#no idea what videos here are called

[cartoonartistpng]

Sonic gods in a nutshell

[lesbiancarat]

want to give my two cents on the AI usage in the maestro trailer--

i think seventeen doing a whole concept that is anti-AI is very cool, especially as creatives themselves i think it's good that they're speaking up against it and i hope it gets more ppl talking about the issue. i also understand on a surface level the artistic choice (whether it was made by the members, the mv director, or whoever else), to directly use AI in contrast to real, human-made visuals and music in order to criticize it. i also appreciate that they clearly stated the intention of the use of AI at the beginning of the video

however, although i understand it to an extent, i do not agree with the choice to use AI to critique AI. one of the main ethical concerns with generative AI is that it is trained on other artists' work without their knowledge, consent, or compensation. and even when AI generated images are being used to critique AI, it still does not negate this particular ethical concern

the use of AI to critique also does not negate the fact that this is work that could have been done by an actual artist. i have seen some people argue that it's okay in this context because it's a critique specifically about AI, and it is content that never would have been done by a real artist anyway because it doesn't make sense for the story they're trying to tell. but i disagree. i think you can still tell the exact same story without using AI

and in fact, i would argue that it would make the anti-AI message stronger if they HAD paid an artist to draw/animate the scenes that are supposed to represent AI generated images. wouldn't it just be proof that humans can create images that are just as bad and nonsensical and soulless as AI, but that AI can't replicate the creativity and beauty and basic fucking anatomy that's in human-made art?

it feels very obvious this was not just a way to cut corners and costs like a lot of scummy people are using AI for. ultimately it was a very intentional creative decision, i just personally think it was a very poor one. and even if some ethical considerations were taken into account before this decision, i certainly don't think all of them were. at the very least i feel like the decision undermines the message they want to convey

i would also like to recognize that i myself am not an artist, and i have seen some artists that are totally on board with the use of AI in this specific context, so clearly this is not a topic that is cut and dry. but generative AI is still new, and i think it's important to keep having these conversations

[kirby-the-gorb]

[linagram]

[ 𝚑𝚒𝚖𝚞𝚛𝚊 𝚛𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚊'𝚜 𝚝𝟸 𝚟𝚘𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝚍𝚛𝚊𝚖𝚊 ] 𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚛

and with this, we're finally done with all the second trial's mvs and vds! woooo! this trial surely was. something.

after reina's vd, there's gonna be two post-t2 vds (similar to this trial having two pre-t2 vds), the first one will be jackalope explaining some stuff (and miki finally getting to meet him) and the third guard's full name reveal and the second one will be about everyone's second trial verdicts.

Warnings for Reina's VD: None

Warnings for Reina's MV: None

(sounds of footsteps)

Miki: "It's Himura-san's turn already.."

Miki: "This trial has been so stressful and we also have to judge everyone later.."

Miki: "Wait-"

(footsteps stop)

Miki: ".. Will Eiji-san even be able to judge someone this time?"

Miki: ".. I don't think he will. No, actually, it would be better for his health if he didn't participate in the trial this time."

Miki: "But if he can't vote, then-"

Miki: ...

Miki: .. Hehe..

Miki: W-wait, why am I-

Miki: Why am I.. laughing?

Miki: I should feel sorry for him. I should hope that he gets better.

Miki: .. What has this place done to me?

Miki: Wait, is that-

(sounds of other person's footsteps)

Miki: Huh?..

Miki: W-who's there?!

Miki: "Is it one of the prisoners?.."

???: Calm down, calm down!

???: Here, do you recognize me now?

Miki: .. Are you..

Miki: Hiyuu-san?

Hiyuu: Yeah, that's me.

Hiyuu: Sorry for scaring you like that, haha.

Hiyuu: Well, at least now we finally get to meet each other in person!

Hiyuu: Ah, right, I should probably take this off..

Miki: What-

(sounds of Hiyuu taking his mask off)

Hiyuu: Here we go.

Hiyuu: Wow, breathing sure feels easier now.

Miki: ...

Hiyuu: Hm? Is there something wrong with my face?

Hiyuu: Hold on, let me-

Hiyuu: .. Ahaha, I still have some ice cream left on my face..

Hiyuu: I should wipe it off..

Hiyuu: Wait, do I even have anything to wipe it off with-

(sounds of Hiyuu talking to himself in the background)

Miki: "CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE-"

Hiyuu: Is everything okay, Miki-san?

Miki: I'M FINE!

Miki: .. Oh my god, sorry, that was so loud, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry-

Hiyuu: Don't worry, I just wanted to make sure you're alright, haha.

Hiyuu: I want to help you with interrogating the tenth prisoner, is that okay with you?

Miki: Y-yes, sure! Interrogations can be.. very tiring..

Miki: Ah, but only if you're okay with that-

Miki: H-huh?

(a sound of Hiyuu putting his hand on Miki's head)

Hiyuu: I left my room exactly because I wanted to help you. So of course I'm okay with that.

Miki: O-oh..

Miki: Wait, didn't you say that you can't leave your room?

Hiyuu: Ah, about that..

Hiyuu: That rabbit thing told me I can't leave my room, so I assumed that the door was locked, but when I tried to open it, I didn't have any trouble with it.

Hiyuu: So, uh, I guess he was just messing with me, haha..

Hiyuu: Or maybe I was supposed to interpret his words differently..

Miki: .. Rabbit thing?

Hiyuu: Y-you didn't meet him yet?..

Miki: N-no??

Hiyuu: .. Now I feel awkward.

Hiyuu: Okay, let's go interrogate the tenth prisoner now, haha!~..

Miki: "Oh no, is he going to turn out to be a weird guy too.."

Miki: "But he's still cute.."

Miki: .. You remind me of someone, to be honest.

Hiyuu: Hm? What did you say?

Miki: N-nothing!

Miki: "I'm probably just ovethinking it.. It must be a coincidence.."

Miki: "But they look and act so.. similar.."

Miki: Wait, Hiyuu-san, do you even know how to interrogate prisoners?

Hiyuu: I have watched recordings of your interrogations, so yeah, I know some stuff.

Miki: W-we were being recorded?..

Hiyuu: Of course you were.

Hiyuu: Now, are you ready for the final interrogation? We're already here.

Miki: ...

Miki: *nods*

Hiyuu: Great. Excited to work with you, partner~

(the door opens)

Reina: Ah, there you are-

Reina: Wait, what?

Miki: U-um, Himura-san, Eiji-san had to be replaced, I mean, not exactly replaced, but-

Hiyuu: Hello there. You're Reina-san, right?

Reina: .. (to Miki) I'm assuming you know what's going on here.

Miki: .. I know that better than anyone.

Reina: So, it's my turn now, huh?

Reina: Let's go then, yay..

Miki: *sits down* You don't really sound that enthusiastic, you know?

Reina: Really? Sorry. I got tired of waiting for you, haha..

Miki: .. What happened to you, Himura-san?

Reina: You have to be more specific here, Guard 002-san.

Miki: .. You used to call me "Miki-chan" before.

Reina: Well, I thought we were friends, Guard 002-san. I thought we were gonna get along.

Reina: But I was wrong.  

Hiyuu: .. Did something happen between you two?

Miki: I-I don't think so?

Miki: Himura-san, did I do something wrong? If so, please tell me-

Reina: Oh, I'm gonna tell you.

Reina: Innocent verdict, baby! Woooo!

Reina: *laughs*

Reina: *takes a breath*

Reina: What the hell, Miki-chan. What, do you want me to sing a whole villain song for you or something-

Reina: Oh, wait, you have my video for that.

Reina: Then why was I still forgiven, huh?

Miki: Because..

Miki: Um..

Hiyuu: Because the guards had their own reasons for that. And who exactly are you to question their judgement?

Miki: H-huh?

Reina: Wow, you're a smart guy, aren't you?

Reina: Well, I'm going to start sounding real smart right now too.

Reina: ...

Reina: (her voice sounds more emotionless now) Guard 002-san, what did I tell you last time?

Miki: Y-you mean the serial killer part?

Reina: Exactly. The "serial killer part".

Reina: Now, what are you supposed to do with serial killers?

Miki: .. P-punish-

Reina: That's right. Punish them.

Reina: But I still wasn't punished.

Reina: Would you say that it was a good decision? A wise one? A morally correct one?

Reina: And I have a lot of questions about the guilty prisoners too.

