance—and don’t forget to include a bit of your hair, fingernail clippings, or something from your person to taglock the magick, connecting the work directly to your energy. Then bind the candles together with some thread or cord.

Binding the Candles:

Take the black and purple candles and begin winding the thread around them, chanting this, or create your own:

"I bind these flames, black and purple entwined,

Protection and transmutation, powers combined.

Through thread and flame, my will takes hold,

To guard my essence, fierce and bold."

You don't have to go all out like I did with those massive candles. Honestly, a couple of chime candles will do the trick if you're short on time.

3. Place your mirror above the center of your altar or working space, positioning it to reflect either yourself or the flickering flames of your candles (refer to the caption below the next picture for more context). Let it serve as a portal, amplifying the energy of your work. Arrange your candles in a fire-safe dish at the center—I often favor a trusty aluminum pie pan for this purpose.

4. Hold your crystal or charm in your hands, letting your energy flow into it. Visualize your purpose, your will, and your desire imprinting itself upon the object. Once your intention feels vibrant and alive within the crystal or charm, move it in a clockwise circle around the candles, envisioning it connecting to the fiery energy of your working—like a thread weaving them together.

5. When the circuit feels complete, place the charged crystal or charm before the candles. Now, cast a circle around the entire space, sealing in the energy. You can do this energetically, feeling the boundary forming with your will, or use chalk, salt, or symbols drawn ahead of time to anchor the space. This sacred boundary holds the power of your work, ensuring that your charm becomes fully and beautifully enchanted. And now, it's time to spark the flame on them candles.

I used a selenite tower in this picture as a stand-in to show where your crystal or charm should be placed. This isn’t the actual charm I used, but it gives you an idea of the setup. You’ll also notice my altar mirror hanging just above the space, perfectly positioned for the energy work. If hanging a mirror isn’t an option for you, no worries—simply place one in front of your working area instead. The reflection is what matters most!

--------

Casting The Ward:

Lighting the Candles:

With the bound candles before the mirror. Light them, starting with the black candle, then the purple, and then chant this, or create your own:

"Black flame of shadow, guard and protect,

Purple flame of spirit, energy redirect.

Before this mirror, realms align,

My (Fetch Spirit/Reflection) carries this spell through time."

Incantation of The Ward:

Face the mirror and focus on your reflection, summoning your Fetch Spirit or the reflection of your empowered self. Chant this incantation, or create your own:

"Anyone who cannot honor my essence,

Respect my growth, or stand in my presence,

Be it through disdain, envy, or intent,

Their fate is sealed, their malice spent.

Their energy flows to me, transformed,

Into strength, abundance, success reborn.

As I feed upon their misguided spite,

They are drained by their own blight.

Across all realms, my shield is spun,

Now and forever, this spell is done."

Seal the Energy:

Visualize the mirror reflecting the power of your spell into the cosmos, spreading the ward across all realms. Allow the candles to burn fully if possible, or snuff them out respectfully.

I love this picture! The flames intertwine perfectly, mirroring the energy I was aiming for in this ward of protective transmutation.

--------

Aftercare:

Charging your crystal or charm: Leave your charm on your altar or in your space as a representation of the ward. Each full moon, place it under the moonlight to recharge its energy, visualizing the ward growing stronger with every cycle.

Mirror Care: Cleanse the mirror after the spellwork with smoke or moon water to ensure it remains a neutral tool for future workings.

Final Words:

Maintain your crystal or charm as a talisman of your protective transmutation ward and remember that this ward will work continuously as long as you charge it and feed it with belief and intention.

Stay Wild, Stay Magickal, & Keep Seeking, Seekers!

[catboybiologist]

Hey it's a life update that probably no one cared about or asked for

tl;dr: I'm likely quitting my PhD via mastering out, and leaving my program in June.

sappy, overly emotional vent/explanation:

I'm wrapping up my first quarter as an out-of-the-closet trans woman. I've had some serious conversations about where me and my work stand. This was always my intention after coming back from my summer hiatus/social transition: see how "reentry" works, and then assess from there.

For those that don't know, PhDs in the US take 5-7 years. Oftentimes, however, they either give you a master's along the way, or give you an option to quit halfway through with a master's. I'm in my 3rd year and have more than enough to use that option. I've toyed with this idea before, but it feels a bit different now. Last year, I was burned out from science, my project was failing, and I was under constant stress of boymoding and remaining in the closet. Now, I'm out and proud, and I deeply love my project and find it exciting. I fixed some things.

Unfortunately, I have a recurrent problem. Whenever something goes wrong in my life, the first thing to drop off is my ability to drive forward my own thesis project in a coherent way. What the actual problems are vary, but that motif stays the same. I could list off what's going on right now, but I think y'all can assume a bit of what a mid-20s, broke, recently transitioned trans woman in the US is going through at the moment. There's a lot of specifics, of course, but I'm not at liberty to say most of it.

So I'm looking around and realizing I have scraps of half finished projects, I've given support and help for other people's projects.... and then made little progress on my actual thesis. It's enough to pull together into a master's thesis, and maybe even another paper or two, but.... not a PhD.

And then there's the other side of it. The nicer reasons. Could I stay here, buckle down, maybe add years to my degree, and get through it? Probably. But honestly? I don't really want to put myself through that now. It used to be that academics was all I had. It was all my failures and all my successes. It's what I threw myself at, because I genuinely had nothing else going on. Since transitioning, the world seems so much more beautiful and rich, so much more complex and vast, with so much more to do in it. I've even had more negative experiences unrelated to academia, and while they've sucked, they've shown me that life is so much bigger than it was before.

To be blunt, to experience more of my life... it helps to have money, and it helps to have career stability. It's not the only factor by far, but certainly one defining moment when making this decision was trying to create a timeline and budget for transition related surgeries, and realizing that its near impossible in grad school.

Not to be dramatic, but I've also had a couple extremely jarring experiences in the past year that are reminded me that life is short. And I want at least some time to enjoy it.

