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#grifter aesthetic
charm-in-spades · 2 years
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✗ : Explain how they portray feelings of hostility or dislike.
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A deck of cards passed around a table to avoid the hands of any would-be cheaters eventually makes their way into the tatted hands of the Coyote. Conversation over a game was always easiest, but to say that Caelric particularly enjoyed anyone at his table would be a considerable overstatement. They were loud, obnoxious, and at best leering towards the waitress that had been tending their drinks that evening. Most of them he could do without and likely would, once this game was all over.  
“I’d put ‘em in their place I would!” 
“Har! Yeah! Couple good smacks, or a kick to the teeth...that’ll do it!” 
“Right! People don’t get hit enough these days. Back in my day, you get beat just for lookin’ at someone sideways. Now? Damn younglings are soft. ”
Caelric began dishing out cards, and while he did, he spoke, adding his own perspective to the conversation. “I mean, sure. Every so often, someone deserves a quick clip to the jaw if they cross a line, but me, I’m more a long con kind of guy.” he explains, offering a brief eye to the others at his table. 
“See, I might not like everyone, but just about everyone has some kind of value to them. So I might keep them around if they aren’t an absolutely deplorable piece of shit. There are times when I need things that only shitty people can provide, and I’m willing to maintain a cordial relationship if I can benefit from their presence. Like you guys. I don’t really like a single one of you, but you all play one hell of a game of poker.” 
He grinned and even got a couple chuckles with that, and yet he wasn’t joking despite how casually and personably he spoke. They were all watching him talk, but they hadn’t been watching his hands, a dangerous move considering the night was ending, and the pot was substantial after a good two bells of betting. There was a look of confidence from a few, others were keen on their poker face, but Caelric had a good sense of most cards on the table and wasn’t all that worried on the outcome. 
“It’s easy to string people along for a line, and get what you need out of them if you know how to do it right. People are generally, very easy to mislead and manipulate. I’m not one to really take advantage of just anybody, mind you, but if people suck I won’t lose any sleep over running game on them.” 
“I do however, feel pretty damn bad about this.” He lays his cards out, and against the other hands his was superior. What a surprise. “Read ‘em and weep, boys. This one’s all mine.” he chuckles amidst a series of groans and unhappy protests, reaching forward to scoop his winnings for the night. A stack of coins were left however, as he gestures magnanimously. “Drinks are on me though, for the trouble.” That smoothed over a couple disgruntled looks as few people, particularly drunks, ever fussed over free liquor. 
Before he left, he slipped the bag of gil into the waitress’s hands, hiding the action with a seemingly flirtatious whisper against her ear. “I doubt these guys are big tippers, but tonight they donated considerably. Should be enough to get you that dollhouse you’ve been wanting for your kid. Send her my best, and I’ll see you some time next week. Catch you around, beautiful.” She waved the conman off with a knowing smile, all too aware of her regular’s antics and all too happy to be on the generous side of them. 
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tompettyreal · 1 year
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i mean i just have never had to face futility so square in the eye before. the absolute pointlessness of it all. all we are are dollar signs. all the social progress that so many passionate people with hearts too big for their chests have lost their lives fighting for is being dismantled and rendered utterly futile for the sake of "brand consistency" and market shares. beautiful, multi-faceted personalities of complex, impossible to summarize humans, reduced to "aesthetic" and demographics. I'm at a complete and utter loss. the everythingness of it all is simply inescapable. lives lost for the sake of the dollar. every God damn day i pick myself back up and go to work. every fucking day
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tweedstoat · 5 months
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I envy your guiltlessness. Teach me
I straight up no idea how it happened.
Like I have normal human guilt where if i behave shittily or say something rude I'll feel bad.
But somehow I've managed to escape catholic guilt totally? I think its because I was always a rlly headstrong and argumentative child so I was like ok but WHY are some things against the rules that makes no sense. And if something didn't make sense to me I just. Ignored it. Cause it made no sense. And if it made no sense I didn't care about it.
I think as I've gotten older and learned the history of the church and how christian theology developed its like??? Ok well these rules came from a specific context and kind of make no sense in the modern world sooooo. Also when I found out about the corpse synod that was IT for the power of arbitrary rules. You want to tell me premarital sex is immoral? Well it's way better than digging up a corpse and putting it on trial so 🤷
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ohnoitstbskyen · 3 months
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re: Somerton
Not for nothing, but I think we should remember that James Somerton's fans and subscribers are normal people, just like you. They are people who received his output in good faith, and extended to him a normal amount of grace and benefit of the doubt, which he took advantage of.
I don't think it's helpful to respond to the exposé on Somerton with sentiments along the lines of "wow, how could anyone ever think THIS GUY'S videos were any good, ha ha ha, how did he ever get subscribers?" because 1) you have the substantial benefit of hindsight and a disengaged outsider perspective, and 2) it's a rhetoric that creates a divide between you (refined, savvy, smart, sophisticated) and Somerton's audience (gullible, unrefined, easily taken advantage of, terrible taste), which is a false divide, with a false sense of security.
