#;;long post

[themarvelliteraryuniverse]

London, 1912

It's nice in the sun. The first bit of warmth felt that promises winter isn't forever. He closes his eyes to turn his face towards the light and chases away the chill on his cheeks. Around him, the sound of children playing in the courtyard lulls him even further into a pleasant state. Calm. How long had it been since he felt calm?

A shadow casts across him, looming above him and surrounding him again in the harsh chill of late winter. His lips haven't moved. He didn't smile into the sun, just as he didn't frown now. Just listened. Just breathed.

Leather. Smoke. Blood.

"Victor," The name isn't a pleasant greeting, but rather a show of expertise as the detective opens his eyes to the man who blocked the sun. He doesn't retreat from the pointed smile, even as Victor steps closer with the clear intent of intimidating him. "I thought animals of your variety craved a more temperate climate."

"Had business in town. Thought I'd check in." He dioen't ask to sit on the bench beside him, and when it was clear the other man wouldn't move, Victor circles to stand behind it instead. Where the detective was once defiant, he feels doubt. Victor sets his hands on either side of his shoulders, nails digging into the wood. "And imagine my fuckin' surprise when I followed your scent to an orphanage and found something else with your scent attached to it. Yours and-"

"Enough. What do you want?" His shoulders sit tight, his hands fold neatly in his lap as he watches the group of boys kick a can around. He doesn't allow his gaze to linger on any one for too long, lest Victor take notice.

A wrinkled sketch of a business man fills his vision and Holmes reluctantly snatches the paper from Victor's hands if only to get it out of his face.

"There's gonna be a few murders round here. Yer gonna pin it on this guy."

Now, Holmes scoffs, folding the paper and slapping it against Victor's nose for him to take it back. "My integrity as a renowned detective is far greater than your empty threats. Tell him about the child for all I care. It won't change anything."

"God, yer cute when ya think ya've won."

The pain is sharp and invasive and Holmes struggles to keep himself from reacting as Victor slides a claw between the slats of the bench and pierces just between Holmes' ribs. It isn't deep, but it hurts. Like Victor's perfected his strikes, knowing where it hurts the most. He leans in, breath hot against Holmes' ear as the claw presses deeper still.

"Don't think the kid'll be too fond of knowin' his parent's been here the whole time, watchin' him when he feels like it and fuckin' off when he don't." Victor grunts, chin heavy on Holmes' shoulder. "S'cold. Even for the likes a'you, yeah?"

Victor drops the sketch in the man's lap, claws returning to an adequate nail length before he stands again. He's waiting to see Holmes flinch, but the detective remains still, eyes on the boys playing, even as blood wets his black wintercoat.

"Kid'll start getting sick, soon. Pretty big chance he'll end up on the street sooner than yer ready for," Victor set his hand in his pockets, ambling away and only glancing back at Holmes with a final warning. "And you don' want him gunnin' for you when his real teeth come in. Think about it."

#☆ the beast ☆ #☆ the detective ☆ #☆ the mutt ☆ #if you squint lmao #i just like Sherlock and Victors very estranged and tense ongoing relationship #;;long post #The Multiverse ○||○ M1N3 #;; Lock's Lore

[thedarkivistwrites]

Fanwork creators self rec! When you get this, reply with your five favorite fics/art/podfics/etc. that you've made, then pass on to others. Let’s spread the self-love 🌼

Thank you for the ask, @ester-gal <3

It's a bit hard to choose, but here are five from different fandoms that I enjoyed writing and that I think are fun:

I Will Live When We're Together Again (The Magnus Archives, crack)

Set between S3/S4. Martin has had enough of losing and so he tries to get Jon back. If it takes a Leitner, so be it.

Date Night (The Magnus Archives, fairy tale horror domain fic)

Jon and Martin come across a surprisingly hospitable domain and take a break. Jon distracts Martin with a fairy tale. (Here's a little snippet of it being read in the fanfic stream. Hearing it read just the way I envisioned was the highlight of my month.)

Alone in the Spotlight (Boku No Hero Academia, crack)

Being an underground hero while making appearances on TV presents some unique challenges, as Aizawa finds out. (An absolutely ancient one, but why not?)