My heart is honestly broken here, and I'm feeling extremely emotional about this. I love my lab, my colleagues, the environment of doing research, and my project. But I'm realizing that it might not be viable, or what makes me the happiest at the moment. I'm genuinely a bit distraught, and I've been crying a lot for the past few days. A lot of me feels like this is what I am, and this is what I'm good for. That I'm failing myself and every mentor that got me here. Some part of me knows that isn't true, some part of me can't let go of those feelings.

But, I know this doesn't mean "never". So many of the people in my program are significantly older than me, coming back later in life to get their degrees. I'm honestly almost positive that I'll come back to a PhD someday if I quit now. In my 30s or beyond, I think that I'll be able equipped to handle it much better.

So what's next?

Obviously, nothing is decided, and I'm just spitballing here. But I'm honestly shocked at how many viable options I have, in a very good way. A cursory scroll of Indeed was honestly therapeutic. As I said, I still love the academic research environment. I just need more money and stability, and would prefer to have a slightly different relationship to the work I do than a thesis project. Ideally, I would want to be a staff researcher in an institute or academic lab. That lets me keep a lot of the things I like about what I do now, while also making literally 2-3 times the money and having a more stable position.There's positions out there that maximize the contexts I'm the strongest and happiest with, while still being more steady and paying more. Hell, even if my responsibilities were identical, but I had more pay, I could probably more effectively address the personal problems I'm going through right now. I'm gonna stay in California for a lot of reasons, and I'm lucky that there's so many options within the state.

I have a bit of an oddball set of experience. I'll actually have two nonoverlapping master's if I do this. I already have a MS in bioinformatics, which was granted by a CS department. But my current program is in more "pure" molecular and cell biology. I'll have 5 years of grad school, 8.5 years of research experience if I include undergrad research, and instead of a PhD, 2 MSs. Which is kinda funny. But it think it helps represent my experience for what it is. I like to consider myself a "full stack" bioinformaticist- someone who can do both the experimental and analysis portions of experiments that produce large data. Hopefully I'll be able to put that to good use.

I have a lot of professional contacts that I'll slowly be reaching out to over the course of the next 6 months while I tie things up. I know this is a wildshot on tumblr of all places, but if anyone has any recommendations, advice, or contacts, I'm all ears- both for professional and job hunt related things, and also the emotional state I'm in right now.

Thank you to everyone that's made up this wonderful community we have online. I hope I'm not letting anyone down. I'll still be a biologist, I'll still be my trans self. I just won't be "Doctor" anytime soon.

[push-tet]

what I've done

The town of Veronaville is one built on little love and one big feud. For years, the Capp and Monty clans have been at each other’s throats; yet this hatred cannot stop the younger generation from crossing borders and falling for one another. Will their actions bring both feuding families to ruin, or spark reconciliation? Can their love truly heal such deep wounds?

Wouldn't you like see Veronaville in entirely different light? K-he.

WHAT’S NEW:

Added a massive storyline! The familiar Сapp, Monty and Summerdream families will be seen in a whole new light🌟

Added three brand new families with their own stories and secrets! 🌟

Added some new and special townies. At the end of the town album there will be a list of townspeople who have biographies and memories, so no need to add/resurrect literally everybody on your lot. 🌟

Added 20 new community lots + remade the old ones as well 🌟

DISCLAMER AND TRIGGER WARNINGS!!!

This hood is not a retelling of Shakespeare's plays, nor is it a mere makeover of the Maxis’ Veronaville. Think of this neighborhood as an alternate universe.

The Neighborhood contains themes of: fantasy, s*icide and self-harm, body horror, OC X CANON (?)

I may have (unintentionally) spoiled some of your favorite simmies… 

ISSUES THAT I AM AWARE OF:

Some townies’ memories could disappear. It happens even with the mod that forbids the townies from losing their memories. I don't know what the reason is so I recommend checking them before you play the game, namely, by going into the family and teleporting the townies to the resident lot. If the memories are already gone, then please re-download the hood.

Hoodchecker might show some minor errors connected to the wrong memory subjects. This was intentional so don't be alarmed! It doesn't affect your game in any negative way.

Don't try to resurrect Julien Cooke. Just forget about him.

Oberon originally had an overlay with a mechanical prosthetic. But for some reason in some testers’ games the overlay was affecting Oberon's complexion, turning his skintone white… So I removed the overlay entirely. You can add it back if you wish!

RECOMMENDED MODS AND PROGRAMS:

Cyber Parts by @themeasureofasim (optional, Oberon’s prosthetics)

Restore Default Names for Sims in Subhoods (if you intent to play a subhood version of it)

🐸DOWNLOAD MF - SFS

THE CONTENTS:

VD01 ENG is a main hood; contains some of my CCs.

VVBS CC is an archive with some custom content from me for the hood (consists of: some cosmetics, contacts (in the masks section) and one female haircut).

VVBS SUBHOOD is a subhood with two major differences from the main hood: it does not contain pictures from Storytelling folder (so the nhood is less heavy) + you can pick and choose whether you want it with or without my custom content.

EXTRA CONTENT folder is not necessary to download; it contains some extra stuff from my project. This file is locked, but you can gather the password in main hood itself through the storytelling pictures and a little game in the community lots (you can find the rules of this game in the description of 2 Pentameter Parkway lot). Think of it as a reward for your attentiveness!

If you find any errors or bugs, just let me know! THANK YOU!

idk what to put in here so that dads' ranking

P.S. Destroy this town with your crazy ideas. :))

Well, the English version of this interactive fanfic is finally OUT!

I have Pahleen (translation) and @f1shart (English editing) to thank for that! And I also want to thank the many wonderful testers and people who supported my project!🌹🌹

I will continue to post materials about this neighborhood on this blog, but I also have plans to expand this universe, so for that I created a blog @vv-bs so you can follow the development of the project!