Somerton's success happened because he stole good writing. He found interesting, insightful, in-depth work done by other people, applied the one skill he actually has which is marketing, and re-packaged it as his own. He targeted a market which is starving for the exact kind of writing he was stealing, and pushed his audience to disengage from sources that conflicted with him.
Hbomberguy makes this point in his exposé video: good queer writing is hard to find and incredibly easy to lose. The writers Somerton stole from were often poor or precarious, writing freelance work for small circles under shitty conditions, without the means or the reach or the privileges necessary to find bigger markets. And, as Hbomb demonstrated, when people did discover Somerton's plagiarism, he used his substantial audience to hound them away and dissuade anyone else from trying to hold him accountable.
He stole queer writing by marginalized people, about experiences and perspectives that people are desperate to hear more about, and even if his delivery and aesthetics were naff, his words resonated with people because the original writers who actually wrote them poured their goddamn hearts and souls into it.
Somerton also maintained a consistent narrative of persecution and marginalization about himself. He took the plain truth, which is that queer people and perspectives are discriminated against, and worked that into a story about himself as a lone, brave truth-teller, daring to voice an authentic queer perspective, constantly beset by bigots and adversaries who sought to tear him down. As @aranock, who works with some of the people he targeted, writes in this post, Somerton weaponized whatever casual bias and bigotry he could find in his audience to reinforce his me vs them narrative (usually misogyny and various forms of transphobia), which is what grifters do. They find a vulnerable thread in a community and pull on it. And while you may not have the particular vulnerability that he exploited, you do have vulnerabilities, and they can be exploited too.
People felt compelled to support him, even if his work was sometimes shoddy, because he presented himself as a vulnerable, marginalized person in need of help, he pulled on that vulnerable thread.
Again, he has a degree in marketing, and just like propaganda, nobody is immune to marketing.
YouTube as a system is set up to push for more, constantly more. More content, more videos, more output, more more more more, and part of Somerton and Illuminaughty's success was their ability to push out large amounts of content to the hungry algorithm, even if it was of inferior quality. The algorithm rewarded their volume of output with more eyeballs and attention, and therefore more opportunities to find people who were vulnerable to their grift.
It is a system which quite literally rewards the exact kind of plagiarism that they do, because watch-time and engagement are easily measurable metrics for a corporation, and academic rigor is not. There is pressure to deliver, and a lot of rewards to gain from cutting corners to do it.
Somerton and Illuminaughty and Internet Historian are extreme and very obvious cases, so blatant that you can make a four hour video essay exposing what they've done, but the vast majority of this kind of plagiarism isn't going to be obvious - sometimes it might not even be obvious to the people who are doing it. Casual plagiarism is endemic to the modern internet, and most people don't get educated on what the exact boundaries are between proper sourcing and quoting vs plagiarizing. We had an entire course module at my university aimed at teaching students the exact differences and definitions, and people still made good faith mistakes in their essays and papers that they had to learn to correct during their education.
All of this to say: it is extremely easy in hindsight to call Somerton's work shitty and shoddy, his aesthetics flat and uninspired, and to imagine that as a sophisticated person with good taste and critical faculties, you would never be taken in by this kind of grifter. It is extremely easy to distance yourself from the people he preyed on, and imagine that you will never have to worry about your fave doing your dirty like that.
But part of the point of Hbomberguy's video is that plagiarism is extremely easy to get away with, and often difficult for the average person to spot and call out, and with the rise of AI tools blurring the lines even further, it is not going to get any easier.
So I think we should resist the temptation to think of Somerton's audience as people with bad taste and poor faculties. We should resist the temptation to distance ourselves from the perfectly normal people he preyed on. Many times in your life, a modestly clever man with a marketing degree has fooled you too.
On a personal note, by the same token, I am resisting the temptation to assume that I am too good to be vulnerable to the systemic pressures that produced Somerton and Illuminaughty. No, I've never made a video by word-for-word reciting someone else's work, but I know for a fact that I could do a better job of double-checking my work and citing my sources. I feel the exact same pressure to get a video out as fast as possible, I have the exact same rewards dangled in front of me by YouTube as a platform, and I can't pretend it doesn't affect my work. To me, Hbomb's video felt like a wake-up call to do better.
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andreablog2 · 1 month
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What’s really funny and slightly karmic abt red scares existence to me is how they make up such a small portion of this greater niche of sort of soulless bourgeois gen z-millennial artsy grifters. And for years people have always struggled to come up w words to articulate why they distrust that scene. The whole “diy male manipulator who gaslights you” meme comes to mind. Like this broader group of cultural production people have been haunting and torturing America for years now there’s a politically sound reason to say death to all of them. Like one good thing I’ll say abt red scare is how it kind of revealed how every subcultural clique in New York is so corrupt. All of their low life overqualified para-clout delusioned sycophants kind of did the job of proving how it’s now permanently a city of soulless people who don’t believe in anything. I’m so glad that crowd has been demystified and how the term “dimes square” in shorthand both identifies this specific consumer tribe and the most heinous politics. How that has entered the public vernacular and made people at large slightly wary of hipster aesthetics😭. Idek like people fully won’t say anything to the red scare girls face and then they won’t confront their friends for associating with them. And then there’s just this trickle down. It’s really gross and they have too much cultural influence for open psyops that are as unoriginal as they are offensive. Offensive in how unoriginal they are and unoriginal in their offensiveness.