Too Close to Home (Detroit: Become Human, murder mystery with a dash of convin yearning)

Connor and Gavin are stranded in the middle of nowhere. It's cold. It's getting dark. And it seems they're dealing with a murderer. Can they untangle this mystery? And more importantly - can they do it together?

Someone Else's Story (Fire Emblem - Three Houses, humour/romance, ferdibert)

After the prime minister Aegir breaks up with his mistress, she leaves and vanishes without a trace. The problem is, she left behind their daughter - and took the legitimate heir of the Aegir family. (Of course, I had to mention this one. I'm still proud of it.)

#ferdibert #Aizawa Shouta #The Magnus Archives #fanfic #convin #;;long post

[criticalcrux]

The Attachment Style Quiz

Tagged by: @compassionatekiller, @hirako5hinji

Tagging: @commandinginferno, @quietheal, @icybreaths, @wild-pineapple-butt, @mommaikumi, @sparrowborn, @7ambofgod, @goreburdened (Is there anyone else who hasn't done this one? I was kinda late to the party, lol)

I think that seems about right for him, he's shown to be pretty secure in himself and his relationships, he knows how to strike a fair balance between his own needs and is considerate of those around him and their needs. Love is someone who is comfortable sharing his personal space, although he does come off as enjoying his independence, he knows what it means to be a tight-knit family as well. He is more likely to look out for and look after his fellow comrades and those he cares for rather than avoid or ignore them outright.

#;; dash games #muse!love #tagged by #hirako5hinji #and #compassionatekiller #Thanks for tagging me! #fun stuff #[[btw if I tagged you and you already posted one - feel no obligation to do it again. Do feel free to send me a link tho.]] #;;long post #;;dash games

[whiteshipnightjar]

Zoozve, my beloved

#i cannot tell you how much this made me smile just bc it's so full of love #moon #venus #zoozve #long post #sorry about that it's very long but it's very entertaining i hope you enjoy this lil zoozve gem haha #astronomy #astrophysics #space

[mayhemchicken-artblog]

in the hour or so it took me to draw this op turned reblogs off

#art #artists on tumblr #bitches will say ''in what context are these colors pretty'' #and then post the delicate hues of sunlight filtering through the leaves of a forest in late springtime #edit: censored the other op bc some of yall are starting to scare me and i don't want them getting harassed #and as long as im here. stop telling me it's the shrek colors i know it's the shrek colors #everybody and their mother has already mentioned it's the shrek colors

[coffinwoodx]

ok so for those of you who don’t know, there’s this twitter account of a japanese local hero mascot named dentman who went viral recently due to this tweet

but yeah he saw the tweet. and his response went viral as well (which is how i found his account)

and he just has like. hourly posts reminding you to brush your teeth

oh and his rival? his name is mr. mutans. whenever dentman posts he makes a post of his own, ofc

but THAT’S NOT ALL. literally while making this post i found a THIRD ACCOUNT that’s all about taking your meds

safe to say i’m losing my mind

anyway the point of all this was that people are ALREADY beginning to draw them ship art 😭

and the reactions are everything

I CANT ADD ANY MORE IMAGES BUT TRUST ME THIS IS SO FUNNY

toxic one-sided dentman yaoi wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card but it DEFINITELY IS NOW!

#what the fluoride #toxic doomed yaoi #this is so funny #dentman #mr. mutans #mr.mutans #mutans #ohga man #ohga #twitter #tokusatsu #japanese mascots #local heroes #🍬 #🦷 #🍬🦷 #long post #50k #60k #70k

[great-and-small]

Do y’all wanna hear about some absolutely crazy shit going down in the birding world right now

#it’s a whole thing #would be a long ass post

[powdermelonkeg]

Important rules/tips I've learned as an adult that helped with anxiety

If people are mad at you, it's their responsibility to tell you, not your responsibility to guess

If they're mad at you in secret anyways, they're the ones in the wrong, not you

If people don't like what you're doing, it's their responsibility to tell you

If they say it's fine when it's really not, they're the ones in the wrong, not you

People are allowed to be wrong about you

If they are wrong about you, wait for them to bring it up, because if you try to, you will inevitably overcorrect

Some people are committed to misunderstanding you. You will not win arguments against them. Yes, even if you explain your point of view. They do not care. Drop it

