seeing queer people unironically using the term "porn addiction" while they talk shit about kinksters makes me feel like i'm in some kind of cursed gay twilight zone. the fuck is wrong with you people
Bitches will find a fictional man attractive and then immediately imagine him in situations where he is losing alarming amounts of blood
what's inside his head when he learned of Durge's return:
WiP Wednesday
its tabletop night, so here, have this. I need to stop looking at it tho, must purge the durgetash brainrot for the night so I can try to murder my players effectively.
A little bit of my Durge Belladonna being a weird freak at Gortash, more of which can be found here on my AO3!
"Is she still alive, my dear Belladonna?”
Belladonna blinked, tilting her head to stare down at Enver. He took the wine back from her hand, their fingers brushing. Reflexively her hand withdrew the instant they touched. Her attention drifted back to Lady Janneth, still lying sprawled on the bed, under the blanket. Oh, he thought she’d–
“Why would I kill your toys?” she asked, attention drawn back to him as he sipped the wine. Ugh, the hair. Her eyes kept being drawn back, obsessively. “It’s only a sleep spell.”
“Why would you follow me to my lover’s home, watch me bed her, and then sneak into the still-occupied bed to read her diary? Every conclusion a sane man would draw from your actions would offend you deeply.”
“Then don’t say it,” she said blandly.
“Why did you follow me?” Enver was staring at her with the intensity of a man who expected eye contact.
What a pointless question. “To see where you were going.”
“Why did you enter the room?”
“Again, to see where you were going. And then I was eavesdropping. While I was doing that, the door was closed, thus trapping me within. To answer your next three very pointed questions.”
“You can’t convince me that you don’t have a dozen ways you could have escaped, Belladonna.”
She shifted her weight, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs, table pressing into the back of her thigh. “You only use the name you made up for me this often when you’re truly annoyed. I didn’t know you would care. You’ve seen me have sex several times.”
“Depending on the definition of the word, that may not be entirely true. In my mind, sex involves at least two willing participants.”
“Yes, the con man and the dupe.”
Enver laughed quietly, giving up the facade of being angry with her. Yes, he was irritated, but she’d noticed he very rarely was angry. At least not with her. He reached for the other wine-stained glass, poured from a pitcher of water into it, swirled it until the wine had all turned the water pink. Then he dumped it out on the floor. “Your standards of behavior are not at all normal, my dear Bhaalspawn, did you know that?”
“What exactly is wrong with wanting to know where people are going?” she inquired, wondering why he thought it was all right to pour water on the floor. Was that what he meant by behavior standards?
He poured her clean water into the glass and offered it over, stem tucked between his fingers. She accepted it, dipping her finger into the liquid and wiping off the rim. It still didn’t feel clean even despite the lack of smudges, so she just held it.
He leaned forward in his chair, staring up at her with a critical air and a relaxed posture. “Anyone else would have stopped me in the street, said hello, and asked where I was off to.”
“That would be a waste of the man I’d killed three alleys over,” she said, glancing down as he leaned a little closer, chin on his hand. And then she immediately averted her eyes before she was upset again.
“Do you do this often?”
“Yes? I must practice what I preach, after all, or I would not be much of a leader. Much like yourself. Following and watching people is an important part of being a successful killer.”
“I meant to me, not– why won’t you look at me?”
“Your hair is a mess and it makes me want to scalp you,” she admitted without even a moment’s pause to consider if she’d offend him. By now she knew he wouldn’t be.
“Thank you for your self-control. I’ll fix it right away. Hold this for me.”
Puzzled, she extended her hand by rote, and he dropped something into it as he rose. Heavy and still warm from his finger, the massive diamond ring he’d handed her was the one she’d watched Wisteria slide onto his finger. It was shiny and all, she supposed.
“Why give this to me?”
“I wanted to see your reaction to it,” he replied with another chuckle, crossing the floor to what seemed to be a dressing table and a desk in one. “You don’t care about such things, do you?”
“I’ve seen larger and shinier stones. I usually give them to Orin to play with if they’re not worthy of the coffers. Children like toys." Though Orin was always terribly ungrateful for it; but that was a youngest child for you. Always yelling about not being your sibling and trying to stab you. "I don’t handle money, that’s beneath me. You seemed quite enamored of it.”