(sounds of Reina standing up and walking around)

Reina: Shun, who is now this close to just breaking Kei and turning him into a mindless puppet.. was voted innocent.

Reina: Akio, who always said that his crime wasn't his fault, obviously trying to shift the blame, but who still mostly was just a nerdy 16 year old obsessed with attention, was voted guilty and now he looks like he can die at any second.

Miki: W-we had our-

Reina: Eiko, who feels no remorse for her crime at all and can easily tell anyone all the details if they just ask, was voted innocent.

Miki: But we-

Reina: And just a reminder, you don't know ANYTHING about Kei's murder, but you still voted him guilty-

Miki: WE HAD OUR REASONS, NOW SIT DOWN!

Reina: ...

Reina: *sits down*

Hiyuu: I don't think you understand how this whole system works, Reina-san.

Reina: Well, do you understand it then?

Hiyuu: Kind of.

Hiyuu: I was told that we are allowed to judge prisoners based on.. literally anything.

Hiyuu: So if you thought that our decisions have to be nothing but morally correct.. Sorry to disappoint you.

Reina: .. "Literally anything"?

Hiyuu: Yeah. It's possible that someone was forgiven just because one or both guards find them cute or attractive.

Reina: ...

Reina: Haha..

Reina: .. I don't have any energy left for all of this.

Reina: ...

Miki: .. A-are you okay, Himura-san-

Reina: So, I don't sound that enthusiastic anymore, Guard 002-san?

Reina: Well, as you can see, I'm not exactly satisfied with my verdict.

Reina: And I'm gonna be honest, I'm getting tired of the whole "most dangerous prisoner" act myself and I can see that it's not convincing enough.

Reina: So yeah, the show's over.

Hiyuu: Reina-san, do you want to be punished that badly?

Reina: Oh, I wanted it more than anything.

Reina: If I could, I would've just asked you to execute me even before the second trial starts.

Reina: But now..

Reina: It's a bit more complicated than that.

Reina: *laughs* But wow, I can't believe this. We're really letting someone like you judge us.

Reina: What, are you gonna vote me guilty now? Are you gonna vote me guilty because I'm not a "I'm the cutest serial killer ever!" type of girl anymore?

Reina: And I really thought you're going to still like me even after I show you my real self! You're breaking my heart, Miki-chan.

Hiyuu: When you say "It's more complicated than that".. 

Hiyuu: What do you mean by that?

Reina: Oh, right. What I mean by that is..

Reina: I can't let you two..

Reina: Or three?

Reina: Anyway, I can't let you all judge me and the other prisoners.

Reina: I already know what I deserve and what my verdict should be like. Who are you to tell me what to do and who I am?

Miki: W-well, um, we're the guards-

Hiyuu: Hold on, Miki-san.

Hiyuu: Okay, but what will you even do to stop us?

Reina: You know what's really bothering me about this whole situation?

Reina: .. You all aren't even trying to figure out what's going on.

Reina: How can you accept your new reality so easily?

Reina: Or is it because you hated your old reality so much that you were okay with anything?

Miki: ...

Miki: .. A-and what if we did?

Miki: I had my worries about this place. Of course I was afraid at first.

Miki: But now.. It feels like home.

Hiyuu: I don't really hate this place either.

Reina: .. I feel sorry for both of you.

Reina: But fine, whatever, I'm not going to share anything with you then.

Miki: What do you mean by "anything"?

Reina: ..  I have some theories about this place.

Reina: And, um..

Reina: How it works.

Miki: !

Reina: But I doubt that you two are interested, so-

Hiyuu: No, no, I'm curious. Come on, share with us.

Miki: But we don't have much time-

Reina: Well, let's see..

Miki: "Wait, didn't she just say she's not gonna tell us anything?"

Reina: .. So, we have.. what, three guards now? 

Reina: (to Hiyuu) Hey, can you tell me where have you been all this time? Why didn't we get to meet you sooner?

Hiyuu: .. I was asleep.

Reina: And when did you wake up?

Hiyuu: I think it was shortly after the first trial's verdicts were announced? But why?

Reina: .. Three guilty prisoners.

Miki: Huh?

Reina: There was only three guilty prisoners. Guard 001-san was the one who wanted to vote everyone guilty. 

Reina: (to Hiyuu) And you woke up after Guard 001-san had lost that round.

Reina: .. They're just going to keep switching you all until they get bored.

Miki: Who? Who are you talking about??

Reina: No idea.

Reina: I don't even know how many guards they actually have.

Reina: .. I don't even know how many prisoners we actually have.

Miki: .. W-what does that mean, Himura-san?

Reina: Oh, I don't know. 

Reina: Maybe something like..

Reina: .. One of us isn't actually a prisoner?

Miki: Wh-

Reina: Anyway, the clock is ticking, right?

Reina: So, wanna talk about my crime?

Hiyuu: That was a sudden change of topic..

Miki: But Himura-san-

Hiyuu: Miki-san, please, let's talk about Reina-san's crime now.

Hiyuu: .. If we don't, I'm afraid I will end up wasting all my energy soon and I don't want that. I want to be useful to you.

Miki: .. Himura-san, do you have anything to say about your murder?

Reina: I guess I do.

Reina: But I wanna ask, what did you learn about it from my video?

Miki: .. I guess you really were a criminal in a way, but..

Miki: .. We never saw you actually kill anyone.

Reina: .. Haha.

Hiyuu: What's so funny, Reina-san?

Reina: So you haven't seen that part either.. Interesting.

Reina: Hey, but you saw, like, my victim or something?

Miki: .. I guess we did.

Miki: But we didn't see all the details, so we don't know what your victim actually looked like.

Reina: I see..

Reina: He was completely covered in blood, of course, you wouldn't be able to see it, haha..

Miki: .. You were laughing in your video too, Himura-san.

Reina: Really?

Miki: And crying. Both at the same time.

Reina: ...

Reina: Well, how else was I supposed to react after I saw my little brother's corpse?

Reina: H-he came there because of me too, haha.. He always was such an idiot..

Miki: !

Miki: LITTLE BROTHER?!

(bell rings, machinery sounds)

Miki: Himura-san, I'm begging you, please, tell us more!

Hiyuu: Miki-san, time's up. Let's calm down and extract the video-

Miki: BE A GOOD PARTNER, HIYUU-SAN, AND SHUT UP FOR A SECOND!

Miki: .. Your victim was your little brother, Himura-san?

Reina: Haha, what, now you're going to vote me guilty this time?

Reina: You don't want to save me anymore?

Miki: ... 

Miki: *starts crying*

Hiyuu: Miki-san, please, can you take a deep breath for me? Here, again, let's calm down..

Hiyuu: You're shaking.. Let's talk about it later, when we're done with this.

Hiyuu: I already have all the information we need. It was me who interrogated everyone yesterday, remember?

Hiyuu: Also, we're going to watch the video together, so we'll see everything that we have to know-

Miki: .. Himura-san, what are you doing?

Miki: HIMURA-SAN?!

(sounds of Reina throwing something and that thing falling on the floor)

Reina: Ugh, didn't work..

Reina: Should've seen this coming.

Hiyuu: .. Reina-san, did you just try to break the video extracting machine?

Reina: Yeah, kinda. More like wanted to see if that thing can even be broken.

Miki: .. You tried to break it with your shoe.

Reina: Yeah. I'm an idiot, just like my brother, haha.

Miki: ...

(sounds of Miki's slow footsteps)

Hiyuu: Miki-san, are you sure you can do this? If you need any help-

Miki: I can. Thank you.

Reina: Well, what's it gonna be this time, everyone's savior?

Miki: .. Prisoner 010, Reina, please, sing your sins.

42% ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░░░░░ 100%

[MV Description]

The video starts with little Reina (most likely ten years old), sitting in her room and talking to her toys. Everything is black and white and it looks like an old silent movie. We can't hear Reina's voice, we can only hear the music and how it's slowly becoming more and more repetitive. Reina looks happy at first, but then she starts getting tired and when the music becomes almost unbearable to listen to, she throws all the toys off her bed.

It turns out that it really was a scene from a movie and now someone is interviewing little Reina and she's still smiling and overall looks like a very happy child. 

"Look at me, the little star of the show

Aren't you proud of me? Look at me! I'm such a good girl!

Except I don't feel anything at all

I'm not even proud of myself"

The scene changes and now she's older, she's still being interviewed, but now she looks and acts more like a "problem child": she doesn't want to be there and she makes sure everyone knows it and her parents find her embarrassing.