The worst thing that will happen from a first-time offense is being told not to do it again. Maybe with a replacement if you broke something

You can improve relationships and gauge willingness to talk to you by giving compliments. It's like a daily log-in bonus and nobody thinks twice about it

Most things are better after you sleep on them

Most things are better after you have a meal

Most things are better after you shower

Your brain makes up consequences that are irrational. If the worst DOES come to pass and someone acts like they do in your head, they are overreacting, and you are entitled to say "what the fuck"

If your chest hurts after you feel like you've made a social error, that's called rejection-sensitive dysphoria. It means your anxiety is so bad that it's causing you physical pain, which is a good indicator that you're overreacting. Tense yourself, hold it for 20 seconds, let it go, then find a distraction

If you're suddenly angry at someone after you feel like you made a social error, that's also rejection-sensitive dysphoria. You are going to feel annoyed about it for awhile, but being genuinely pissed off is your anxiety trying to find something to blame to take the responsibility off your shoulders, and getting scared because it can't justify itself. Deep breaths, ask yourself how much you ACTUALLY want to be angry at that person, then find a distraction

"Sour grapes" is more healthy for you than stewing. Deciding you don't like someone who's perpetually annoyed with you, won't talk to you, etc. makes letting go of anxiety over them easier

If people don't like you, they will find reasons to be annoyed with you when they otherwise wouldn't. If people do like you, they will find reasons NOT to be annoyed with you when they otherwise would. People do not ping-pong between the two

You DO have to make a conscious choice not to think about something. If you're having trouble circling back to it, say out loud that you're done thinking about it and why. Then find a distraction

When you're upset, part of you is going to want to make false bids for attention (suddenly texting differently, heavy sighs, etc. but when someone asks you about it, you tell them it's nothing). Do not listen to it. You gain nothing from it except more misery

People like to help people they care about. It makes them feel good about themselves

If you think you're insufferable for needing help, see above. Yes, really. They get a serotonin kick from it

If you think you're insufferable for mannerisms you have, you either have to consciously choose not to do them, or accept that they're part of the package that comes with you. Being apologetic about existing does nothing except make you more miserable

If you do things you don't like when you feel meh about it, it makes it easier to do them when you hate it

If you avoid things you don't like when you feel meh about it, it reinforces and magnifies how bad it feels when you hate it

Seriously. Read those last two points again. If you can make yourself make a phone call when you've got nothing to lose, you will slowly lose that panic you get when you have to make a phone call you haven't prepared for. You do have to CONSCIOUSLY take that step

Hobbies that make you care for something get rid of that nagging feeling that you're not doing enough. Go grow some rosemary

If you don't engage with your hobbies regularly, you will feel miserable, and anxiety will spike

Hobbies are things that give you a bit of happiness. They do not have to be organized or named to do that. Go be creative in something. Play with coins. Make up lists. Start a new WIP

No one cares what you look like

If people point out things they don't like about how you look unprompted, they are being rude. You are entitled to say "what the fuck"

People who like you will find you pretty to some degree. Minor things about your appearance go completely unnoticed. Literally, scars and dots and blemishes do not register to someone who likes your company

You looking at yourself in the mirror is 10x more closely than anyone is going to look at you

If you're anxious about your body type, and you're creatively inclined, make/write an oc with that same shape. Give them nice things and make other characters love them. Put them on adventures. You'll start to see yourself in the mirror more kindly

You care about wording and perfect lines/colors way more than anyone who views your work ever will

Sometimes when you're upset, you're going to feel like not eating. Do not do that. Not eating makes you more miserable

Same with things you normally enjoy. Denying yourself helps no one. You are punishing yourself for being sad. Stop it

Both of these will take conscious decision to break the habit of. Make yourself do it anyways, and it will slowly get easier

And again, to reiterate: If someone is mad at you, it is THEIR responsibility to tell you, not your responsibility to guess

#anxiety #long post #i have been an adult for the better part of a decade and it has gotten SO much easier as i internalized these #swearing tw

[secondlina]

Check out my ongoing comic Crow Time. It has crows, and also neat pantheons of epic beasties.

