shaynarlambert

[shaynarlambert]

I know most people on here don't like to go to the gym because you're all gay nerds. I like to go to the gym. For the purpose of understanding this post please try to imagine that you, too, enjoy going to the gym so that you can empathize with my point here.

Anyway, so imagine you are going to the gym. You're pumped about the concept of getting some muscle on you. Plus, the gym has this "lift weights every day!" challenge with a feasible plan to slowly and safely increase the amount of weight you can lift by the end of the month. Cool!

So anyway you go there, and you're having a good time. But then you notice something. Some people are coming in with these guys in shirts that say LIFT FOR HIRE. You're curious, and you notice over time that some people are actually paying these guys to come in and do the lifting challenge for them.

"Huh," you say to your mega hot, muscled gym buddy. "That's so weird. What's in it for the people paying these guys?"

"Dunno," says your friend, mid bicep curl.

"Um, actually!" says the gym owner. "Some people are disabled, so the only way they can lift weights it to pay LIFT FOR HIRE, inc."

"But wait," you say. "They still aren't lifting the weights though? Paying someone else to lift for you doesn't mean you've lifted the weights."

The gym owner gasps. "How could you SAY that?"

"Because... it's true?" you say. "Uh, if you pay guys to lift your weights, that's probably really good for the guys you are paying. But it's not going to develop your ability to lift at all. Your muscles aren't going to grow, you're just going to lose money and get no results."

"That's ABLEIST," they say. "How DARE you! Some people are LITERALLY paralyzed, did you think of that?"

"Well, yeah, some people are, and that means definitionally they can't lift weights," you explain. "And paying someone else doesn't change that. Maybe if they wanted to like, move something in their house it would make total sense to hire these guys! But if you hire them to do your workout you get nothing, because the purpose of a workout is personal development. I'm not morally condemning people who do it, but it seems like a waste of money when this event is, again, about improving one's personal abilities."

"This is absolutely DISGUSTING, CLASSIST rhetoric!" the gym owner roars, and then turns to one of the LIFT FOR HIRE guys, "Pay no attention this disgusting person, dear sponsor, we support your business and we totally want you to keep funding our gym!"

"Sponsor?" says your hot muscled friend who was way too busy actually doing their workout and getting gains to engage in dumb discourse. "Oh, now it makes sense."

"Shut up, you don't understand our love!" says the gym owner, before sloppily making out with a LIFT FOR HIRE guy in front of you.

Anyway, that's what learning about the whole AI nanowrimo controversy was like for me.

[shaynarlambert]

:(((

[shaynarlambert]

My friend was messing with Never Gonna Give You Up on her record player and she sped it up. It beCAME A FREAKING MAGICAL GIRL THEME.

[shaynarlambert]

i fear a lot of ppl confuse “was this character’s death well written and good for the story” with “did i like it, personally”

[shaynarlambert]

There are many sweet, soft moments in this book, and they all had me going 🥹😭🥰🥹

Pick up this book as soon as you can, y’all. It has All of the Feels.

The Keeper of Lonely Spirits (2025) | link to theStoryGraph

I love when my friends draw fan art of my book 🥹 @shaynarlambert drew this moment from The Keeper of Lonely Spirits when the main character brings a new friend back to her home after a ghost-related incident and worries himself over her twisted ankle, and then he FEELS FEELINGS (the horrors!!) because she teasingly calls him "grandpa" for worrying about her

here's the whole thing all together 💖

if you want to read a cozy, spooky fantasy about an old immortal ghost-hunter who flips out over feeling strange new feelings like "friendship" and "affection," keep an eye out for The Keeper of Lonely Spirits in 2025

link to theStoryGraph | link to goodreads | link to hardcover & eBook preorder | link to audiobook preorder

[shaynarlambert]

Different Stories Resonate with Different People

[shaynarlambert]

Jane Austen: so, you go to Mr Collins' house and Elizabeth is there alone. She welcomes you politely, but she looks---troubled.

Colonel Fitzwilliam: and of course she does, after everything I said to her-

Fitzwilliam Darcy: do I sense if she is mad at me specifically or it is just her headache?

Jane Austen: roll an Investigation Check.

Fitzwilliam Darcy: *grimacing* it's a three.

Jane Austen: just her headache.

Caroline Bingley: *derisively* she only looks like she wants to stab you, Darcy.