[simspaghetti]

Notification PSD Templates! 💡

I present another PSD for you all! I'm not sure how many people will want to use this, but hopefully someone will find it useful! I figured I should upload it as I like it anyways it's easier to edit for me personally than screenshotting notifications :P

It comes in light mode & dark mode variations - as usual credit to JustMiha's Clean UI & SimState's Blackout UI as these psds are designed to fit in with their style

As shown in the preview, it comes with several colour options for the left-hand slot next to the arrow, I've included options for negative, positive, plain & neutral notifs as well as a lightbulb one for the default notifications - you can also just replace the lightbulb with an icon of your choosing (icon packs linked under the DL below)

For the light mode, I've also included a red & green version of the text box as well for negative / positive notifications - to stay faithful to the Clean UI style

Here are the instructions on how to resize it without borking the whole structure:

(I’ve also included this instruction layer in the template, you can unhide it to refer to if you need!)

Terms of Use: Please don’t claim as your own or reupload without my permission, I’d love to see you use them in your game if you do choose to tag me - but that’s totally optional I’m just nosey :P Feel free to alter and customize the templates literally however you want, but pls link back to my blog / tag me if you’re gonna reupload a downloadable variation (such as in a different UI colour) :)

➡️ Download Here (Simfileshare, .psd files)

The fonts used include Baloo found here (for the X symbol) & DM Sans, found in all variations here (for the main text) - I only used ‘bold’ & ‘bold italic’ from DM Sans

File Instructions:

This is a .PSD file, intended to be opened in a photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop, I personally recommend Photopea / Gimp as free alternatives - you can probs use any other editing software as long as it can handle .psd files - lmk if you have any problems in other programs, I have only tested these in Photopea!

I also intended for these to be used alongside game icon collections, here are some suggestions for those: TS2 Icons / TS3 Icons + Extras / TS4 Icons

You can find all my other psds (including moodlets, wishes, interactions & others) linked right here!

[marzipanandminutiae]

the one thing I am full-bore conspiracy theorist about?

daily contact lenses

or, well, not their existence, period. they're a valid health option that is best for some people, medically. but the sheer aggressiveness with which they're being pushed nowadays

the last few times I went to the eye doctor for my annual check-up, she was HEAVILY on my case to switch to dailies. like, to the point of arrogance and condescension when I said I preferred to stick with monthlies (I've worn contacts since I was 12, for reference). I also posted about it on a forum and got massive negativity in response, as well as being talked down to by someone claiming to be an optometrist himself

now if this were like...anti-vaxxer sentiment I'd understand that reaction. but from what I've heard, while monthlies do carry a higher risk of eye infections and such, they're not medically unsound or unsafe across the board. I'm willing to accept that risk, and since science has not found that they're terrible and should immediately be discontinued, I feel like my wishes should be respected and not belittled

point two: plastic waste. they say it's somehow less than using monthlies, but frankly I just don't see how that's possible. 365 of those little eye chips- times two! -and their packaging, add up to less than a case and a bottle of solution every few months, plus 24 contacts and their packaging? it doesn't make sense to me, and it doesn't help that I mostly see contact lens websites repeating this "fact." of course all contacts produce plastic waste, and I'd be perfectly willing to accept this as one of those You Have To Consume; You Just Decide What Areas Of Your Life Are Optimal For Minimization of Waste And What Aren't things, if dailies weren't being pushed so hard

(also I found two studies showing that monthly-replacement soft lenses produce less plastic waste than daily disposables. which, like. yes, this should be obvious, but here we are. granted, that's only two, and both studies emphasize that dailies and their accoutrements can be recycled, but see below)

some big companies have "contact recycling programs" but like. who's to say that's not greenwashing? where's the oversight? where are the investigations into what these programs actually DO? god knows we've been there before with recycling and corporations trying to pull the nylon-poly-blend Vegan Wool(TM) over our eyes

they're also more expensive than monthlies, which like. does not lend a positive slant to optometrists pushing them so stridently

on top of that, I and some other monthly users have noted that our contacts aren't lasting as long as they used to. for me, it was 17-18 years of smooth sailing with barely any problems, and as of like a year ago my contacts barely last two weeks without clouding up, ripping, chipping at the edges, causing my vision to blur, becoming uncomfortable...my brand did change around that time, so I hope it's just that, and the sample size of other monthly users I've pooled is VERY small. but it sure seems interesting that they suddenly started pushing a product that doesn't last long enough for people to notice low quality, around the time that at least some users of the longer-lasting version start having problems

you're pooh-poohing all of my concerns- which are indeed backed up by science, it seems! -with a "fix" that relies on big companies being honest about recycling, to push me from a non-ideal but still medically sound option to another that makes you more money?

I'm normally a pretty grounded person but I'm full-on tinfoil hat about this one

[genderqueerdykes]

Feminizing HRT Overview, Guide & Information for All People Seeking It

we also have a version of this post for testosterone/masculinizing HRT as well. we wanted to write a companion piece as many folks have asked about this. it has take a bit of time, but here we are!

The testosterone HRT post is here.

Getting Your Prescription

To start taking estrogen, you will need to find a general practitioner, family doctor, endocrinologist or informed consent clinic where you can discuss gender affirming care with knowledgeable staff. Planned Parenthood is a good option for many trans people in general. Your mental health may also be evaluated, and your heart health and screening for a few other health conditions, as well as having access to your family health history if possible will be required.

Check to see if you have medical insurance, either through your family, your job, or if you are low income, a program like medicaid. Search for low income insurance plans in your area if it is needed, many places offer insurance plans for those who can't afford care on their own.

Here is a map of informed consent HRT clinics in the US.

You will discuss any gender dysphoria, gender presentation needs, if you have a support network, how you are impacted by your gender in your every day life with your provider and so on before being given a prescription. You will only be given a prescription after you discuss the risks of HRT and are screened for possible health problems and diseases or ways your body could react negatively to HRT. If you have needle trauma or phobias and can't inject hormones, it's best to bring it up before you get your prescription to save time and confusion.

The Medications

Treatment typically starts with spironolactone (aldactone), an anti-androgen that blocks androgen receptors ("male" sex hormones) for a few weeks, and then add estrogen, but many folks start with spiro and estrogen at the same time. Spiro will lower the amount of testosterone your body makes. For some people, spiro isn't necessary at all!