“Not of it, my dearest Belladonna. Of what it is. That ring is worth more than this entire house!” He sounded quite satisfied. Gloating was one of Enver’s biggest vices, she’d learned. It didn’t bother her to be his audience for a bit of smugness, as she was quite often when he was feeling self-important.
And he was always feeling self-important.
I wish kinky sex ed wasn't so stigmatized even among left-leaning "sex positive" circles. Everyone's all "uwu I'm a sub I'll do anything you ask" okay mommy wants you to read The New Bottoming Book so you learn how to sub without hurting yourself since your sex ed up to this point is porn and your ex boyfriend Jared who liked to choke you incorrectly
I’m so glad you asked! Let me list off what I’ve got for you:
Books I personally recommend:
- The New Topping Book and The New Bottoming Book, by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy
If you’re having kinky sex at all, you need to read at least one of these two books. Point blank. They’ll teach you the very basics of negotiating properly (which is critical!), and help you identify what you are and aren’t into.
- Mindfucking Mindfully, by Sir Ezra Where this book really shines isn’t actually in helping you “mindfuck” people, it’s in taking a close look at how to do so ethically. It’s a great answer to the question “how do I get someone to consent to something and still surprise and shock them with it?”
- Real Service by Raven Kaldera and Joshua Tenpenny This is a slightly niche pick but there simply isn’t a better book on the subject. It’s written from a 24/7 M/s perspective, which is not what I do, but the book itself is an indispensable guide to giving and receiving service. The phrase “if the Master doesn’t want it, it isn’t service” will be burned into my psyche for quite some time. I love this book a lot. Maybe my favorite out of all of these.
- Enough To Make You Blush: Exploring Erotic Humiliation, by Princess Kali This one’s high on my reading list; I’ve heard it recommended by a number of people whose opinions on these things I trust.
- Pretty Much Anything Midori Has Ever Done Midori is a great resource for this stuff - I haven’t personally read much of her work, but she’s a well known sex educator and great at what she does. She’s known for bondage, but has a lot of range beyond that.
- This Negotiations Worksheet from Bex Talks Sex This is what I default to using a lot of the time for negotiations. Forget BDSMtest, you don’t need that, it’s no good. Just look through this worksheet’s wordbank with your partner. Big fan especially of the “how do you want to feel?” section.
Books I can kind of recommend:
- The Ultimate Guide to Kink, edited by Tristan Taormino This book is weird. There’s a lot of good info for experienced players, but some of what’s written here skeeves me out. I think if I had a top that thought the way some of the tops in here think, they would not be topping me for long. But there’s some good techniques and so on to pick up that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I liked the distinction one of the authors makes between being sadistic in the sense of inflicting pain and being sadistic in the sense of doing something your sub doesn’t “enjoy.”
- The Ritual of Dominance and Submission, by David English Man, this book fucking sucks. The writing and editing are garbage, and the fear and protocol play described need way more careful negotiation than he ever lets on, let alone recommends. This is some 50 Shades bullshit. The only time I recommend this book is to tops like me who tend to be very affirming to their partners and need a guide on how to really scare them - when their partner consents and when you negotiate it, which this book sucks at teaching you. Really good content on fear, punishment, and protocol play, really terrible presentation of the topic though. Don’t read this if you don’t already know what you’re doing.
- Paradigms of Power, by Raven Kaldera I love this book. Great book. Very focused on 24/7 M/s play though, and, being an anthology, some chapters are better than others. If you can’t read something and pick out what is and isn’t for you, don’t bother. But some really great inspiration, and generally pretty well written. Big fan of the discussion of leather throughout the book.
Hope some of these are helpful for people ^-^ for the average person reading this I recommend New Bottoming/Topping, but they’re all important parts of my library and I’ve recommended all of them to friends at some point or another.
A good website imo is bad girl's Bible
There's a slew of information that goes in depth about the topics, the words, and redflags/abuse and what to look out for.
I read this when I was getting into stuff myself and I enjoyed learning about it all.
Oscillating moment to moment on ragequitting over the ai thing. Purely emotional atp no reason can reach me 😮💨
Niko the Malkavian and his adoring ghouls
re: AI scraping etc.