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alienejj · 1 month
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(I took these pictures myself)
Part 4
This is a collection of short stories, 50 penguin's modern classics. They were sold together so I've no idea if they're sold separately. I bought them back when Book Depository was still a thing :( this is one of the few times I bought brand new books instead of thrifting them, I splurged on it because I was given Eid money around that time ahaha
Titles in this set (summary taken from the backs of the books):
31. THE GIGOLO by FRANÇOISE SAGAN. A middle-aged woman breaks with her young lover; a husband is suspected of infidelity; a dying man reflects on his extramarital affairs, in these shimmering, bittersweet tales of desire and disillusionment.
32. GLITTERING CITY by CYPRIAN EKWENSI. Untrustworthy, charming Fussy Joe spins tall tales and breaks hearts in this rollicking story set in the 'sensational city' of 1960s Lagos.
33. PIERS OF THE HOMELESS NIGHT by JACK KEROUAC. Soaring, freewheeling snapshots of life on the road across America, from the Beat writer who inspired a generation.
34. WHY DO YOU WEAR A CHEAP WATCH? by HANS FALLADA. Darkly funny, streetwise tales of low-lifes, grifters and ordinary people trying to make ends meet in pre-War Germany.
35. THE DUKE IN HIS DOMAIN by TRUMAN CAPOTE. This mesmerizing profile of an insecure, vulnerable young Marlon Brando, brooding in a Kyoto hotel during a break from filming, is a peerless piece of journalism.
36. LEAVING THE YELLOW HOUSE by SAUL BELLOW. A stubborn, hard-drinking elderly woman living in a desert town finds herself faced with an impossible choice, in this caustically funny, precisely observed tale from an American prose master.
37. THE CRACKED LOOKING-GLASS by KATHERINE ANNE PORTER. A passionate, unfulfilled woman considers her life and her marriage in this moving novella by one of America's finest short story writers.
38. DARK DAYS by JAMES BALDWIN. Drawing on Baldwin's own experiences of prejudice in an America violently divided by race, these searing essays blend the intensely personal with the political to envisage a better world.
39. LETTER TO MY MOTHER by GEORGES SIMENON. Georges Simenon's stark, confessional letter to his dead mother explores the complexity of parent-child relationships and the bitterness of things unsaid.
40. DEATH THE BARBER by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS. Filled with bright, unforgettable images, the deceptively simple work of William Carlos Williams revolutionized American verse, and made him one of the greatest twentieth-century poets.
I reblog bookish content and since I have a home library I also make bookish content myself; aesthetic book pics, reviews, recommendations, quotes, excerpts, hauls and cats.
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catgirlforeskin · 8 months
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i dont get why femboy is a transmisogynist slur? i was under the impression it was coined specifically as a less-loaded alternative to “trap”. i also only ever see it used to refer to male crossdressers (but i also dont see it very often in general fwiw).
like its true that a lot of femboys are just appropriating(?) transfemme aesthetics but without the assertion of womanhood—you stated this more eloquently in your post about f1nn5ter, sorry—but im not sure thats related to the word “femboy” itself
It’s used interchangeably with “sissy” “trap” and all the other slurs from fetish porn of trans women, and it’s been used like before the boom in popularity a few years back, and continues to be used that way. It’s just ladyboy again.
Whether you’re looking on porn sites, art of the hot new caricature of trans women from media, or transmisogynist “memes” that are omnipresent in our culture, from every movie having “man in a dress haha” jokes to “femboy hooters” shit to grifters like finnster playing trap personas to massive support, and everything inbetween. It’s everywhere and I’m so sick of it.
I frankly don’t care if it makes annoying twinks on Reddit feel hurt or sad, they can call themselves something else or just get over needing a label for every little thing imo. I hate this shit man I just wanna talk about urban development and mixed use zoning
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not-terezi-pyrope · 6 months
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Something that's really started irritating me recently is the social media trend of overly aestheticized creation, like TikTok videos where somebody is doing arts and crafts but the point is not so much the actual making of the thing, but of performatively displaying an idealized version of the making of the thing. So it'll be overly-scrupulous about being neat and prissy and unrealistic and something about the facetiousness of that just gets under my skin. It's similar to the way that most advertising, especially for food, actively makes me nauseous if I contemplate it for too long.
Somebody accurately sharing their craft I love to see and is interesting, but this kind of commodified audience-focussed creation that distorts the actual craft of aesthetic is just, blech, even if it's not really bad in any tangible way it really irritates me.
It's also sort of similar to all those faked youtube restoration videso or "primitive building" videos, but those while being bad get under my skin less because at least they are just classic shameless grifters. Something about that feels more honest lol
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charm-in-spades · 2 years
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What Folklore Monster Protects You?