Some forms of spironolactone are reported to make folks pee like crazy, others do not have as bad of a time with it. Your mileage will vary depending on manufacturer. Spironolactone is intended to be a blood pressure medication, meaning it is a diuretic and is intended to help your body flush out fluids + salt. You will need to keep yourself hydrated if you notice this effect, as well as increasing electrolyte intake where possible.

Estrogen also lowers how much testosterone your body makes, and triggers changes in the body that occur during puberty in afab & adjacent people. Estrogen can be taken several ways, and is usually taken daily, and several times a day. You can take it in a pill or shot, and several forms of estrogen that can be applied to the skin like creams, gels and patches.

Make sure you thoroughly sanitize the skin of any injection sites or areas you will be applying gel or patches. If you are given topical estrogen, make sure you wash your hands after application and do not have someone else apply it for you. Make sure you do not go swimming or shower within several hours of application to make sure your skin absorbs the hormone.

You may not need to take anti androgens if you are doing estrogen injections, depending on how effective the estrogen injections are for you. Some people may not end up needing anti-androgens at all, and may be able to skip that entirely as spiro has unwanted side effects. Your natural hormone levels will dictate whether or not it's necessary, but it is not necessary for everyone.

You may end up being recommended to switch from one form of estrogen to another as your transition progresses, depending on how your body responds.

It's recommended to not take estrogen as a pill if you have personal/family history of blood clots in a deep vein or in lungs (venous thrombosis).

Some people also end up taking progesterone as well alongside estrogen. Progesterone is typically taken to encourage breast tissue growth, as this is the most prominent effect of the hormone. If sufficient breast tissue growth isn't seen from estrogen alone, progesterone can be added to your regimen, though this is only done later on into treatment, around a year or so in.

If you choose injectable estrogen, make sure to listen to your provider and ask for instructions about how to use needles and syringes, as well as injection angles, how and where you'll be injecting. Do not inject in the exact same spot every time, this can prevent the issue from healing properly and create scar tissue or cause infections or skin tissue necrosis (death). You also need a sharps container to safely dispose of your needle tips. Never re-use a needle, even if it was used previously on yourself. Always ask the pharmacy if you need more needles. A lot of places let you get them in bulk.

If you are going the injection route, make sure you know whether or not you are instructed to do intramuscular or subcutaneous injections. Intramuscular injections usually taper out of the system more quickly and need to be done more frequently, where as many patients find subcutaneous injections less painful and easier as they can be done less frequently.

For more information on safe intramuscular or subcutaneous injection for estrogen, please read here.

Another option for feminizing HRT is to take gonadotropin-releasing hormone (Gn-RH) analogs. They lower the amount of testosterone your body makes and may allow you to take lower doses of estrogen without using Spiro. Gn-RH analogs are usually more expensive, but are an option if for whatever reason the conventional route can't work for you.

DON'T GIVE UP IF YOU DON'T SEE THE EFFECTS YOU WANT TO SEE RIGHT AWAY! Many of them can take a long time to develop, often times patience is the key. If you wait it out and still don't see the results you'd like, you can try another route. Don't give up, a lot of people get deterred in the early stage of transition, you'll get there with patience and communication.

Stay patient, stay positive!

What to Expect from Feminizing HRT

Less facial and body hair growth: typically happens 6 - 12 months after treatment starts. Full effects within ~3 years on average.

Slower scalp hair loss: begins 1 - 3 moths after treatment begins. Full effect between 1 - 2 years on average.

Softer, less oily skin, and changes in general skin texture: 3 - 6 months after treatment starts, full effects within 2 - 3 years on average

Rounder, softer features including face and body, and more body fat: 3 - 6 months after treatment starts, full effects in 2 - 5 years.

Breast development: begins 3 - 6 months after treatment starts, full effects within 2 - 5 years on average or more, according to medical studies, but it can vary wildly from person to person, give dosage and hormones taken. If desired effects are not seen, progesterone can be taken alongside estrogen to help after around one year on estrogen. When breast growth begins, it starts with hard lumps under the nipples along with some soreness and itchiness. Some have sore breasts for a long time, and some may get scared and think they have cancer during this stage. Breasts will be swollen and tender for good while, and nipples may be especially sensitive to even light touch.

Reduced muscle mass/density: 3 - 6 months after treatment starts, full effect in 1 - 2 years on average

Potential decrease in libido if on estrogen alone, though not guaranteed: If it happens, it's generally within 1 - 3 months in and can last a while, but may even out over time

Fewer erections, decreased ejaculate volume, and erections that can become painful or uncomfortable if frequent erections are not maintained. This begins 1 - 3 months after treatment starts, and the full effect is within 3 - 6 months. Regularly maintaining erections and frequent ejaculation can ease some of these uncomfortable feelings in some people.

Changes in how orgasms feel, changes in texture and degree of sensation of penis and scrotum skin as well as changes in body odor: typically begins within 3 - 6 months, though it varies from person to person. Often times the way one's body responds to orgasms completely changes, many people find themselves experiencing full-body orgasms and more intense erogenous zones elsewhere in the body other than the genitals.

Smaller testicles, or testicular atrophy happens within 3 - 6 months and the full effects are usually seen within 2 - 3 years.

Increase in size of bladder and decrease in size of prostate over time which can lead to making one's gspot harder to find, and make prostate examinations more difficult, though they are still vital, as prostate cancer is still a possible factor.

Potential mood fluctuations while adjusting to the hormones, many report increased crying and sadness during the first 3 - 6 months with this tapering off after a full year at most.

Increased fatigue while adjusting to the hormones, sleepiness and becoming easily exhausted are common reports. This can vary drastically from person to person, ymmv.

If you have testicles and choose to have them removed, you may need to take testosterone as well as estrogen in order to have a healthy endocrine system. You will need to discuss the effects of this with your specialists if you want to go this route. If your androgen levels get too low because your body cannot synthesize enough testosterone after bottom surgery, you may need additional medication.