Fitzwilliam Darcy: *shrugs* I guess I am too nervous to really give her a proper look.

Jane Austen: what do you do next?

Fitzwilliam Darcy: well, I-I tell her, "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."

Jane Austen: Elizabeth blushes. She is absolutely stunned.

Georgiana Darcy: that is good, right? Right?

Fitzwilliam Darcy: I tell her that even if her family is--not ideal-

Charles Bingley: *making a face*

Caroline Bingley: *playfully disgusted frown* and I made my character romance you?

Fitzwilliam Darcy: -and I might be acting impulsively, I just have to let her know that I love her. That's it.

**Silence**

Jane Austen: *smacks her lips* okay-

Charles Bingley: *histerical laughter* I don't like the way you said it-

Colonel Fitzwilliam: it's an immediate natural one, yes? Please tell me it's immediate.

Georgiana Darcy: shhhh!

Jane Austen: give me a Persuasion Check-let me tell you, you have to roll very high.

Fitzwilliam Darcy: figures-very well-

Fitzwilliam Darcy: *beat*

Fitzwilliam Darcy: *flatly* natural one.

Colonel Fitzwilliam: JUSTICE!

Jane Austen: *claps her hands* you make your grand love confession, but Elizabeth stops you and immediately rejects you.

Fitzwilliam Darcy: ouch.

Jane Austen: she tells you that she could never marry the person that hurt her sister and destroyed Wickham's future-

Fitzwilliam Darcy: *dawning horror* I had forgotten they had talked, fuck-

Jane Austen: and, finally-

Charles Bingley: there is more? He is already dead-

Jane Austen: Elizabeth looks at you dead in the eye and says: "From the very beginning—from the first moment, I may almost say—of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry."

Fitzwilliam Darcy: damn.

Caroline Bingley: *dying of laughter under the table*

Charles Bingley: I do not know if I can resurrect you after that.

Georgiana Darcy: I knew it, I should have given you Bardic Inspiration-

[shaynarlambert]

[shaynarlambert]

I just learned yesterday that Pikachu, my favorite Pokemon, was originally designed not by Ken Sugimori (he only finalized the design), but by a female graphic designer named Atsuko Nishida. 

Also after googling her, I found out that she’s also designed Sylveon–another favorite PKMN of mine. She’s also illustrated some very pretty Pokemon cards!!

Thank you Ms. Nishida! :-) May you get more credit and love for your contribution to the Pokemon franchise.

[shaynarlambert]

one thing i've always understood as Akira Toriyama's influence on manga, even if just assumption on my part, was how his cartooning came to bear when he started writing pure action manga. when I think of his contemporaries I think of overblown special moves like Saint Seiya or the gory fist clusters of FotNS

to me it seemed what Toriyama brought to the table was the satisfaction of clarity in martial arts

when you read his fight scenes, which may have become notorious when animated for dragging on, there's no question about what's happening in the action

a clear kick to the jaw

a clean line of action on Yajirobe's slice

I first noticed this clarity pretty quickly early on in the General Tao fights during the red ribbon arc, where entire fight scenes playing out with these clear motions on the pages

Even as it got more detailed later on, the clarity stayed

clear hits on clear fight scenes

and dirtier but still completely legible lines of action

And when he started introducing the big over the top special moves we got the same thing quite often in DB: that simple visual clarity amplifying the excitement

i'm not super coherent on it right now, i'm not the biggest shonen action fan all the time and maybe Toriyama didn't introduce the world to visually clear and interesting fights in manga.

but when I see any action manga showing off clean fight choreography or sick ass lazer beams that show off clear shockwaves of destruction, i'll always be thinking of the GOAT

RIP Akira Toriyama

[shaynarlambert]

Hey, y’all! My buddy @connan-bell is an indie artist, and this is his new game. Make (us) Believe is an imagination-based card game about narrating crazy characters through even weirder scenarios. It’s TTRPG meets Apples to Apples, and it’s super fun!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/355347892462

[shaynarlambert]

Writetober 2023 Day 7: Craft

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Writetober 2023 Day 6: Golden

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Writetober 2023 Day 5: Flies

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Writetober 2023 Day 4: Dodge

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Writetober 2023 Day 3: Wound

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Writetober 2023 Day 2: Swallow