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El Cadejo
There is no such thing as Black and White, Good and Evil, Yin and Yang. The world only knows the various greys in-between.        Nearly every culture out there has some manifestation of the righteous and the treacherous. The cadejo is no different. Hailing from Central American folklore, the tales of the cadejo varies from country to country but they almost always come in two separate variations. The pure, helpful white dog, and the malevolent, evil black dog.          The white dog helps to guide lost travelers out of the woods and is the only force which can kill or harm it's evil brethren.        The black dog that which cannot be killed, prowls the streets at night, searching for its next victim. Once it chooses its prey, it stalks. Almost nothing can draw its attention from the hunt. Its raspy snarls and soft growls can be heard, usually a sign of the victim's impending doom. Your only chance of escaping its open maw is the intervention of the white cadejo.
You have never been focused on the technicalities of life. Nor have you agreed with many people's boxed-minded views on the concept of good and evil. Nothing in this world is inherently good or evil. You choose to live your life in the grey. This does not make you a bad person. Your life is how you choose to live it and the choices you make along the way. You simply won't allow for moral conflicts to interfere with a logical train of thought. It is this perspective on life which has attracted the cadejo to you. Just be wary of your guardian, it is nearly impossible to tell which one it is until you see it and by then it's already too late.
Another surprising accuracy though I’ve never heard of this creature. Pretty damn cool. 
If you want to do this, by all means please do and tag me to read the results!  Quiz found here [x]
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solradguy · 5 months
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Mr. Rad Guy, I've wanted to get your opinion on something for a while now, and finally snagged what I was looking for on twitter. I normally don't pay any of those transphobic Bridget discourse peddlers any mind, but they bring up her appearence in the canon pachinko game Vastege as supposed "proof" that Strive's story direction for her is a contradictory retcon. This game's plot takes place just three months before Xrd's, and they claim that through her voicelines she is still insisting sternly that she's a man and not to call her cute, but also that she STILL hasn't broken her village's superstition at this point in time. This is the only image they ever have as so-called evidence, so I wanted to see if you know if these lines are legitimately in the game, scrapped content, or made up altogether. I don't trust these lunatics as far as I can throw them when it comes to telling the whole truth 🤨
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This screenshot is from same manuscript of dialog that is in the lore server archives and in the GG VXT archive pack that I compiled and uploaded to Archive.org. As far as I know, these lines were all used in the game and no unused lines have been (or even could be) datamined. Two of the lines here are highlighted so I'm assuming they're the ones these dorks are using to try to prove their point. I've translated them.
First line:
I want to break the village's rule/law*, and return to the village as a young man.
*In the official localizations I think they might translate this as "tradition" or "superstition" instead of rule or law.
"Young man" in that line is 男の子 (otokonoko). Do not let anyone convince you Bridget is using the other otokonoko there (男の娘;"young man with a feminine aesthetic"). They like to do that a lot, argue that it's the one that uses 娘.
Second line:
Cute is uncalled for... I'm a man.
In conclusion: Yes. Bridget is using almost 1:1 recycled dialog in Vastedge that she used in XX and the spinoffs. The Twitter grifters' Google Translating was correct this time.
Vastedge's plot may take place only 3 months before Xrd, but Vastedge itself came out in 2013—8 entire years before Strive released in 2021. A lot can change in 3 months in real life, but after almost a decade most people are entirely different altogether (wrt Daisuke and his plot decisions). Also it's a friggin pachislot machine lmfao Like, are people really expecting something as earth shattering as a character as irrelevant to the general plot like Bridget suddenly stopping all of the action to explore her identity on a slot machine? I have no patience for these people anymore. They're just stupid and arguing because they have no hobbies.
There's also the fact that Daisuke originally planned for Bridget to be a cis girl until the very last minute. So if anything her coming out in Strive was just returning to the starting concept. He mentions this in the interview in the back of Artworks of Guilty Gear X 2000-2004. Translation by fairymisao.
(27)---The character Bridget, introduced in Guilty Gear XX, looks like a girl but is actually a boy, right? What was your intention in deciding on creating this kind of character? Ishiwatari: The creation of Bridget as a boy happened at the very last second; during development I was drawing him as purely a girl. It's just that when there is a need to give a worldly backbone (to the game), in order for me to try to not forget each character, and in order to revive the character, I give them my very heart. As a result, the creation of Bridget as actually a boy instead of a girl was because I thought he could become my alter ego. [...]
It's also important to note that Vastedge was the first thing ASW made for Guilty Gear after getting the full rights to the IP back from Sega after the Sega-Sammy merger in 2011 (which they had started to lose a bit before Overture's release in 2004). They were absolutely more focused on making something that would generate income and looked flashy than they were a compelling cinematic experience.