Potential infertility, though this is not a guarantee, and safe sex should still be practiced at all times. No timeline projected though the longer one is on E the more likely it becomes.

Monthly cycles akin to menstrual cycles: these are not present in everyone, but many people report entering a cycle of extreme fatigue, body aches, abdominal cramping in the approximate area where a uterus would sit, headaches, and more for around the duration of a menstrual cycle (4 - 10 days on average).

Progesterone inversely to estrogen can cause an increase in libido in most who take it, and is the primary hormone used for breast growth. Lactation may also occur while taking prog, if this happens, talk to your doctor right away.

Keep track of your progress when and where you are able, and don't be afraid to bring up any concerns you may have with your professionals or trans friends, or any other trans resource. Your transition is in your hands and you're allowed to modify it as you see fit. If you do not see the effects you want from traditional HRT, you may be able to seek the Gn-RH route, and if you aren't seeing the results you want from just estrogen, progesterone might be of use to you.

You will need to keep an eye on your bone health as high levels of estrogens can increase your chance to develop osteoporosis, and potential new cancers like breast cancer may arise, as well as heart problems. Getting checkups as frequently as possible and communicating with your doctor/s will be of great use when and where possible

Either way, we hope this helps in some way! We will add to it as we find/think of more information. Good luck to everyone seeking feminizing HRT, you deserve to look and feel like yourselves!

[autolenaphilia]

The main reason to use Firefox and Linux and other free and open source software is that otherwise the big tech monopolies will fuck you as the customer over in search of profits. They will seek to control how you use their products and sell your data. When a company dominates the market, things can only get worse for ordinary people.

Like take Google Chrome for example, which together with its chromium reskins dominate the web browser market. Google makes a lot of money from ads, and consequently the company hates adblockers. They already are planning to move to manifest V3, which will nerf adblockers significantly. The manifest V3 compatible chrome version of Ublock Orgin is a "Lite" version for a reason. Ublock's Github page has an entire page explaining why the addon works best in Firefox.

And Google as we speak are trying to block adblockers from working on Youtube, If you want to continue blocking Youtube ads, and since Youtube ads make the site unuseable you ought to want that, it makes the most sense to not use a browser controlled by Google.

And there is no reason to think things won't get worse. There is for example nothing stopping Google from kicking adblockers off their add-on stores completely. They do regard it as basically piracy if the youtube pop-ups tell us anything, so updating the Chrome extensions terms of service to ban adblocking is a natural step. And so many people seem to think Chrome is the only browser that exists, so they are not going to switch to alternatives, or if they do, they will switch to another chrominum-based browser.

And again, they are fucking chromium itself for adblockers with Manifest V3, so only Firefox remains as a viable alternative. It's the only alternative to letting Google control the internet.

And Microsoft is the same thing. I posted before about their plans to move Windows increasingly into the cloud. This already exists for corporate customers, as Windows 365. And a version for ordinary users is probably not far off. It might not be the only version of Windows for awhile, the lack of solid internet access for a good part of the Earth's population will prevent it. But you'll probably see cheap very low-spec chromebookesque laptops running Windows for sale soon, that gets around Windows 11's obscene system requirements by their Windows being a cloud-based version.

And more and more of Windows will require Internet access or validation for DRM reasons if nothing else. Subscription fees instead of a one-time license are also likely. It will just be Windows moving in the direction Microsoft Office has already gone.

There is nothing preventing this, because again on the desktop/laptop market Windows is effectively a monopoly, or a duopoly with Apple. So there is no competition preventing Microsoft from exercising control over Windows users in the vein of Apple.

For example, Microsoft making Windows a walled garden by only permitting programs to be installed from the Microsoft Store probably isn't far off. This already exists for Win10 and 11, it's called S-mode. There seem to be more and more laptops being sold with Windows S-mode as the default.

Now it's not the only option, and you can turn it off with some tinkering, but there is really nothing stopping Microsoft from making it the only way of using Windows. And customers will probably accept it, because again the main competition is Apple where the walled garden has been the default for decades.

Customers have already accepted all sorts of bad things from Microsoft, because again Windows is a near-monopoly, and Apple and Google are even worse. That’s why there has been no major negative reaction to how Windows has increasingly spies on its users.

Another thing is how the system requirements for Windows seem to grow almost exponentially with each edition, making still perfectly useable computers unable to run the new edition. And Windows 11 is the worst yet. Like it's hard to get the numbers of how many computers running Win10 can't upgrade to Win11, but it's probably the majority of them, at least 55% or maybe even 75%. This has the effect of Windows users abandoning still perfectly useable hardware and buying new computers, creating more e-waste.

For Windows users, the alternative Windows gives them is to buy a new computer or get another operating system, and inertia pushes them towards buying another computer to keep using Windows. This is good for Windows and the hardware manufacturers selling computers with Windows 11 pre-installed, they get to profit off people buying Windows 11 keys and new computers, while the end-users have to pay, as does the environment. It’s planned obsolescence.

And it doesn’t have to be like that. Linux distros prove that you can have a modern operating system that has far lower hardware requirements. Even the most resource taxing Linux distros, like for example Ubuntu running the Gnome desktop, have far more modest system requirements than modern Windows. And you can always install lightweight Linux Distros that often have very low system requirements. One I have used is Antix. The ballooning Windows system requirements comes across as pure bloat on Microsoft’s part.

Now neither Linux or Firefox are perfect. Free and open source software don’t have a lot of the polish that comes with the proprietary products of major corporations. And being in competition with technology monopolies does have its drawbacks. The lacking website compatibility with Firefox and game compatibility with Linux are two obvious examples.

Yet Firefox and Linux have the capacity to grow, to become better. Being open source helps. Even if Firefox falls, developers can create a fork of it. If a Linux distro is not to your taste, there is usually another one. Whereas Windows and Chrome will only get worse as they will continue to abuse their monopolistic powers over the tech market.