The Bad Thing is not the scraping itself—that's already been happening. That's functionally unpreventable for anything posted publicly to the internet. If other people can view it then a bot can view it. The fact that the bot's eyes work differently can be to some degree weaponised, but the bottom line is that anything you show people can be seen by anything else that's capable of seeing, and replicated by anything capable of remembering it. Computers are v. good at this replication so they can do it more efficiently than if you put up a painting in a gallery and someone came in and painstakingly copied it, but that's it. It's not good but it's also not preventable within the constraints of the problem.
The thing you SHOULD be mad about is any company trying to sell, effectively, a licence for content they do not hold the copyright for. Yes yes it's in the TOS. Standard terms of service for websites that display user-submitted content notoriously overstep the claims they can actually make to your work. The idea of the "we can do whatever we want" clauses—which are ubiquitous—is that you can't then sue them for literally displaying the content, which they do not otherwise have a right to do. You're licencing the work to them as a condition of use. Trying to flip that into effectively sub-licencing content they do not by any possible means own is the part you should be furious about. They're selling shit you own from under you.
I am not the most massive fan of the concept of intellectual property but as the law stands you do fucking own anything you write or draw. Even shitposts. Even messages to your friends. You'd be livid if someone tried to sell your hoard of used envelopes, right? You might not have valued them especially highly but they're yours to use or discard as you please, and they're definitely not, say, your landlord's?
That's the problem with tumblr trying to flog your "data" to Midjourney. It's your landlord selling your used envelopes.
Your fury should also be rallied against them making it an opt-out when it's just as easy to make it opt-in. Bully staff about that. They know they're stealing permission from dead blogs/our dead friends' blogs by making it opt-out.
Not seeing enough backlash for making it an opt OUT toggle. If one thing changes let it be that.
The number of dead blogs they're stealing permission from. Yucky.
Well, see you, friends
https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/
Don't go after staff members because of this, for what I know they weren't even informed until later in the process. You know who this comes from.
full article, for those who don't want to sign up for an account:
Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals.
The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we’ve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms’ parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.
The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn’t supposed to. It is not clear from Gage’s post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent.
Gage wrote:
“the way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblr’s public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:
- private posts on public blogs - posts on deleted or suspended blogs - unanswered asks (normally these are not public until they’re answered) - private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public) - posts that are marked ‘explicit’ / NSFW / ‘mature’ by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I don’t know) - content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Apple’s former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesn’t belong to us, and we don’t have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.”
Gage’s post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.
Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”
404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldn’t share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.
Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?”
Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.” Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.
News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, “I'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.”
Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, “i've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.” At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gage’s original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads “Cyle.” Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media.
Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that it’s “in the early stages of monetizing [its] user base” by training AI on users’ posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.
OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment.
Tiger by the Tail
some more of my Dark Urge Belladonna and Gortash. Content warning in the fic notes, pls note before reading. It's Dark Urge, what can I say? It's weird and dark and messy.
...
Absolutely stunned by the abruptness of his actions, and his sudden renewal of those excessive feelings she found so unnerving, she numbly handed him the bandage. Gortashunraveled the mess, and pressed an end to her stomach. The touch of his fingers was so unexpected and sudden that she flinched. They were warm. Calloused.
His face was set on intent lines. “Put your hand here.” He grabbed her by the wrist and led her to the bandage. Numbly shocked, she did as he said. Gortash went to work wrapping the cloth around her snugly, but not so tight as to burst the wounds again.
“As I was saying, I am here for open cooperation. I have nothing to hide from you. Our goals align completely!”
“I nearly killed you three times today,” she said, utterly lost.
“I know, and I quite like that about you. I’ve been attempting to show my interest in you. And apparently failing miserably at it– which has to be your fault.”
“You want to bed me?” she asked, some of her confusion and shock fading, letting the calm return to her mind. Well, if he just desired her, that made him easier to control– what could be bad about that? She assumed he felt the same about her. But if it was mere conquest in mind, unsurprising for a Banite, then once would deal with it and he wouldn’t give her difficulty afterward. “Very well. Tighten the bandages. The incision is not small. If you are not careful it may split, and you may be dealing with more innards than you bargained for.”
Gortash stopped his circling of her with the bandage, giving her the strangest look. “That is the most unattractive response I’ve ever received in my life. Stunning.”