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itsraining-pebbles · 6 months
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combining both my special interests by assigning qsmp characters to the tma entities
Badboyhalo: End because grim reaper + edgy as fuck, BUT he is still very Eye aligned because all of the ordo is, but also hes paranoid and keeping a man in his basement for information with are very eye coded things to do
Cellbit: f!cell was probably under the influence of the Flesh bc cannibalism but q!cellbit is so very Eye coded. this man is the definition of an Eye avatar. the only thing more Eye than q!cellbit is the Eye itself
Roier: Web
Hombre Mysterioso: Dark bc like his name literally has mystery in it so its a lil bit obvious
Jaiden: Lonely marked in the saddest way possible. especially after bobby died, shes isolated herself a lot and she hasnt strongly connected with many people, and she feels like she can only really trust herself bc of everything with the federation
Foolish: Vast. hes a shark with lightning (also immortality in general is very vast coded)
Bagi: VERY Eye coded. probably hates the Flesh too
Etoiles: Hunt and the whole thing with his arm getting all weird is just him getting so deep into the Hint that its started changing him
Baghera: Eye avatar
Forever: Hunt bc wolfboy. but the Happy Pills were a Spiral thing
Pac: Lonely. like look at his whole arc rn. Lonely
Tubbo: i cant explain it but he gives off Buried vibes. like its not because of anything, he just seems like a Buried guy
Slimecicle: Spiral bc hes insane + funny
Philza: End. this man is literally the angel of death and his wife is the goddess of death. i dont think i need to justify it
Wilbur: Slaughter bc music and lovejoy as grifters bone would be great and no i dont care that wilbur doesnt fit the actual Slaughter qualifications because he fits the aesthetic and thats all that matters to me
ElQuackity: deffo Stranger bc ElQuackity is basically just a Not!Quackity
Federation workers: Stranger. its literally a bunch of ppl without faces idk what to tell you
Federation: Web or Stranger i cant decide
Ordo Theoritas as a whole: Eye coded
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tanadrin · 10 months
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aesthetically i think i have to have more admiration for new age beliefs (unselfconscious combination of woo, grifting, and insane nonsense congealing essentially by accident and reflecting the ambient cultural milieu) than i do neopaganism (self-conscious; attempts to reconstruct a historical tradition that is spotty at best, and totally hallucinated at worst), and although both have problems with racism, the latter seems more prone to attract racists/nationalists
there’s also the fact that the self-conscious nature of neopaganism robs it of, like, spirit. like, i may just be woefully underinformed, but where are the neopagan prophets and channelers and seers and big-time grifters? you have people starting UFO cults who claimed to speak with the spiritual overlords of the galaxy or w/e, but most neopaganism seems to be of a very individualistic character. nobody’s out here claiming to be the True Voice of Apollo. it’s boring!
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cryptotheism · 1 year
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i used to find you really annoying and made posts complaining about you but then i decided to give you a follow and realized that you're just a person like everyone else, except for the powers, so i no longer hate you
LMAO
Straight up this happens a lot?? People get tripped up by the silly wizard aesthetics and think I'm either a grifter or a kook. A person who had me hard blocked for several years is now a close personal friend and I'm gonna go hang out at their house and play toys for a few days soon.
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ofmymuses · 2 years
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꒰♡꒱ —  YET ANOTHER LABELS MASTERLIST.
i was going through my masterlist tag and saw that i have quite a few for labels so i thought it’d be a good idea to compile a lot of those labels into one big, long list  (as much as i’d like to include all of them, it would be way too long). i’ve also decided not to include any sort of description for the labels so that they can be left up to interpretation~ under the cut, you’ll find a grand total of #111 ideas for labels. if you find this post useful, please consider giving it a like / reblog so that i know ♡♡
the all-bark-no-bite
the accident
the aesthete
the airhead
the blank canvas
the blabber mouth
the black hole
the bully
the black sheep
the bookworm
the crimson
the calming presence
the church owl
the class clown
the conspiracist 
the coquette
the demure
the defrosting ice queen
the dilettante
the dreamer
the elitist
the ebullient
the escapist
the ecdysiast
the eyes and ears
the fragile butterfly
the foodie
the flightless bird
the fashionista
the fighter
the fool
the family man
the faineant
the femme fatale
the gregarious
the golden girl / boy / child
the good girl / boy / child turned bad
the gentle thief
the grifter
the ghost
the hedonist
the homewrecker
the heir
the hellcat
the hardcore gamer
the helping hand
the hotspur
the humgruffin
the hopeless romantic
the happy disappointment
the isolato
the icarian
the innocent
the illustrious
the jester
the jovial
the know-it-all
the kleptomaniac
the klutz
the loner
the lost soul
the lothario
the middle child
the monster
the mother figure
the mannequin
the mama’s boy / girl / kid
the miscreant
the muse
the mooncalf
the magnet
the nonentity
the night owl
the nerd
the nomad
the outlaw
the opulent
the parasite
the philophobe
the pollyanna
the prom queen
the prince charming
the puppeteer
the pyromaniac
the queen b
the quixotic
the recluse
the rich kid addict
the runaway
the runaway bride / groom
the reveller
the snake in the grass
the slacker
the sidekick
the sleepyhead
the sweetheart
the songbird
the stargazer
the saccharine
the trust fund baby
the trickster
the thespian
the unkind queen
the underdog
the virago
the vainglorious
the vixen
the wallflower
the wannabe
the wrath
the young at heart
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noodyl-blasstal · 10 months
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JustIn from the Beyond!