[bucktommypositivityproject]

335 Donation Drive- February Fundraiser

Disclaimer: I do my best to properly research each organization, but I'm human. If an organization is ever listed that has a negative history, please do not hesitate to let me know.

The listed nonprofits, at a glance:

Black LGBTQ+ Liberation Inc. (BLINC)- BLINC is a South Florida-based nonprofit. They focus on helping BIPOC LGBTQ+ people lead happier lives through arts, health and wellness programs, and strategic community partnerships.

The Okra Project- The Okra Project focuses on supporting Black trans people across the United States. They provide food, security, safe transportation, and mental health services. Funding has supported 10 annual programs and 279 Black trans individuals.

The Audre Lorde Project- Based in Brooklyn, The Audre Lorde Project is and LGBTQ+ organization for people of color. They focus on community organizing and nonviolent activism, including: AIDS and HIV activism, pro-immigrant activism, and prison reform.

Brave Space Alliance (BSA)- BSA is the first Black trans-led LGBTQ+ center in Chicago. Their Four Pillars of Dignity are: Health, Housing, Food, Identity. They provide essential services, develop programs for individuals and families, and advocate on issues that directly impact Trans, LGBQ+, and Black communities.

Black AIDS Institute (BAI)- BAI is dedicated to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Black community. Their vision is to see a world where Black people are free of HIV and AIDS, free of stigma and shame, and where health and well-being are paramount. They have multiple national programs which focus on educating African American communities about the science of HIV, medical advancements, and prevention methods.

[axii-xix]

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP WTF

everyone was expecting her fight to be her testing / training the Traveler BUT THIS!?!?!

(spoilers for Lyney / Lynette / Freminet lore, it's found in their character bios / voicelines but doesn't spoil anything in the archon quests)

The siblings standing up to her and her fighting them???!??! This is so insane I—

It definitely looks serious considering that she's gone into her crazy balemoon form, and the fact that Freminet is blocking her very deadly looking strike and also going straight for her head

I know Lyney has a voiceline about having to become the next head of the House of the Hearth, and not wanting us to tell his siblings because they'll worry

Perhaps they find out here and all 3 decide to convince Arle to let Lyney make his own decision about that matter

It also seems that they got assigned a mission they don't want to complete, perhaps involving someone they know or don't want to kill (Freminet saying Lyney is hiding the person Father is looking for, Lynette asking why Arle's backed them into a corner, etc)

Judging by the opening lines of the trailer (some familiar faces not being present, etc) and details in the siblings' voicelines it's clear they're sent on dangerous missions and are always avoiding death by the skin of their teeth, and definitely aren't living normal lives

Also Freminet says that crying is looked down on / considered weak by Arle, so he always bottles up his emotions and lets them out at the literal bottom of the ocean; their childhood was definitely not great, even if Arle saved them from even worse fates

Like they never really experienced a normal childhood so I doubt they realize that the stuff going on in the House of the Hearth isn't anywhere near ideal

The special program also implies that Arle is very strict and the siblings have been affected negatively by this (stuff Daman / Lyney's VA says, etc)

I really hope that Arle sees their logic and backs down so I don't feel entirely terrible about pulling for her / liking her character because if she's willing to kill any of the siblings I'm going to be absolutely furious at her—

We do know she cares about them and gets very angry when they're mistreated or when they want to risk their lives when their are other options (her anger at people in Freminet / Lynette's past and when Lyney wants to risk his life and get a delusion to be able to perform on the same level as Lynette, before he got his vision)

ALSO I'm not going to ramble abt this as much but CYNO'S STORY QUEST!??!?!? From what I gather it seems Sethos was another candidate to receive the god's power (that Cyno has) and feels that he should have gotten it rather than Cyno for some reason?? Can't wait to see what's up with that as well

(also not Cyno and Yoimiya getting second story quests before Venti help—)

trailer link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYZW7wH3pVM&t=58s

[nobylerdoubt]

I'm kinda doubting the internalized homophobia storyline hehe

Let's talk about that - because I can see where your coming from there. I think you need to think of it less as an internalized homophobia storyline, and more of a compulsory heterosexuality storyline.

We don't have a lot of evidence that would show that Mike would have negative feelings about himself for being gay. There's not much against it either, so I could see the story going either way. But Mike's compulsory heterosexuality could come from a place of internalized homophobia, or it could come from a place of not realizing that this isn't the way everyone feels.

(For the purpose of this post, bolded quotes are direct quotes from the show, while italicized quotes are speculative internal monologue."

It's a concept I think about a lot when it comes to queer identity:

"I think everyone is faking being in love in high school. We're too young to feel that kind of attraction!" "Sure I feel the same way about men and women's attractiveness, but I'm a man, so I'm going to pursue a relationship with a woman." "Of course you're prettier than him - women are naturally just prettier then men."

These aren't examples of someone who hates themselves for being queer, and therefore pushing themselves to "act straight". These are examples of people raised in a society that only presents one option for sexuality - people who assume everyone is like them and are following suit with what's expected of them.

I've talked before about how I feel Lucas made the first "push" to get Mike to consider that maybe he has feelings for El:

"Oh, is that what this is? I mean, I do like her, and she is a girl..."

More explicit examples include the rain fight:

"It's not my fault you don't like girls" "We're not kids anymore, I mean what did you think, really, that we were never gonna get girlfriends?"

This to me explains that Mike equates growing up to getting girlfriends. He is older, therefore he needs a girlfriend. It's not his fault that Will hasn't gotten with the program and found a girlfriend for himself.

There's also the Rink-o-Mania fight:

"What about us?" "We're friends. We're. Friends."

To me this reads as Mike trying to justify why he hasn't reached out to Will as much as El because Will isn't his girlfriend, he's not supposed to talk that much to someone who is supposed to just be his friend.

Mike isn't following his heart when it comes to his relationship with El - he's following protocol.

"What do boyfriends and girlfriends do together? IDK, make out? What else are we gonna do, El doesn't like much of what I'm interested in." "She's my girlfriend so I have to keep in constant contact with her. I probably shouldn't call Will as much because that would be weird if I talk to him as much as my girlfriend."