"Oh no, it looks like your little star has gone wild

She's rude, she's violent, she's going crazy

Except she doesn't feel anything at all

She's not even proud of herself"

Now we can see Reina and her parents going to see her new movie together and when it starts, it has even darker colors than the first one. 

"I keep achieving goals, I keep making accomplishments

But this story isn't going anywhere

Will my character ever change for the better?

No motivation, no backstory, no reason for me to grow"

Reina just sits there with her parents and watches her character kill so many people on screen without showing any signs of regret, but even though Reina looks bored at first, when you look closer, you can see that she's actually.. uncomfortable with that kind of role. 

"Is this who I am? Is this who I'm supposed to be?

The villain of this story was me all along

At least that's what I thought

But it looks like you see me in a different way"

Her parents eventually leave without even watching the full movie, meanwhile Reina stays and sees her character finding a dead body that we can't see clearly, but this is the first time when her character actually looks scared. Reina stands up from her chair, looks like she doesn't remember making that face in that scene. Actually, she's not sure if this movie even had a scene like that, she doesn't remember filming it. 

Reina continues watching the movie and she can see how her character keeps getting more and more emotional and how she yells at one of her "partners in crime" and throws her weapon on the ground. Reina turns around to see all people in the cinema enjoying the movie a lot more now. It looks like they really like the development this character is getting.

"Ah, so that's how it is

Am I a hero in your eyes now?

Have you forgiven me already?

You don't even know anything about me, how can you say those words so easily?"

Reina decides to leave, but before she does that, her character looks right at her and nods. Reina nods back with anger and hatred in her eyes and right when she leaves and closes the door behind her, everything starts to burn. 

The whole cinema is on fire now. Her character sees everyone running and screaming and smiles while trying to hide the dead body from earlier, meanwhile Reina sits on a nearby bench and watches the cinema burn to the ground. 

"So, who will tell this story: me or you?

Will you rewrite everything, will you decide how it ends?

I'm not against that, I just want you to know

You won't be able to forgive me until I forgive myself"

She looks relieved and she sighs while looking at the night sky.

[puppyeared]

Xin Ya is so cute and well designed! more a question than a comment but I just love your style

thank u!! im currently redoing bits of their backstory and design so hopefully ill get some more art of them up soon

[christiangeistdorfer]

i love finding random video. here we have the finnish commentary of the 1991 swedish rally with markku alén and ILKKA KIVIMÄKI where they came third #slay. anyway the voice coming on the radio, them just staring at the radio, markku looking back at the interviewer so embarrassed with the hand like all shocked is so funny what th

[maraschinotopped]

^ tried to do literary/video analysis of her own volition

[kalloway]

late-night WIP I have been chipping away at VERY slowly cuz video games and the heat lately have just been sucking the soul out of my body tbh, so I mostly only draw for a bit when we’re watching movies at night lmao

also I... I’m thinking about retiring using this pencil brush for stuff of this scale in the future because as much as I love how it looks, it is just SO much work to do any kind of ‘real’ lineart with 💀💀

like... im stubborn and try to stick with things but even i gotta draw the line on this one guys - I’ll try switching back to an old favourite of mine that needs less passes for opaque lines in the future!

[jewishvitya]

A pro-Palestine Jew on tiktok asked those of us who were raised pro-Israel, what got us to change our minds on Palestine. I made a video to answer (with my voice, not my face), and a few people watched it and found some value in it. I'm putting this here too. I communicate through text better than voice.

So I feel repetitive for saying this at this point, but I grew up in the West Bank settlements. I wrote this post to give an example of the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized there.

Where I live now, I meet Palestinians in day to day life. Israeli Arab citizens living their lives. In the West Bank, it was nothing like that. Over there, I only saw them through the electric fence, and the hostility between us and Palestinians was tangible.

When you're a child being brought into the situation, you don't experience the context, you don't experience the history, you don't know why they're hostile to you. You just feel "these people hate me, they don't want me to exist." And that bubble was my reality. So when I was taught in school that everything we did was in self defense, that our military is special and uniquely ethical because it's the only defensive military in the world - that made sense to me. It slotted neatly into the reality I knew.

One of the first things to burst the bubble for me was when I spoke to an old Israeli man and he was talking about his trauma from battle. I don't remember what he said, but it hit me wrong. It conflicted with the history as I understood it. So I was a bit desperate to make it make sense again, and I said, "But everything we did was in self defense, right?"

He kinda looked at me, couldn't understand at all why I was upset, and he went, "We destroyed whole villages. Of course we did. It was war, that's what you do."

And that casual "of course" stuck with me. I had to look into it more.

I couldn't look at more accurate history, and not at accounts by Palestinians, I was too primed against these sources to trust them. The community I grew up in had an anti-intellectual element to it where scholars weren't trusted about things like this.

So what really solidified this for me, was seeing Palestinian culture.

Because part of the story that Israel tells us to justify everything, is that Palestinians are not a distinct group of people, they're just Arabs. They belong to the nations around us. They insist on being here because they want to deny us a homeland. The Palestinian identity exists to hurt us. This, because the idea of displacing them and taking over their lands doesn't sound like stealing, if this was never theirs and they're only pretending because they want to deprive us.

But then foods, dances, clothing, embroidery, the Palestinian dialect. These things are history. They don't pop into existence just because you hate Jews and they're trying to move here. How gorgeous is the Palestinian thobe? How stunning is tatreez in general? And when I saw specific patterns belonging to different regions of Palestine?

All of these painted for me a rich shared life of a group of people, and countered the narrative that the Palestininian identity was fabricated to hurt us. It taught me that, whatever we call them, whatever they call themselves, they have a history in this land, they have a right to it, they have a connection to it that we can't override with our own.

I started having conversations with leftist friends. Confronting the fact that the borders of the occupied territories are arbitrary and every Israeli city was taken from them. In one of those conversations, I was encouraged to rethink how I imagine peace.

This also goes back to schooling. Because they drilled into us, we're the ones who want peace, they're the ones who keep fighting, they're just so dedicated to death and killing and they won't leave us alone.

In high school, we had a stadium event with a speaker who was telling us about a person who defected from Hamas, converted to Christianity and became a Shin Bet agent. Pretty sure you can read this in the book "Son of Hamas." A lot of my friends read the book, I didn't read it, I only know what I was told in that lecture. I guess they couldn't risk us missing out on the indoctrination if we chose not to read it.

One of the things they told us was how he thought, we've been fighting with them for so long, Israelis must have a culture around the glorification of violence. And he looked for that in music. He looked for songs about war. And for a while he just couldn't find any, but when he did, he translated it more fully, and he found out the song was about an end to wars. And this, according to the story as I was told it, was one of the things that convinced him. If you know know the current trending Israeli "war anthem," you know this flimsy reasoning doesn't work.

Back then, my friend encouraged me to think more critically about how we as Israelis envision peace, as the absence of resistance. And how self-centered it is. They can be suffering under our occupation, but as long as it doesn't reach us, that's called peace. So of course we want it and they don't.

Unless we're willing to work to change the situation entirely, our calls for peace are just "please stop fighting back against the harm we cause you."

In this video, Shlomo Yitzchak shares how he changed his mind. His story is much more interesting than mine, and he's much more eloquent telling it. He mentions how he was taught to fear Palestinians. An automatic thought, "If I go with you, you'll kill me." I was taught this too. I was taught that, if I'm in a taxi, I should be looking at the driver's name. And if that name is Arab, I should watch the road and the route he's taking, to be prepared in case he wants to take me somewhere to kill me. Just a random person trying to work. For years it stayed a habit, I'd automatically look at the driver's name. Even after knowing that I want to align myself with liberation, justice, and equality. It was a process of unlearning.

On October, not long after the current escalation of violence, I had to take a taxi again. A Jewish driver stopped and told me he'll take me, "so an Arab doesn't get you." Israeli Jews are so comfortable saying things like this to each other. My neighbors discussed a Palestinian employee, with one saying "We should tell him not to come anymore, that we want to hire a Jew." The second answered, "No, he'll say it's discrimination," like it would be so ridiculous of him. And the first just shrugged, "So we don't have to tell him why." They didn't go through with it, but they were so casual about this conversation.