Do I have plans for this? Yes! Do I have time to make them happen any time soon? Debatable! So you can have what'll hopefully be the first chapter, as a treat. -
Kravitz frowned down at his phone, double checking the address from the email was the same spot the map app had led him to. The office block in front of him didn’t seem like the kind of place that would contain Justin From the Beyond: your direct line to the spirit world, he was expecting some kind of difficult to find Victorian building, not a grey box with wildly unhelpful company names like Loccarion, Applewell, and Plaxistics on the sign. People in suits kept striding past him doing what he could only assume were important business things. Actually, scratch that, they all had a whiff of stock market about them, so maybe not that important. In fact, with that in mind, the location made a lot more sense - ghosts were a lie and so were stocks, of course they were in the same building. Maybe he could try and get an interview with some of them for his next block of episodes… no, one job at the time. He was a nightmare for dropping projects for the next fancy idea, but this week he was fighting ghosts, next week he could take down the stock market.
He glanced down once more, just to be sure, and the map pin stayed resolutely in front of him, definitely no GPS wizardry, this was the right place. It had taken him 10 months to get this appointment so obviously he’d shown up two and a half hours early. By the time Kravitz accounted for traffic, his own disorganisation, and the possibility of unreported strikes, break downs, and walking at half pace from the very furthest possible station in the city (‘just in case’ he missed four other stops) he might have slightly overestimated his actual travel time. He couldn’t leave though, if he went to grab a drink or something time would disappear and he’d end up late. Better to just stay put. In fact, if he could sit in the waiting room he might even be able to get an idea of the other clientele, all good background for his report. Flawless planning, every inch of it on purpose.
Kravitz gave himself a critical once over in the window, smoothed his long woollen coat, put on his very best business face, and headed inside. The email had instructed him to head to the 13th floor. Kravitz rolled his eyes when he read it - although on reflection, it was impressive dedication, it must have taken an age to find a building which actually had one. Oh, maybe the rent was cheaper because of the luck thing? He made a quick note in his phone to look into it - spooky aesthetic, money saver, or both? Probably both, Justin was smart, he marketed well, was consistently in demand, and somehow every public review was positive - regardless of where it was posted.
Sure, Kravitz could have investigated any old grifter and done it much faster, but the cons with a veneer of legitimacy were his actual targets. Most people knew that the bloke on the street corner offering you a direct line to death for a few dollars wasn’t likely to be the real deal - at least he wasn’t exploiting people as much. Justin though? This guy had a massive waiting list and prices to match. Most people could only dream of getting an appointment, let alone three. Thankfully Kravitz could afford it and the revenue from the episodes should more than cover the cost. Kravitz, of course, tried to keep his ethics intact but it was hard to turn down ads when they let him break stories that helped. If keeping people safe meant he occasionally had to extol the benefits of certain underwear brands or enthusiastically tell his listeners about his pubic grooming regime then sobeit.
The display ticked from twelve to thirteen, the lift binged pleasantly, and the doors slid smoothly open. Kravtiz stepped straight into a waiting area, “News JustIn!” was scrawled across a banner facing the lift, a ghostly phone cord underlined the writing. He’d clearly escaped faceless, corporate McBusinessland.
“Welcome to Justin from the Great Beyond, handsome. How can I help you out today?” The receptionist asked from behind an ornate wooden desk which appeared to rest on chicken legs, the work on the feathers was exquisite and Kravitz only tore himself away from admiring the craftsmanship to admire the man behind the desk instead. The receptionist was perched on a dusky pink cocktail chair which clashed marvellously with the fluffy mustard carpet (the kind Kravitz would love to bury his toes in). The receptionist was long and lean, clean shaven and his eyeliner was smudged just enough that Kravitz couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or not. His roots were showing, there was a gap in his front teeth, and Kravitz thought he might possibly be the most beautiful man he’d ever met. Before he could talk himself out of following that line of thought, the receptionist noticed Kravitz’s roaming eyes and winked lasciviously. Was Kravitz allowed to flirt on the job. Probably not? He’d better check with HR… He was HR and it was very important that he made the man call him handsome again.
“I have an appointment with Justin, my name’s Dante Bellefleur.” 
“Ah yes, Mr…” The receptionist paused and side eyed him. “...Bellefleur. You aren’t booked in for a while, are you happy to wait?”
“Of course, I was so worried about being late that I made it a little bit early instead.”
The receptionist snorted loudly and Kravitz glared before he could stop himself. Fuck, he couldn’t be sulky at work, that was how he lost opportunities. This guy could get him booted and it had taken enough effort to get this appointment, falling at the final hurdle because he couldn’t take a bit of light mocking would be mortifying. At least if the guy was going to mock him Kravitz could write off the flirting. He tried to settle his expression to something more neutral and looked anywhere but at the man behind the desk… which was a shame because even if the guy was a prick he was nice to look at. Maybe he could sneak a few glances as he waited? It was perfectly reasonable to occasionally look at the other person in the room.