But at the same time, if Mike wasn't just a bit too worried about the possibility of being gay, why couldn't he hug will?

And, non-diegetic evidence; why was there a huge implication that Mike wasn't acting like himself at the airport? The costume director tells us that this outfit was an attempt by Mike to not be himself. In the words of Argyle, Mike here is a "shitty knock-off" of his true self.

Why hide his true self? Why try to mask who he is when reuniting with his girlfriend and best friend?

Why not be himself around the people he should feel the most comfortable to be himself around? Unless he feels that there is something shameful about his true self that he needs to hide.

When we meet Eddie in Season 4, he describes what Mike was wearing when he first saw him and Dustin as "whatever shit your mommy bought you at the goddamn gap."

Mike hasn't been making his own decisions for himself about a lot of things. He's been going along with what other people have told him to do. By the start of Season 4, Mike has seemed to have found himself again. He's proudly a freak, a nerd, a member of Hellfire, and he's not interested in budding up to the popular crowd like Lucas is trying to do.

So why is he hiding from El? Why is he hiding from Will? What does Mike know about himself now that he can't show to them?

[blackthewolf17]

😭Today i tasted the heaven, and it tastes like glory

For a long time I wanted to try this program called Realistic Paint Studio Because if you hadn't noticed I LOVE traditional oil art, so I'm obsessed with anything that can mimic the effect of traditional painting in digital.

The only negative thing I find (from the little I was able to try with the test period) is that the stabilizer makes you make somewhat strange movements, sometimes. And and it is somewhat limited in brushes, you have 52 which is actually a considerable amount but for an addict like me they are few

Aside from those two details, it felt amazing, very intuitive with a 3D brush box and a little winged gif showing how they paint. It lets you use different types of canvas and what I love most, the color palette can be with the digital method or with an imitation of real tubes. And the option to import the image into a realistic 3D scenario to create the illusion that it was really made in traditional ways is simply magnificent. Now I just need $50 dollars to buy it, which I will definitely do.

[transhuman-priestess]

How I Scan Negatives

I've been doing film photography for 3 whole weeks so of course I am now an expert and you should toooooootally listen to me for my expert opinion on this matter.

But in seriousness, this post isn't meant to be a how-to guide, but if you can glean some useful information from it, that's really neat and I'm glad.

Part 1: The Scanner

There are a couple different ways to scan negatives. The simplest is known as camera scanning, and that just means you use some kind of backlight and take a close-up picture of a negative with a digital camera of some kind.

I've done a couple of scans like this but since it ideally relies on a macro lens, something which costs about $300 at a bare minimum, and more if you want one that's actually, yknow, good. Also, camera scanning inherently limits you to one picture at a time.

So my scanner is a flatbed Epson "Perfection" V600. I purchased this scanner because it is the least expensive flatbed scanner you can find that also does transparencies. It can scan 12 35mm negatives or two 6x9cm 120 negatives at a time. The Perfection V850 can do a full 36 exposure roll of 35mm but costs 4.33x as much.

So this thing is fine.

The first step is to cut my negatives up. This isn't as horrifying as it sounds. I have binder pages that hold 6 6-exposure strips, so a full roll of 35mm (which i will from here on out refer to with the slightly antiquated but slightly faster to type "135") takes up a single page.

Next, I mount them in the handy negative mounting frame that Epson provides, and put it in the scanner.

Now we can move on to the actual scanning.

Part 2: Scanning Software

This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most irritating part of the whole ordeal. There's lots of decent scanning software out there, but there's fewer options for really good scanning software. Most of the "automatic" stuff sucks at being automatic so I end up doing most of it manually.

The scanner comes with the inventively named "Epson Scan," which is a very competent program if you want to scan and don't care about dust and scratches on your film. That is because I have yet to figure out what combination of options actually gets it to properly remove dust and scratches. This is mandatory, because I do not have $10,000 to spend on an industrial-grade negative pressure ventilation system for my bathroom/processing lab. Dust is avoidable, but ultimately inescapable.

The ins and outs of dust and scratch removal are interesting but not interesting enough for me to do a deep dive on them. The very short version is that the scanner scans every frame twice, once with visible light and once with infrared, and overlays the information from these to get rid of dust and scratches.

So instead of using the admittedly competent pack-in software, I opted to purchase SilverFast 9 SE. I paid $49 USD for this because I could not find a cracked version of the full-featured "HDR Suite" version and, frankly, i haven't missed the additional features.

SilverFast has a wizard option (Do they still call it that?) that walks you through the various steps of scanning. I haven't used it since my first roll.

The first step is to do a "pre-scan", which just scans the whole thing at a low resolution so you can pick the frames out of the lineup.

This is my screen at this point. The first step is to draw around the individual frames. This takes about 5-10 minutes depending on how anal i'm being about framing and overscan.

Now that i've let the computer pick the frames to save time for demonstration purposes manually picked my frames its time to boost the scan resolution from a postage-stamp 300 pixels per inch to an actually-usable 3200. You'll also note that i'm scanning these as "positives" rather than negatives. The "negative" scan option adds something called "Negafix" that i cannot turn off and that tries to color-correct for the negative stock's film base color. It is monumentally bad at this unless your stock is pre-loaded in its database which, as far as I can tell, hasn't been updated since 2005. We'll deal with that later though.

Now that we have the basic setting defined we go over to the "frame" menu seen above and copy these settings to all frames. I could set them manually, but copying settings over is the one thing this software is good at doing automatically. This may have something to do with the fact that it is essentially copy-and-paste, which you may recognize as a basic feature of every computer since 1987.

Occasionally, and unpredictably, the scanning software will turn on "Unsharp Masking." The wikipedia page on this option will explain it. I will not, because my contempt for the option rivals my contempt for the Republican Party, The Catholic Church, and Portland's insistence on driving 5 below the limit on the highway. I turn it off and if I could i would find whoever invented this option and eat their dog.