In the Torah, we're told to treat those who are foreign to us well, because we know what it's like to be the foreigner. Fighting back against oppression is the natural human thing to do. We know it because we lived it. And as soon as I looked at things from this angle, it wasn't really a choice of what to support.

[labs]

Another idea: Communities on Tumblr

For a while now folks have asked us for better ways to connect with other people who share similar interests. We’re listening, and at Labs we’ve been looking into fulfilling that need, Tumblr style.

Introducing Communities, a new place to connect with others on Tumblr:

Here in Labs, we’re working on big ideas that could transform how Tumblr is used, while keeping that Tumblr vibe alive. You can see one of those ideas above. We’re calling it “Communities”, a new dedicated space on Tumblr for people to share and discuss all the content they love. Communities can cover topics like your favorite show, artist, movie, video game, your school, your board game group, friend group, big or small, whatever you want.

Each Community has their own semi-private safer space away from the regular dashboard where you can interact with other Tumblr users who share the same interests and passions as you. There are moderators and members (you!), rules, and privacy settings. Each community has its own feed of posts from members, separate from your Following and For You feeds. Interactions within community spaces stay there and replies will work more like a traditional comment section. Folks will be able to reblog posts into a community, but not out — at least not yet.

We’re very excited for you to try it, and help define the best path forward. What we have is a prototype to help us validate the idea, but there’s still plenty of questions that need answering. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be reaching out to people across Tumblr, and the internet at large, to try our prototype. Based on the feedback we get, we’ll iterate on the idea to see what resonates best with all of you on Tumblr.

If this sounds interesting, please like, reblog, or reply to this post, and we’ll invite you to beta test this feature when we roll it out to a wider Tumblr audience, as a little perk for following the Labs blog.

Stay tuned for more!

[captainfantasticalright]

In 1985, one of the only persons interested in an interview with a “new” writer called Terry Pratchett, after his publication of the Colour of Magic, was one Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman was writing for Space Voyager at the time. "The Colour of Pratchett" was the name given here:

It ran exactly one page inside the June/July issue of that year. The interview took place in a Chinese restaurant in London.

Here is Neil many years later holding that issue. You can see it here if you want. Warning: extremely emotional video.

Neil arrived wearing a grey homburg hat. “Sort of like the ones Humphrey Bogart wears in movies” he later wrote. (Before saying that in fact he did not look like him, but like someone wearing a grown-up’s hat). Terry Pratchett, photo courtesy of one @neil-gaiman, was in a Lenin-style leather cap and a harlequin-patterned pullover. At this point, Terry was already a hat person, although not that hat.

Terry offered Neil this : "An interview needn't last more than 15 minutes. A good quote for the beginning, a good quote for the end, and the rest you make up back at the office"*. (Terry Pratchett had worked many years in journalism by this point ).

But the meeting went terribly well. The two of them realized they had "the same sort of brains". So well indeed, that in 1985, Neil had shown Terry a file containing 5282 words, exploring a scenario in which Richmal Crompton's William Brown had somehow become the Antichrist. Was a collaboration in the cards as of that moment? Not really. But Terry found in Neil someone to whom he could send disks of work in progress and to whom he could pick up the phone sometimes when he hit a brick in the road of his writing.

Terry loved it and the concept stayed in his mind. A couple of years later, he rang Neil to ask him if he had done any more work on it. Neil had been busy with The Sandman, he had not really given it another thought. Terry said, "Well I know what happens next, so either you sell me the idea or we can write it together". **

And as you know, unless you’ve been living in Alpha Centauri, the rest is history. That was the beginning of what would become William the Antichrist and later would get the name Good Omens:The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. (Title provided by Neil Gaiman and subtitle by Terry Pratchett).

From the introduction to William the Antichrist: “In the summer of 1987 several odd ideas came together: (..)I found myself imagining a book called William the Antichrist, in which a hapless demon was going to be responsible for swapping the wrong baby over, and the son of the US Ambassador would be completely undemonic, while William Brown would grow up to be the Antichrist, and the demon would need to stop him ending the world. The unfortunate demon, whom I called Crawleigh, because Crawley was a nearby town with an unfortunate name, would have to sort it all out as best he could.

It felt like a story with legs.

Terry took the 5,000 words, and rewrote them, calling me to tell me what he was doing and what he was planning to do. The biggest thing he was going to do, he told me, was split the hapless demon into two characters – a would-be-cool demon in dark glasses (which was, I think, Terry’s way of making fun of me, a never-actually- cool journalist in dark glasses) who had renamed himself Crowley, and a rare-book dealer and angel called Aziraphale, who would embody all the English awkwardness that either of us could conceive.”

William the Antichrist being a direct inspiration of the 1976 film The Omen. If the baby swap had just been a little bit messier and the kid had gone off somewhere else he would have grown up as somebody else. “And then there was a beat and I thought, I should write it, it will be called William the Antichrist” says Neil. ***

“The first draft of Good Omens was a William-book. It was absolutely in every way it could be a William book. It had Violet Elizabeth Bott, it had William and the Outlaws, it had Mr. Brown”.

Over time they realized that they would have more creative freedom if they in their own words filed off the serial numbers. William and the Outlaws becoming Adam and the Them.

But the spirit of Just William was never far away.

The joy for Neil was to construct “perfectly William sentences”. The one when Anathema tells Adam that she has lost the Book, and he tells her that he has written a book about a pirate who became a famous detective and it is 8 pages long… that’s “a William sentence”.

Good Omens was also inspired by a particularly antisemitic moment in The Jew of Malta and John le Carre's spy novels. (Neil’s ask)

“When we finished the book we estimated that the words were 60% Terry’s and 40% mine, and the plot, such as it was, was entirely ours.”

(Here are some slides of mine where I go into some other details concerning the origins of Good Omens).

*Quote: from Terry Pratchett A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins, but said by Terry of course.

** All the quotes, facts listed here : see above.

***all other quotes by Neil Gaiman from various interviews and asks I’ll link.

[rosesradio]

.

[phantomrose96]

The conversation around AI is going to get away from us quickly because people lack the language to distinguish types of AI--and it's not their fault. Companies love to slap "AI" on anything they believe can pass for something "intelligent" a computer program is doing. And this muddies the waters when people want to talk about AI when the exact same word covers a wide umbrella and they themselves don't know how to qualify the distinctions within.

I'm a software engineer and not a data scientist, so I'm not exactly at the level of domain expert. But I work with data scientists, and I have at least rudimentary college-level knowledge of machine learning and linear algebra from my CS degree. So I want to give some quick guidance.

What is AI? And what is not AI?

So what's the difference between just a computer program, and an "AI" program? Computers can do a lot of smart things, and companies love the idea of calling anything that seems smart enough "AI", but industry-wise the question of "how smart" a program is has nothing to do with whether it is AI.

A regular, non-AI computer program is procedural, and rigidly defined. I could "program" traffic light behavior that essentially goes { if(light === green) { go(); } else { stop();} }. I've told it in simple and rigid terms what condition to check, and how to behave based on that check. (A better program would have a lot more to check for, like signs and road conditions and pedestrians in the street, and those things will still need to be spelled out.)

An AI traffic light behavior is generated by machine-learning, which simplistically is a huge cranking machine of linear algebra which you feed training data into and it "learns" from. By "learning" I mean it's developing a complex and opaque model of parameters to fit the training data (but not over-fit). In this case the training data probably includes thousands of videos of car behavior at traffic intersections. Through parameter tweaking and model adjustment, data scientists will turn this crank over and over adjusting it to create something which, in very opaque terms, has developed a model that will guess the right behavioral output for any future scenario.

A well-trained model would be fed a green light and know to go, and a red light and know to stop, and 'green but there's a kid in the road' and know to stop. A very very well-trained model can probably do this better than my program above, because it has the capacity to be more adaptive than my rigidly-defined thing if the rigidly-defined program is missing some considerations. But if the AI model makes a wrong choice, it is significantly harder to trace down why exactly it did that.

Because again, the reason it's making this decision may be very opaque. It's like engineering a very specific plinko machine which gets tweaked to be very good at taking a road input and giving the right output. But like if that plinko machine contained millions of pegs and none of them necessarily correlated to anything to do with the road. There's possibly no "if green, go, else stop" to look for. (Maybe there is, for traffic light specifically as that is intentionally very simplistic. But a model trained to recognize written numbers for example likely contains no parameters at all that you could map to ideas a human has like "look for a rigid line in the number". The parameters may be all, to humans, meaningless.)