She averted her stare from him, lifting her chin. “My lack of sarcasm does not indicate a lack of familiarity with it. Just be forthright. You’ve seen what I look like when I orgasm, and it’s all you can think about. That’s understandable.”
Gortash tucked in the end of the bandage, giving her another equally strange, but wholly different stare. It wasn’t one of the ones she was expecting. He was so unsettling. And so close. “I think, deep down underneath it all, there’s a sense of humor.”
“There is not,” she snapped, offended and shocked.
“Sometimes…seduction is a process, my dear Belladonna.”
Giving him a sharp look, she narrowed her eyes. “Belladonna?”
He smiled, eyes unfathomable. “All your charming handmaidens are named after flowers. I thought Belladonna suited you. You said I could choose something to call you by.”
“People daren’t risk it, generally.”
His voice might be attractive at that moment, if it weren’t for the tinge of condescension. “Well, I find teasing the tiger to be quite entertaining. It’s always the dangerous ones that purr most sweetly in the end.”
How dare this petty merchant condescend to her?
Tiger by the Tail
some more of my Dark Urge Belladonna and Gortash. Content warning in the fic notes, pls note before reading. It's Dark Urge, what can I say? It's weird and dark and messy.
...
Absolutely stunned by the abruptness of his actions, and his sudden renewal of those excessive feelings she found so unnerving, she numbly handed him the bandage. Gortashunraveled the mess, and pressed an end to her stomach. The touch of his fingers was so unexpected and sudden that she flinched. They were warm. Calloused.
His face was set on intent lines. “Put your hand here.” He grabbed her by the wrist and led her to the bandage. Numbly shocked, she did as he said. Gortash went to work wrapping the cloth around her snugly, but not so tight as to burst the wounds again.
“As I was saying, I am here for open cooperation. I have nothing to hide from you. Our goals align completely!”
“I nearly killed you three times today,” she said, utterly lost.
“I know, and I quite like that about you. I’ve been attempting to show my interest in you. And apparently failing miserably at it– which has to be your fault.”
“You want to bed me?” she asked, some of her confusion and shock fading, letting the calm return to her mind. Well, if he just desired her, that made him easier to control– what could be bad about that? She assumed he felt the same about her. But if it was mere conquest in mind, unsurprising for a Banite, then once would deal with it and he wouldn’t give her difficulty afterward. “Very well. Tighten the bandages. The incision is not small. If you are not careful it may split, and you may be dealing with more innards than you bargained for.”
Gortash stopped his circling of her with the bandage, giving her the strangest look. “That is the most unattractive response I’ve ever received in my life. Stunning.”
She averted her stare from him, lifting her chin. “My lack of sarcasm does not indicate a lack of familiarity with it. Just be forthright. You’ve seen what I look like when I orgasm, and it’s all you can think about. That’s understandable.”
Gortash tucked in the end of the bandage, giving her another equally strange, but wholly different stare. It wasn’t one of the ones she was expecting. He was so unsettling. And so close. “I think, deep down underneath it all, there’s a sense of humor.”
“There is not,” she snapped, offended and shocked.
“Sometimes…seduction is a process, my dear Belladonna.”
Giving him a sharp look, she narrowed her eyes. “Belladonna?”
He smiled, eyes unfathomable. “All your charming handmaidens are named after flowers. I thought Belladonna suited you. You said I could choose something to call you by.”
“People daren’t risk it, generally.”
His voice might be attractive at that moment, if it weren’t for the tinge of condescension. “Well, I find teasing the tiger to be quite entertaining. It’s always the dangerous ones that purr most sweetly in the end.”
How dare this petty merchant condescend to her?
Hell site getetics this is an emergency tumblr just shined a deal with mid journey an ai art thing, you have to opt out on each individual blog, please spread the word
String identified: stupid ass tumblr decision as usual
Closest match: Disable this in your blog settings. Common name: Click settings, look down towards the bottom right to see your blogs. Click them and scroll down to the visibility section, where you can opt out of this garbage.
Gort boot worship... scrapped because I had so much trouble refining them more. But they work as sketches.
(cropped the first)
took these screenshots for people like me who would rather just know how to opt out than read several paragraphs on corporate greed