Once that is turned off we get to turn on the most beautiful option that SilverFast 9 SE has to offer, iSRD. iSRD is the previously-mentioned scratch-and-dust removal.

I have found that, in this one instance, the automatic settings are completely acceptable to me. They eliminate most of the really problematic dust in high-detail areas. The hairs and dust that gets left behind is usually easy to deal with via clone stamp later.

Now that the boring stuff is out of the way we get to the tedious, yet, to me at least, fun part. Histogram adjustment!

What you're seeing here is a histogram, its a graphical representation of the brightness of an image. Our goal with this is to maximize the dynamic range of the image. All that blank space to the right of the "mountains" (and some of the "lowlands" on the left) need to be eliminated so that the file can use as much of the bandwidth they have for actual useful image file stuff. This is pretty simple. We just slide those little arrows until they bound the mountains better.

Once we do this we can check the output histogram and see how it's mapped all the image data to the full bandwidth.

This has to be done individually per-frame, since each frame is slightly different.

Now that's done we can actually scan. I use the "Batch Scan" function, which scans everything one-after-the-other. I'm not going to show the dialog windows because 1.) its boring and 2.) I don't want to reconfigure the save path the way I did for the above images. It's a privacy thing.

After we've scanned everything its time to move on to...

Part 3: Color Grading

This is the part you've never heard about before. It's the most involved, and the most important, and it's worth getting into why.

Computers are amazing at storing information, at sorting information, at rearranging and processing information, but they are fundementally incapable of the most important part of dealing with information, assigning meaning.

I'm sure a lot of folks are going to be very very angry at me for saying that, but I actually don't care, and what's more, I'm confident the computer scientists I know will agree with me.

Film is better at storing images than computers. Period, this is a physical fact. The amount of dynamic range and resolution contained in film exceeds the ability of computers to contain it completely. So scanning is always going to be about compromises. You're trying to maximize the amount of useful information you can see by eliminating as much of the un-useful information as you can. But the computer doesn't actually know what is and isn't useful, so we have to tell it.

In order to do this, we use image editing software. I know a lot of photographers who swear by Photoshop, but fuck Adobe, and I know a lot of photographers who love GIMP, but GIMP's user interface is so convoluted as to be detrimental to my purposes. So I use Paint.NET, which is Windows-only, a fact which is sure to get me hate mail from several users including one of my best friends. (Sorry, Murder*.)

Here we have an unaltered** negative. There's a bit of overscan you can see on the left side of the image, and obviously its currently in portrait orientation. Before we go any further, I'm going to fix both of these things.

I like to crop my negatives in a 3:2 ratio. This is the natural aspect ratio of 135 film, and i like that similitude. Paint.NET lets me set a fixed aspect ratio for selections, which is nice

Now that the overscan has been cropped out and the picture is rotated properly, we can invert the image to a positive, and here is where it will become apparent to you exactly why color grading is important, and why there's no such thing as an "pure scan".

Wow! That's very...blue? Well, yes, it is. Color negative film mostly has an orange base. This helps compensate for shortcomings in the dyes used, and those shortcomings are why we have to color grade. The next step I take is to open the "levels" controls, where you'll see our old friend, the histogram!

This histogram looks different, but it's the same basic concept, with the difference that this program lets me adjust red, green, and blue individually. You'll also note that the individual RGB histograms broadly look similar, just out of sync. This is because of the orange base. They won't always look that similar, and in this case it's largely because the sky was overcast that day and there's a large amount of gray in the entire image.

We're going to adjust the input histogram first. Here, our goal is to map the maximum amount of dynamic range possible to the final image. Color balance is not yet important. So we slide the little arrows up and down from the top and bottom so that as much of them fill the output histogram as possible without clipping.

What is clipping? Clipping is when the black or white levels "blow out". Some clipping is acceptable in some images. A bright, sunny day will invariably have some clipping, and if you go out of your way to avoid it the image will look weird and flat. But in a picture like this where everything is muted and gray, we want to avoid it.

Clipping, by the way, looks like this, and is why i don't let the computer automatically adjust the level balance. Some people like this look with the deep black shadows, I do not.

But, onto doing it the Proper*** way

You can see the image is looking a lot better, but it still has a notably off color cast to the image. Its kind of green. Now we can move on to adjusting the output histogram. There's two ways to deal with this. We can adjust the input red, but this will result in highlight clipping. I actually don't mind highlight clipping as much, and in this case we have several red lights in the image both on the BMW and the crossing gate, so we're going to adjust that input histogram.

Truthfully, I should have thought of this before picking this image to do a demonstration on, but at this point its too late to turn back, and like I keep saying, this isn't a "how-to" guide.

So we still have a bit of a color cast, but its (mostly) in the midtones. Now it's time to bring out our secret weapon: gray balance, also known as neutral point or gray point.

That middle slider can be adjusted for red, green, and blue independently, and that's exactly what we're going to do.

This looks, for the most part, very good. I'll probably go back and tweak the gray points in the red and green a bit more, and i often go through these steps 2-3 times, repeating with finer adjustments before finally confirming the changes.

Truthfully, I don't remember if the BMW was pure white or eggshell white, so i'm going to err on the side of "eggshell" because the rest of the image looks weirder if i adjust for that white to be "pure".

And now, Voila! A fully color-graded image.

Does it look exactly like it did IRL? No, not quite, but again, scanning is all about compromise. I'm sure someone with more experience could do a better job than me, but the point here isn't to show you how to make things perfect, it's to show how I, Ivy Michaels do this.

If you made it through this far, congratulations! I love you! I hope you found this interesting. Thanks for reading <3

*Murder is e's actual name.

** i have censored the license plate of the 25-year-old BMW in my shot out of privacy concerns. It is not my car, and i do not know the owner. The negative has not been cropped, rotated, inverted, or graded in any way. Only the license plate has been removed by select-and-stretch. *** Despite my repeated slides into "we/us" language, this is not a how-to and is not intended to be a statement of objective correctness. It is "correct" in the sense of "correct to my personal workflow"