So, that's basics. Here are some categories of things which get called AI:

"AI" which is just genuinely not AI

There's plenty of software that follows a normal, procedural program defined rigidly, with no linear algebra model training, that companies would love to brand as "AI" because it sounds cool.

Something like motion detection/tracking might be sold as artificially intelligent. But under the covers that can be done as simply as "if some range of pixels changes color by a certain amount, flag as motion"

2. AI which IS genuinely AI, but is not the kind of AI everyone is talking about right now

"AI", by which I mean machine learning using linear algebra, is very good at being fed a lot of training data, and then coming up with an ability to go and categorize real information.

The AI technology that looks at cells and determines whether they're cancer or not, that is using this technology. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is the technology that can take an image of hand-written text and transcribe it. Again, it's using linear algebra, so yes it's AI.

Many other such examples exist, and have been around for quite a good number of years. They share the genre of technology, which is machine learning models, but these are not the Large Language Model Generative AI that is all over the media. Criticizing these would be like criticizing airplanes when you're actually mad at military drones. It's the same "makes fly in the air" technology but their impact is very different.

3. The AI we ARE talking about. "Chat-gpt" type of Generative AI which uses LLMs ("Large Language Models")

If there was one word I wish people would know in all this, it's LLM (Large Language Model). This describes the KIND of machine learning model that Chat-GPT/midjourney/stablediffusion are fueled by. They're so extremely powerfully trained on human language that they can take an input of conversational language and create a predictive output that is human coherent. (I am less certain what additional technology fuels art-creation, specifically, but considering the AI art generation has risen hand-in-hand with the advent of powerful LLM, I'm at least confident in saying it is still corely LLM).

This technology isn't exactly brand new (predictive text has been using it, but more like the mostly innocent and much less successful older sibling of some celebrity, who no one really thinks about.) But the scale and power of LLM-based AI technology is what is new with Chat-GPT.

This is the generative AI, and even better, the large language model generative AI.

(Data scientists, feel free to add on or correct anything.)

[sutorus]

BAD IDEA RIGHT? BEST FRIEND'S DAD!TOJI for KINKTOBER 2023!

DESCRIPTION: you and megumi are old friends, but a recent development (called growing up) has made you aware of just how hot his dad, toji fushiguro, really is. you sit on your desire for years until one night, you get an idea. 

PAIRING: best friend’s dad!fushiguro toji x reader

WC: 5.1k whoops!

WARNINGS: 18+ MINORDS DNI. fem reader, afab reader, age gap! power dynamics, slight daddy kink, degradation, spit (like a lot it's a Thing here), oral (m! receiving), unprotected relations, slapping, gaping, size difference/size kink, creampie, toji is Nasty and a pretty bad dude lol 

A/N: this is nasty and very descriptive i’m so sorry i really sinned here. anyway enjoy!

you and megumi have been friends since school. after all, it was inevitable that a friendship would form between the only two kids whose parents consistently forgot to pick them up after class. 

nods of acknowledgment quickly developed into trading pokémon cards, sharing samanco waffles, cheating off each other during tests. 

it was the most meaningful relationship you had in your life, the one other person who really got you and the situation you were in, and before you knew it, you two were being admitted to the same college, like you’d talked about all those years ago. 

in the meantime, megumi’s dad had… mellowed out. from what you knew. 

sure, he was still gone for weeks at a time, neglectful, irresponsible and womanizing, but one final falling out with their family seemed to have lifted a big weight off his shoulders, and he became more present in megumi’s life, less resentful. you knew he wasn’t a good guy, but you also knew he was trying, in his own way. 

besides that, you also couldn’t help noticing other things about the man. you first started paying attention when you were in high school, always hanging out at megumi’s place to play video games or study. 

toji would come home sometimes, smelling of smoke and sake, tonguing the scar on the side of his lip. plopping down on their shaggy sofa, legs spread wide, thick thighs straining the fabric of his pants. you would give megumi some excuse about getting something from the kitchen and just watch toji, lazily browsing channels with one hand inside his sweats. 

it wasn’t a big deal. but it never quite went away, your infatuation growing with your desperation the more the man hung around. you did everything you could to get his attention. 

you wore the frilliest, shortest skirts, left dirty dishes on the sink, showed up too late at night drunk and stumbling “looking for megumi”, acting out so you could try to get some reaction out of toji. but he never seemed to give you a second thought, annoyance being the closest thing to an emotion on his face every time your eyes met. 

but you were no quitter. you knew one day you would get what you deserved. maybe not today, but… eventually.

you approach the fushiguro household’s front door, fishing out the extra key megumi had given you from your backpack pocket. you two had a study session today but he’d texted you telling you he’d be late and to just let yourself in, so that’s what you do. 

with a sigh, you set down your laptop on their coffee table and sit down on the couch, looking up at the ceiling. before you can finish getting comfortable, a tall, broad figure is looming over your face and you almost jump out of your skin. 

“what the f—oh my god,” you laugh in embarrassment. “you scared me, fushiguro-san.”

he doesn’t react, his eyes boring into yours. “me? you’re the one breaking into my house.”

you roll your eyes, pulling your legs up below your body. “megumi gave me a key. we’re supposed to study today, do you know where—“

“he’s with that itadori kid. don’t think he’s coming back tonight,” toji moves to sit down on the loveseat, turning the tv on. the old, boxy thing crackles to life, a boat race playing on the screen. toji adjusts his body in attention. “so you can fuck off back home.”

“um,” you start, but nothing else comes out of your mouth. you let your eyes wander all over his lax form, and you can faintly make out his abs below the raggedy shirt he’s wearing. it makes your stomach turn. 

without taking his eyes off the screen, he addresses you again. “you know where the door is.”

an idea starts to form in your head. a really, really bad, tempting idea.

you discreetly take off your sweatshirt, leaving you in just your undershirt, no bra. you hope toji can scent the whiff of perfume you exude when you move, scooting closer to the edge of the sofa. 

“nah, i think i’ll just study here. my parents are home today and they’re too… y’know.”

“not my fuckin’ problem,” he picks at his teeth, spreading his legs wider. your desperation is growing with each second he spends not looking at you. 

you lift up your bag, something clinking inside. it's a bold move, but it's now or never.

“i brought booze. we could just share some and then i’ll go.”

that at least gets a reaction. the man snorts, finally glancing over at you from the corner of his eyes. you instinctively push your chest out, feeling eager. 

“is that what you do with my son under my roof? get shitfaced in the house that i pay for?”

“well i paid for the vodka so i don’t see how that’s any of your business,” you make a point to pull out the bottle from your bag, swinging it around. 

toji’s expression hardens, his jaw clenching. you know he doesn’t like to be challenged, absolutely hates smart mouths. you should be in for a treat. 

“who the hell do you think you’re talking to, kid?” he stands up and snatches the bottle from you, turning it around in his — big, veiny, deliciously calloused — hand and laughing. “vanilla flavored? fuck, you really are a kid.” he says it like the realization excites him. 

you can feel your face flush.

“are you gonna turn down free alcohol, toji?” it’s risky, dropping the honorific. you know he doesn’t like it, can see it in his face, but he doesn’t say anything. 

instead, he unscrews the top with ease and takes a swig, grimacing at the taste. you watch as his throat works, adam’s apple bobbing.

his arms are huge, you can’t imagine he was ever shaped like megumi is nowadays, slender and frail. toji is tall and broad and big, with a permanent 5 o’clock shadow on his defined features. 

he grabs two whiskey glasses and sets them down on the coffee table — no coasters —, pouring some vodka in both of them. it was most definitely not your idea to do straight shots tonight with megumi, but you will not go through the humiliation of asking for a soda to mix it with. 

you’re desperate to have toji view you as the adult you are, no longer megumi’s awkward middle school best friend. you know you’ve grown up well; all you need is for toji to see it too. 

you drink in silence for a bit, the only noises coming from toji being his disappointed grunts as the boats he bet on fall behind. you type away at your laptop, not really being able to focus with the heat rising within you. 

he refills both your cups a couple more times, but makes no effort to talk.

you slowly but surely start to get antsy, your determination wavering and giving way to a funny feeling one can only experience by drinking with their best friend’s dad who they’ve wanted to fuck for like, ever. 

so you bite the bullet and with the liquid courage flowing in your veins, you strike up conversation. 