Kravitz spent a few more moments staring placidly at the wall before subtly shifting in his chair and looking quickly towards the desk. Taako looked right back at him, Kravitz hurriedly looked away again and focused on retrieving his book from his bag. He could just chill out here, see if anyone else came in, see what Taako actually did. 
It turned out that the answer to that question was ‘Not Much.’ Every time Kravitz glanced over Taako had moved slightly, knee tucked up under his chin, one leg splayed out and the other curled under him, legs crossed under him. Every time Kravitz glanced over Taako noticed and smiled his handsome smile right back. Kravitz knew he should say something, but he didn’t know where to start. All he wanted to do was get a good long look at the other man. Instead he had to focus on his book, which of course was one he was reading for show and not enjoyment. After a painful hour in which he made it through three pages, retained none of it, and pointedly avoided looking at the man directly, Kravitz tried again.
The receptionist was now sideways, legs slung up on one arm of the chair, and, worse than improper use of furniture, he grinned wide and wiggled his fingers at Kravitz as if he’d been waiting for this. “So, come here often, kemosabe?”
“You’re the receptionist.” Kravitz replied flatly. “Wouldn’t you recognise me if I did?” Was this some kind of trap?
“Great point… So what’s a guy like you doin’ in a nice place like this?”
“The same thing as everyone else I imagine.” Kravitz’s tone remained placid and polite but if this guy wanted to get under his skin he was certainly doing a good job of it. He could smile his stupid lovely smile all he wanted, but that was outright rude. Sure, Kravitz was accustomed to this - personal insults weren’t uncommon when your job was uncovering dirty secrets, but that usually came after he’d been busted not before. Usually at that point he could give back as good as he got, but this guy might not even know what he was part of. There was no way he could retaliate though, he had to be on his best behaviour until he’d got what he needed, and that included not snarking or sulking. He took a moment to stamp out the sparks of irritation that ignited in his gut and decided to attempt redirection, may as well get some information out of this exchange. “Although, having said that, what’s the main reason people come?”
“Conversation with yours truly, mostly.” The receptionist replied. He slid a drawer open, slapped a magnetic badge on (Kravitz didn’t have any thoughts about the swathe of brown skin this motion revealed), then tapped it. “Taako Taco, here to blow your mind before Justin gets the chance to.” He wriggled until he was sat cross legged again, uncapped what looked to be a sparkly gel pen, and started doodling on the desk planner. Kravitz wasn’t sure if he hated or envied him - how much did this gig pay? It wasn’t like the phone was ringing off the hook. In fact, he couldn’t actually see one on the desk. “Is that why you’re here, Dante, to be blown away?” They made eye contact about that comment, they made eye contact about it really hard. Maybe he should look at a sexual harassment angle for the episode, but honestly, he had stared at the guy so much that he didn’t have a leg to stand on. He was going to choose to believe this treatment was specifically for him and not the usual experience clients had, certainly none of the extensive reviews had mentioned it.
“I’m here to get the answer to some questions I have.” That was true, he wasn’t going to lie if he could help it… well, any more than he had already, but there was only so much you could do when you were the first google result for ‘Kravitz’. “Have you ever…” Kravitz trailed off.
“There isn’t much Taako hasn’t done.” He uncapped another few pens and switched between them as he doodled. 
Kravitz wanted to see what he was drawing, Taako was concentrating so intently that his brow furrowed and Kravitz needed to know what was important enough to make that happen. More importantly, he needed to stop staring, he needed to remember that Taako was ridiculous and rude and bold and terrible at customer service. This wasn’t someone he should be interested in, Taako was hot as fuck and he knew it, he was conceited and unkind. That wasn’t what Kravitz wanted. 
“Spotted something interesting, Dante?” Taako had stopped drawing. He’d stopped drawing because Kravitz was staring right at Taako and Taako had noticed and fuck this was going badly. It was fine, he could fix it.
“I was admiring your name badge.” Kravitz said, gesturing at the incredibly ordinary badge with zero distinguishing features to offer any follow up on.
“Uh huh. Which aspect?” Taako didn’t resume drawing, of course he didn’t. Instead he smirked and waited patiently for an answer, the bastard. He knew why Kravitz was staring at him and sure it took a lot of bravery to investigate crime and put yourself in compromising positions with dodgy people; but telling a guy he was hot and you’d quite like to get into some compromising positions with him? Absolutely not. Especially not when that guy was doing his job - no matter how loose that concept seemed to be for Taako.
“The typeface.” The fucking typeface? “It’s satisfying to look at.” Just like the guy wearing it. This was fine. “I wasn’t bold enough to say it before, but I think I’m justified.”
Taako looked horrified. “Did you just…? Bad, terrible, illegal.” He paused for a moment and Kravitz felt anxiety bubbling in his gut. He was trying to make things better, but maybe puns would be what got him kicked out, not his snarky attitude. Then Taako continued drawing. “I’m going to have to do a citizen’s arrest because right now we’re Sans Sheriff.” Oh, oh okay, Kravitz could work with this.