#crow time #secondlina art #webcomic #webcomics #webtoon #webtoons #long post #comic #comics #goblincore #cottagecore

[adyophene]

Husk's secret weapon

#hazbin hotel #husk #alastor #hazbin art #radiohusk #kinda #long post #i did not mean for it to get this long 'oh its a simple comic idea how many panels could it take?' too many

[kaftan]

[ID: a screenshot of the “Bad Art” coloumn of the table shown in the original tweet.

The sections are: “makes you feel weird”, “saps energy”, “sets off a downward spiral”, “confuses the mind”, “produces stagnation”, “weed” (as a drug analogy), “unstructured and obsessively anti-rhythm”, “instinctively recognised as a scam”, “a malevolently bad map”, “obfuscation, lies, resentment”, “wises to destroy the canon”, “mocks the concept of values”, “enfeebles life”, “spits on beauty and actively celebrates ugliness”, and “bad art is whining, coping, seething, and a waste of time”.

End ID]

Tag yourself as this list of “bad art” features, according to a twitter fascist

#losing it over this. #if my art doesn’t make people feel weird i consider it a failure #long post

[suiheisen]

"i would know her by reformed body alone... i would know her in death"

also... there's official art

#happy national lesbian necromancy day #studio trigger somehow made it even gayer #between this and senshi pantyshot... we were fed #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #spoilers #yes i needed to make my gifs huge #for... you know... #science #farcille #falin touden #marcille donato #long post #anime #art #autoplay warning

[criticalcrux]

what color is your aura?

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez Your Result:

Red

Leather jackets, cherries, bruised knuckles, roses, lipstick, fast cars, rose petals. your essence is red: you are a spirit of intensity who effortlessly inspires others. you struggle to slow down; there is always another goal, another prize, to prove you are strong enough to them. you cannot stop speaking for the voiceless. you are the torch-wielder. you are the rebel. you find kinship in like-minded individuals of crimson, blush, terracotta, and fire, who share your unapologetic nature. you are also drawn to the free-spirited souls purple and yellow, who will help you grow and see that you can lighten your heart sometimes. however, you may struggle to get along with the internal personalities of blue and brown who are too methodical.

Tagged by: @yumichikah

Tagging: (anyone who'd like to do this quiz and link me!)

Right on. F'n nailed it! This may not be the color typically associated with him (blue) but I am all for that description right there, regardless! That is the Grimm I am portraying on this blog.

#;;dash games #thanks for tagging me! #muse!grimmjow #icybreaths #because you're his main writing partner #;;long post

[sedgewick-gayble]

1920s tumblr simulator

🎞 noirsuatoir Follow

Private detectives useless as hell all I do is sit behind a desk dramatically lit in black and white stripes by my half open blinds and smoke cigars. Living the dream

#privatedetective #detectivelife #i have 19 unsolved cases

( 10,552 notes )

🎷 aceofspades Follow

prohibition hitting hard...making some bathtup gin tonight. DM for recipe

🎷aceofspades Follow

hopital

( 65 notes )

🔘 deactivated-341925 Follow

Clara Bow is 20??!!!

🔘 deactivated-341925 Follow

SHE SHOULD BE AT THE SPEAKEASY

( 979 notes )

🎙 fancy-nancyboy Follow

Smuggling some moonshine in my coat oh boy I sure do hope no big scary prohibition officer comes andbpins me and handcuffs me hahha oh nooo that would suck

#wink wink

( 4,208 notes )

🍸 gladragz Follow

my thirsty ass could NEVER be a bootlegger!!!!

( 7 notes )

🚬 runrummer Follow

Anyone else think some of those jc leyendecker drawings are kind of yaoi ....

#those arrow collar advertisments got me feelin smthn #jc leyendecker #jcleyendecker #jcl

( 962 notes )

📻 flapperfanny-fan973 Follow

she speak on my easy till I jazz

( 12 notes )

#first attempt at this genre of posts #i spent 30 minutes too long on this and it sucks. releasing it into the wild #unreality #fake posts #fake dashboard #1920s

[sayruq]

#yemen #jerusalem #tel aviv #current events #palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #news on gaza #palestine news #news update #war news #war on gaza #Palestinian resilience #genocide #gaza genocide #palestinian joy #long post

[phantomrose96]

If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.

#chrissy speaks #long post #-gestures broadly-