“y’know, toji, i’ve always wanted to ask,” his head lolls on his shoulder to look at you lazily and disinterested. “what happened to megumi’s mom? he doesn’t talk about it.”

“yeah, well. me either,” toji replies. you take a deep breath. 

“you’re gone a lot. megumi is alone a lot.”

toji scoffs.

“thought that was what you were here for, hmm? megumi’s done well for himself,” he finally, probably for the first time in your life, gives you a proper look over, his eyes traveling all over your frame, tucked into the armrest of the couch. “scored himself a nice little bitch.”

you let out a strangled noise. you’re fighting laughter when you exclaim, “i’m sorry?! you think megumi and i have a—like, a thing?”

toji just shrugs, stretching one leg out in front of him. “i figured. why else would you loiter around my house so much?”

oh, if he only knew. 

“no, no. it’s never been like that. megumi’s not really my type.” toji hums inquisitively, and you take that as a sign to continue. “i’m into more… mature guys.”

toji eyes you knowingly, but seemingly amused. 

“that right?” you nod. “fuckin’ kid like you even know what to do with a man?”

you raise an eyebrow. you’re a sophomore in college, well into your twenties. he can’t be serious. “surely you know i’m not a kid anymore. surely you d—“

“surely my ass,” he exclaims and oh, he’s a little terrifying like this. toji downs however much was left in his cup and turns to you, pointing with the hand holding his glass. “you’re a full of shit, foul mouthed, rude brat. get the fuck out of my house, you’re pissing me off.”

you’re used to toji’s outbursts, not because you know him well but because every time you see him, seldom as it is, he always loses his temper, sooner or later. 

“i think,” you take another sip, feeling loose. “your old ass wouldn’t be able to handle sex. like, actual sex, not those rich hags you who just lay there for you and give you money in the end. if you had to put in any real work i bet your heart would give out you slimey pi—“

you can’t finish your sentence because you can’t breathe, suddenly. your eyes widen, chest spasming as your oxygen gets cut off mid-sentence. toji has one of his huge palms covering your nose and mouth.

you look up at him with watery eyes but he’s not looking back, he’s chugging vodka straight from the bottle again.

he puffs his cheeks and moves his hand to cup your jaw, smirking around a mouthful of alcohol. 

you catch your breath quickly, the hand that was clawing at his falling limply on your lap. toji holds your face, his grip unforgiving as he leans over you. his form is so, so much bigger than yours, towering over you completely, and all you can do is look up at him with a blank expression. 

his thumb pries your mouth open with ease, the digit hooking behind your bottom teeth as toji’s face gets closer and closer. on instinct, you close your eyes. 

soon, hot, stinging liquid is pouring steadily into your mouth. toji swishes the rest of the vodka between his cheeks — on purpose, you’re sure — before spitting it directly on your tongue.

it’s disgusting, everything about it makes your stomach churn, but it also makes you squeeze your legs together, chest rising and falling rapidly as you swallow without having to be told to. 

“ya talk too fuckin’ much, brat,” he grumbles. ironically, you’re at a loss for words. “someone needs put you in your place already.”

“you,” your voice cracks and nearly fails you, but you’re determined. it surprises him, that you’d have something to say. that you’re still game. you can see it in his face, in the way his hands come off of you. “i want you to.”

toji’s expression is hard and unchanging. his fingers go back to your face, two of them slipping inside your lax lips.

your breath stutters as you inhale, instinctively sucking the digits and working your tongue around them.

toji grabs his cock through his pants pointedly.

“fuckin’ slut… that what you want?” you nod. he takes a step forward, knees hitting the couch. “is that why you walk around my house looking like a fucking whore?”

a whine dies in your throat at the sweet, sweet recognition.

he noticed.

he noticed and it bothered him and you really couldn’t bring yourself to care that he was your best friend’s father right now because he was tenting his sweatpants and your mouth was watering at the sight. 

“please…” you paw at his waistband, pulling on the drawstrings. toji laughs at your desperation, voice growing gruff. 

he buries a hand in your hair, fingers closing around your locks tightly and making your eyes sting with tears. slowly, he pushes your face into his crotch, so close that you can feel it pulsing, can feel every ridge, can feel that he’s not wearing any underwear.

god, you can smell him, and it makes your head spin, your mouth huffing out hot breaths and wetting the front of his pants. 

you hook your fingers in the back of his sweats and pull until they’re down tight around his thighs. you have to maneuver the fabric over the head of his erection, earning a hiss from the man towering over you.

his dick springs up, slapping you in the face and leaving a smear of pre across the bridge of your nose. you think toji snorts at that but you can’t be sure. you’re too mesmerized.

he’s so, so big, the skin darker and flushed, tight, heavy balls and the head, angry red, peeking out from the foreskin.

your throat goes dry at the thought of it inside of you, inside any of your holes, because you know it’ll destroy you forever. and you want it. 

toji doesn’t have the appeal that most men his age do to most girls your age. he doesn’t make you feel safe, he doesn’t offer financial support, he doesn’t care about your well-being, he doesn’t have his shit together. and to make matters worse to you, he’s your best friend’s dad, who your best friend doesn’t even like that much, whose presence has been totally indifferent to megumi for most of his life. 

it makes you burn in shame to know you’re about to have a man 25 years your senior in your mouth.

you readjust your position on the couch so that you’re sitting on your knees, angling your face with his cock. it’s curved, pointing up, and you wonder how much of it he’s gonna wanna stuff down your throat. judging by the pure evil glinting in his eyes, it’s gonna be as much as possible. 

you take a deep breath, steadying a hand around his length. it’s concerning that you can just barely close your fingers around him, but you put that thought aside to focus on pulling the skin down gently so you can wrap your lips around the tip. 

toji sighs in relief, his grip in your hair tightening.

you begin to work your head up and down, licking the underside of his cock to gather up saliva. 

“thaaat’s it, what a good little bitch. got a sweet little mouth on ya,” he whispers, hips thrusting slightly to work his cock further into your mouth. “yer gonna take all of it? or are ya all talk?”

you whine, gripping the base and sliding further down his length. he’s already hitting the back of your throat, making your eyes water and your stomach seize. you pick up the pace, twisting your wrist rhythmically as you suck him. 

“don’t swallow,” he threatens, forcing his cock deeper into you, the head sliding into the opening of your throat. “lemme see how messy this slutty face can get.”

you choke audibly, eyes smarting with tears, makeup smudging. you look up at him with furrowed brows in a silent plea of mercy. 

toji’s having none of it.

he puts one foot down on the sofa, next to your legs, giving himself the leverage to start fully fucking your face now. he wraps both hands around your throat and thrusts his hips violently into your mouth, his thumbs pressing down to feel his length in your throat. 

“ahh, fuck,” he throws his head back, reveling in your desperate gurgles. you feel like a fucking ragdoll, like a fleshlight, unable to control the noises you make or how much dick you take. “takin’ me so well. who taught you to squeeze your throat like that, huh? so fuckin’ slutty.” 

you sob around his cock, nose buried in his pubes. he’s impossibly hard, impossibly wet as thick strings of spit and pre hang from your lips, dripping down to his balls, falling to the floor.

toji keeps fucking your throat relentlessly, granting you mere seconds between thrusts to inhale a desperate breath that immediately starts to burn in your lungs. 

he’s a fucking sight though, above you. chin tucked into his chest, veins bulging and biceps flexed, nostrils flared as he watches you devour him. 

he pulls out suddenly, leaving you choking for air. tears stream down your face, spit bubbling out of your nostril. you look all wrong, like you’d been put back together by someone after being utterly demolished.

“open your mouth,” toji orders. you obey and he grabs his cock, slapping the head against your tongue a few times. he slides his length in and out for a bit before he starts jerking himself off. “suck my balls.” 

you take that moment to swallow down the saliva that had pooled between your teeth, tucking away the wet strands of hair that frame your face.

toji’s lifting his cock towards his belly, fisting the head and flicking his wrist. he looks at you expectantly, and you understand it’s time to prove yourself once again. 

you place a gente thumb right below his shaft, where his sack hangs. your tongue dips in between his balls, shyly at first, just slightly tracing the shape of them before you pop one into your mouth. 

toji groans, the hand on his cock gaining speed. you squeeze your thighs together; you’re so wet that it makes you uncomfortable. you lean forward on your knees, steadying yourself with your palms planted firmly on his thighs. 

you’re sucking his balls earnestly now , one then the other, then both at the same time, angling your head up and working your tongue up and down the wrinkled skin.

toji’s loving it, maybe more than the blowjob, and it makes you feel like a toy all over again, in an even more humiliating way because now you’re not even allowed to touch his cock, he’s just getting to use your mouth anywhere he wants. 

it’s so fucking hot that it makes you dizzy. you hollow your cheeks, giving his nutsack a good suck before gingerly lifting his balls. you sneak a glance up at toji, hoping to catch him by surprise when your tongue dips even lower, approaching some pretty controversial territory. 

it works. his breath catches in his throat and his knee kicks out instinctively.

he grabs your hair immediately, pulling you away from him. 