“Oh no, did the last one experience some hard Times?” That earned Kravitz a long glare.
“Don’t make me curse…ive” Taako grimaced even as he said it.
Kravitz snorted. “Well now who’s going to pun jail?” Taako was hot, Taako was interesting, Taako was willing to play in this stupid space with him. Kravitz wanted to take him out then take him home. Could he just ask Taako out? It didn’t have to be weird. “Hey, can we go on a date, also I’m using a fake name and I’m probably going to be the reason you lose your job because I’m here to expose your employer as a con artist…” Maybe it had to be a bit weird. Kravitz should at least wait until this was over. If he did that Taako might appreciate his integrity? Surely he’d understand why the fake name was necessary. He’d think Kravitz’s dedication to doing the right thing was sexy. Obviously. Just like all his other boyfriends who were definitely still with him and didn’t break up with him because he was too busy doing the right thing and being boring.
“The view’s gonna be good at least, Taako could do some rotting in a cell if you we…” He stopped mid sentence and noticeably clammed up. As if this was the point where Taako decided he had professional boundaries, Kravitz wanted to know where that was going. Did he mean Kravitz would be a good view to see? Good company to be stuck in pun jail with? If Taako thought that then Kravitz could definitely ask him to dinner. Taako stood abruptly, knocking one of his pens off the desk and abandoning it to the floor. “What are you waiting for, kemosabe? I thought you were desperate for your appointment with Justin.” Taako didn’t look at him, just walked towards the door in the corner of the room. Kravitz had no idea what just happened, he didn’t even say anything, was he doing something weird with his face? Looking too eager? It was bang on his appointment time, so maybe Taako just had to be really prompt? Maybe this Justin guy was a horrible boss? If that was the case Taako would surely give him an interview for the podcast. He’d definitely understand why Kravitz had to lie if Justin was treating him poorly. He might even be a little bit grateful for Kravitz’s intervention!
Taako cracked open the door and slipped inside without looking back. Kravitz reached to push the door wider and follow, but paused. He didn’t know what was going on, but it felt wrong. He didn’t want Taako to be in trouble, but he also didn’t want to leave him upset. Kravitz quickly doubled back to the desk and picked up the gel pen from the floor - it was gold and glittery and boy if that wasn’t Taako all over. Kravitz quickly scribbled out a note on the jotter. “Sorry if I overstepped, it was lovely to meet you Taako.” He placed the pen neatly on the desk and, feeling mildly absolved, walked into Justin’s office.
Sat with his legs kicked up on the desk was a man wearing the most ridiculously elaborate wizard hat he’d ever seen. The brim was strung with rows of tiny stars and pom poms, there was an iridescent sheen to the fabric, and a spindly moon charm hung from the crooked peak. The hat was new, but the face it did very little to obscure was familiar.
“Taako? What’s going on? Is there a problem?” 
“Nope, you’re here to have a natter with the world beyond, I’m your guy.”
“But you’re Taako.”
“Nope. I’m definitely Justin.”
“You just said your name was Taako?”
“And you said your name was Dante. Apparently that’s what we’re doing here.” Kravitz didn’t flinch, but he didn’t say anything either. He waited an incredibly normal amount of time while the gears in his brain turned. This was a puzzle, he loved puzzles, he could solve puzzles. Sure, no one had ever questioned him so directly before, and okay, he didn’t really have a plan for this. Why didn’t he have a plan for this? Stupid, stupid overconfident prick. There was something about fake names, pride, and infernos in this, but he wasn’t calm enough to make the joke right now. Thank the goddess that Taako didn’t know who he actually was.
“So, Krav, are you going to call me Taako, or will Justin call you Dante?” 
Fuck.
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wealmostaneckbeard · 27 days
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As a Transhumanist I have a moral obligation to support every humans right to bodily augmentation/alteration/autonomy. Now I will clarify what I mean by that:
I'm not sexually attracted to transgender people but I support their right to correct their own hormonally wayward bodies. Believe me, I've tried to see their erotic/aesthetic appeal but it's not happening. I think it would be very dumb to base one's politics entirely on one's kinks.
Speaking of kinks, lets talk about breeding, or rather the opposite of it. My definition of personhood does not include "people living inside of, or fused with, other people" so anyone with a uterus should be allowed to get an abortion without being charged with murder. Zygotes, embryos, and fetuses don't have their own bodies so they don't get to have bodily autonomy. Any argument that can be made to defend the unborn can also be used to defend the rights of tumors, bacteria, and viruses to occupy the body.
Which brings me to my next point, I despise anti-vaxxers on principle. Their definition of augmentation and physical harm is not based on scientific evidence. Scientists have died studying effective methods of disease control. Rather than respect their sacrifices, they instead trust the lies of grifters. I am consoled that their lifespans are truncated by their own choices. But I am saddened that they unintentionally take other lives to the grave with them.
In conclusion, the flesh is not inherently perfect but through science, it can be, for a little while at least. Death comes for us all but it is a natural process that can be understood and delayed.
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