“fuck,” you look up at him smirking, lips smeared with saliva and snort. but you don’t even care how debauched you look right now, as long as you can keep the upper hand. “you’re a nasty little bitch, aren’t ya?”

he leans down to kiss you deeply, messily, inhaling loudly through his nose. toji finishes stepping out of his sweatpants and pulls his shirt over his head, revealing what you’d been imagining for so many years. 

you run your hands over his chest, his abs, down his hips, his v-line. he’s so fucking hot, got bulging muscles you didn’t even know existed in the human body, and scars you can’t even fathom the origin of. 

he stares at you, looking bored. “get up.”

you do, legs shaking and prickling with pins and needles. now you can fully feel the scope of your arousal, how your panties stick to your core uncomfortably, how the wet tops of your thighs rub together. 

toji sits down on the sofa and you waste no time getting on his lap, clawing at his chest and leaning in for another kiss. he’s unforgiving even like this, so much bigger than you, his hand on the back of your neck and his mouth on yours. 

“arms up,” and when you comply, he’s pulling your tank top off. “good girl.”

you shiver, instinctively wrapping an arm around yourself. toji tsks at that, easily taking both your wrists in one hand and pinning them behind your back. he grabs your tit with the other, popping as much of it as he can in his mouth. 

you groan, fighting against his grip to get your hands on his hair, his shoulders, anywhere. toji relentlessly sucks on your nipple, nibbling and circling it with his tongue.

when he pulls off, he lands a swift slap across your boob, ripping a groan from you. 

“such a good fuckin’ slut, look at that body.”

he slaps your ass, this time, tugging your shorts over your butt. you help him get it off of you and then, finally, you’re straddling toji’s cock, no layers in between you two, just your dripping core on him. 

you think, belatedly, condom, but then toji is pulling you in for another kiss and for all you know megumi could come home any minute and you wouldn’t want to waste time like that. or so you tell yourself. 

his hands guide your hips to grind over him, soft mewls coming out of you and being buried into the crook of his neck. 

“pretty little girl, gonna ride me? hmm? gonna ride this old man’s cock?” you whine, nodding.

you press your front against his so you can lift your ass up and guide the tip into your entrance. you don’t expect to be able to take it all, but at least like this you can control the pace and how much of it is going into you, the only thing keeping you from panicking at the sheer size of him. 

the head of toji’s cock doesn’t slip inside so much as it pops inside, the ridge locking just past your opening.

it’s too big, and even though you’re soaking wet, it’s still a stretch. you both groan in unison and you realize, this is it. this is your fantasy, you’re fucking toji fushiguro, megumi’s dad, your best friend’s dad. 

your legs tremble as you hold yourself up, too soon to sink down more on his cock. toji’s playing with your nipples but you have a sneaking suspicion his patience isn’t going to last much longer. 

you give it a valiant effort to take more in and it feels like being ripped in two. you clench your jaw, a bead of sweat rolling down your temple. 

“fuuuuck, so fuckin’ tight,” toji spreads your ass cheeks with both hands, rubbing the thin skin where you two are connected. he thrusts up, feeding your poor pussy more of his cock, and you let out a scream. “take it, c’mon.”

“unghh—can’t, toji, hang on—“

“‘course ya can,” he fucks up into you again and you sob, nails raking down his chest. he hisses and slaps your ass in punishment. you realize you might really cry.

“i can’t, it’s too big, too much—“

“shhh,” in an uncharacteristic display of affection, toji kisses the furrow between your brows, snaking a thumb between you two to rub your clit. 

you throw your head back, body torn between seeking more pleasure and running from the pain. you can hear how wet you are as toji fucks in and out of you, your plush walls hugging him so well, weeping around him. 

he speeds up and you bury your face in his chest, moaning wantonly into his skin. toji lets out staccato grunts, working his cock further into you with each thrust. 

“any scrubs your age givin’ it to you like this?” he breathes out, grabbing your ass hard and moving it up and down his length for you. you whine, drooling on him. “yeah, that’s right. fuck, take it, that’s a good girl.”

“ahh, toji—“

“that’s not my name, whore,” he fists your hair and drags your head back until your eyes meet. “try again.”

“fushiguro-san—“ that earns you a hard slap on your ass. you yelp — wrong answer. 

“toji-sama—“ another slap, and this time he grips the reddening flesh viciously. you whine, squirming in his grip. 

“little braindead cumslut,” he wipes a tear with his thumb. “who’s fucking this tight pussy right now? huh? tell me who's ruining this slutty cunt.”

“d—daddy?” 

toji smiles, humming, his grip on you softening as he leans in for a kiss. “that’s right, sweetheart. show daddy how much you want it.”

it’s amusing to toji, you know it. he just wants to humiliate you because he’s aware of how badly you’ve wanted this. but it does something to you, it’s serious to you, it’s so fucking depraved and sexy to you. 

he lifts you up with ease and lays you back down on the couch. you feel so empty suddenly that it makes you want to cry, like toji has already carved a home inside of you for his cock that no one else will ever be able to fill. 

he wastes no time getting on top of you, hooking a hand under your leg and lifting it up onto his shoulder. your eyes widen immediately, a protest dying in your tongue. this position… his cock… it’s, god, it’s gonna be—

toji plunges in in one violent, perfunctory thrust. you let out a scream, your heel kicking toji square in the back as your body rises up from the couch. he’s all the way inside now. 

you can feel him bruising your cervix, his balls, wet with a mixture of the two of you, slapping against your ass, his hip bones drilling into you. 

“you’re so deep,” you look at him with panic in your eyes, chest gone cold at the overwhelming pleasure. “you’re so deep.”

toji laughs, pulling out to spit on his cock. he grabs your ankle and sets it on his shoulder. “yeah, baby, daddy’s all the way inside now. feels good, doesn’t it?” 

“fuck. oh fuck,” you let out shaky breaths, allowing toji to lay more of his weight on top of you. your knee is by your head now and somehow in this position his cock seems to hit even deeper, to curve up exactly in the right spots that have you struggling to breathe. “you’re gonna break me.” 

“takin’ me so well. just a natural slut aren’t ya,” he’s fucking you so fast now, wet, slapping sounds resounding across the whole house. 

there’s a thick creamy ring at the base of his cock, frothy and bubbly with how much you’ve been gushing for him. toji presses a thumb against your clit and rubs tight little circles, making you squeeze against him like a vice. 

he grunts, speeding up his movements.

“so sensitive, this cute little pussy. you a virgin?” he slaps it a few times, your wetness sticking to his fingers with every pat. “gonna cum soon, whore?”

you whine, nodding. you wrap both arms around toji’s neck and pull him closer, open mouth awaiting expectantly.

toji grins, spitting onto your tongue before leaning in to suck it. 

“toj—daddy,” you moan against his mouth, “daddy, i’m close.”

you don’t recognize your own voice. it’s slutty, desperate, pitchy, juvenile. it's too far gone.

toji works your clit over and over again, fucking you harder than you’ve ever been fucked. he splays a hand over your stomach, kneading the place where his cock is nestled inside of you and hitting a spot that makes you lose control of your body and words. 

“ah, ah, ah, oh god toji fuck daddy make me cum, please please can i cum—“

“oh, fuck,” his thrusts start to become erratic and you know he’s close too. you clench around him, one leg wrapping around his hips to make sure he stays inside until you're done. “cum on daddy’s cock, come on. make a mess, little girl.”

you throw your head back, burying it into the pillows as your entire body thrashes with your orgasm. you clamp around him so hard that you can't even tell where he ends and you begin. 

toji takes no mercy on you, his messy cock plunging in and out of you fast. 

“gonna fill up this pretty pussy, yeah?” you shake your head desperately, one hand punching his chest. he can’t finish inside of you, right? but why do you want it so bad? “no no no, don’t fuss now baby. you want daddy’s cum inside you, don’t you? wanna give megumi a baby brother? fuck yeah i know you do fuckin' take it whore fuuuuck, fuck i'm coming—”

he thrusts once, twice, three more times, knocking all air out of your lungs and the most ridiculous moans out of your mouth before he’s spilling into you, locking your legs like a fucking pretzel and biting down your neck. 

you can feel it pulsing, spurting inside of you. you can feel both your heartbeats in your abused cunt, both of your juices combined and oozing out of you. 

once you catch your breath, toji pulls out of you languidly, with a yawn. you two made a fucking mess, a sticky puddle on the couch right below your ass. 

toji eyes it disinterestedly, much like how he’s eyeing you right now. your sweaty, messy, fucked out self, nearly melting on the fushiguro household’s sofa. 

“ah. are ya on the pill or what?” he asks, like he just now remembered. after a few seconds you nod, a little incredulous. “heh. good.”

you slowly sit up, reaching for your sweatshirt to at least cover yourself up. you sneak a hand down to your cunt, fingers sliding through the mess there to dip inside you. 

fuck, you’re gaping. toji well and truly ruined your pussy. it makes you panic a little bit, but it also makes pride swell within your chest, knowing you took it, all of it. 

toji finally addresses you. 

“i’m gonna go take a shower,” he looks behind his shoulder, sighing. he points at you. “we left the fuckin’ tv on. if this shit racks up my bills you’re gonna have to pay me back.”

you guffaw. “me? pay you how?”

he smirks. 

“got one more hole i haven’t wrecked yet, dont’cha?” he flicks your forehead. you just sit there, incredulous, trembling legs, halfway to horny again. from the bathroom, toji calls out, “let yourself out. oh, and leave the vodka.”

A/N: lmfao! i got nothin to say in my defense. reblogs r very much appreciated

[pearwaldorf]

I hate that you can't see a tweet thread anymore if you're not logged into Twitter (as a gesture of disrespect I refuse to call it by its rebranded name). Here is a copypasta of a thread from Dan Olson, a Canadian documentary filmmaker, expanding upon camera quality, the guilt trips Somerton used to goose his Patreon subscriptions, and how the best tools will never make up for lack of dedication or patience. I have added clarifications in [[double brackets]] where I feel it is necessary.

START OF THREAD

Okay, so, back in April I snapped at James in reply to a tweet that was linking to this video (which James has since delisted but not deleted) and I want to talk about the full context of that but I don't want to make a video, put your beatdown memes away. [[The video has since been deleted. I can see the title of the video is "Maybe the end (not an April Fool's Day thing".]]

The first bit of context is that I initially got keyed into James to fact-check his claims about indie filmmaking in Canada. As a filmmaker the entire Telos venture was immediately obvious as a juvenile fantasy dreamed up by someone with no idea how to make a movie.

Just wild claims about their plans that weren't worth debunking because they bordered Not Even Wrong. But in watching one of these pitch videos I noticed that he had a $4000 current-gen camera in the background as a prop, and that seemed both pretentious and weird.

You don't use your best camera as a prop, you use your second best camera as a prop. So being an obsessive weirdo I needed to know, and I watched his BTS stuff until I spotted his main rig, a $6000 camera with about $1000 in accessories.

Now, these in isolation are unremarkable because his Patreon at the time was bringing in ~$8000 per month, his channel was a full on Business business, and so investing in some professional equipment of that level is maybe a bit indulgent but justifiable.

What was weird is that he doesn't shoot multi-cam, doesn't shoot outdoors, doesn't shoot on location, and in a studio the two cameras kinda really step on each others' toes. Basically if you already have one and don't need a B cam there's no reason to get the other.

Again, on its own, this says nothing, it's just indicative of poor financial decisions, maybe impulsive purchasing, Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Biblical sins, but not crimes.

Paired with the constantly inflating fantasy scope of the Telos films it was clearly an expression of a very, very common bad filmmaker habit of "if I just get the right gear then my movie will basically make itself" Buying stuff because it feels like progress.

At the end of February he tweets "I want to start shooting anamorphic" and then three weeks later in March he posts the worst, out of focus, under-exposed "I just got a new lens!" video I've ever seen, showing off his trash-covered bedroom.

Based on what's available for his cameras and the lead time, that's enough time to get a Laowa Nanomorph or Sirui Saturn from B&H but not enough time to get a Great Joy from the UK or a Vazen from China. And with the flaring blah blah blah, $1300 lens.

Again, [gear acquisition syndrome] is not a crime and these lenses are budget options. Bit of a pointless impulse purchase since he only used it for the Showgirls video. But this is what he was doing just a few weeks before that above video came out: effortlessly impulse purchasing lenses.

James has (had?) a habit of regularly, aggressively driving viewers to Patreon by claiming that videos were getting demonetized. While tacky, it is something a lot of queer YouTubers have dealt with, so there's precedent there. But people were noticing he did it a lot.

Mid-March he humble brags about needing to work so hard to make 6 videos in April because he has over-booked sponsorships.

Then March 29th James posts this whole incel screed on Twitter about how sex work should be "subsidized as a mental health service."

[two image descriptions.

1. "For the majority of people sex (and human contact) can be imperative to a healthy state of mind. A kind and talented sex worker can make someone feel wanted for the first time in their life. I know sex workers who have pulled people back from suicide just by being there for them." 2. "Not only should (sex work) be legal, but it should be subsidized as a mental health service."]

He spends several days getting absolutely *roasted* for this, just dragged across the pavement and read for filth, and doubles down in the replies the whole way.

So this is the context immediately surrounding James waking up on Friday, and posts the above video and the below tweet.

[image description: "We just got the lowest Patreon payout we've gotten in well over a year. Like, a "maybe we need to rethink things" kind of amount... NOT an April Fools Day thing btw. But I don't know if we'll be making videos much longer."]

Now, this unfolds in kinda two directions. The first is that I'm convinced he was just lying about this income shock in the first place.

There's a million theoretical edge cases about what maybe happened and if maybe he just misunderstood the data or saw a glitch and panicked, maybe one of those happened, I don't believe it, I think he just lied because he was salty about getting dragged and felt owed a win.

A big tell to me is that he doesn't blame Patreon. He says he doesn't know what happened, but let's be real, Patreon screws up all the time, they're the first people anyone blames if anything confusing happens, just as a reflex action, even if it's completely not their fault.

The only reason to not blame Patreon is if you already know that it's not their fault and that any investigation on their part might reveal embarrassing details.

Instead he indirectly blames his viewers for not watching enough, not sharing enough, and not turning on auto-renew.

So regardless of the unknowable truth, this segues into the second, far more offensive direction of the messaging itself. "I don't know if we'll be making videos much longer." "Maybe the end" He explicitly framed this as an immediate existential threat to his channel.

In the video he is vague about everything, leaves a ton of hazy room for plausible deniability on how long the channel can keep going, but the messaging is "I need more patrons right this minute or my YouTube channel is over."

He repeatedly evokes all the "fun stuff" they had planned that would never see the light of day if this didn't turn around right away.

And his audience received this message loud and clear. Tons of people making far, far, far less than him left very heartfelt messages about digging a little deeper to subscribe or up their pledge or unsubscribe from other channels to move their pledge to his.

1200 new patrons in one day.

Since I simply don't believe the income shock was real in the first place that would put his post-"Maybe the end" Patreon income at around $10,000 per month. US. Add YouTube income, he's spent the last seven months making around $18,000 per month.

I have seen creators scale back their capabilities to the bone purely to keep making videos for the love of just, like, making stuff even as their funding evaporated and they needed to go back to a desk job to cover their bills.

You'd have to be so outstandingly reckless with your finances as a channel that a one month spook leads immediately to "channel over, sorry about all the fun stuff we won't get to do with you, our patrons, specifically because you, our patrons, aren't giving us enough money"

And not a spook where you then spend a couple weeks crunching numbers. Oh no. A shock so violent where less than two hours later you're weeping on camera about the channel being over.

Three weeks later he brought a brand new Sony FX6v for $8000 CAD to add to his pile of cinema cameras despite the fact that he was, but scant moments earlier, in such a precarious position that a single bad month would kill his channel.

He stole your money, and for that I'm profoundly sad and angry. That's why I snapped at him in April. I'm sorry I couldn't give you the full context then, and I'm sorry if that anger upset you.

END OF THREAD