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always-just-down-the-street · 2 months ago

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Misremembered Lanes Timeline (Pt. 1): During the Show

Alright, everyone, it is time for that Misremembered Lanes timeline I was talking about! Now, this is gonna be split up into two pieces since...I don't have the post-show/Box and Suitcase stuff yet, all of this was kinda just spitballed with the help of the creator of @inanimate-reboots, I recommend you really check them out, they're a sick AU and the owner's a good friend! Anyway, so, Part 1, all stuff that happens during Season 2 and 3 because like I mentioned, Season 1 is basically unchanged.

ALSO THIS POST IS GONNA BE LIKE SUPER LONG SO GET READY FOR THE LONG HAUL.

First, some ground rules, more or less setting how OJ and Taco will act in a more general sense without going episode-by-episode for two whole seasons.

General Changes to Characterization

OJ is a lot more antagonistic whenever he appears for reasons discussed in my last Misremembered Lanes post- he is struggling with feelings of lack of control that he cannot explain to himself, being more commanding in Everything's A-OJ and, while he's still a good person, he can tend to get a bit lost in his own head.

Taco, in exchange, is a lot more...I don't wanna say sympathetic- she's less evil because she wants to be and more because she feels like she has to be. Her intent to stop the show to save everyone forms way sooner than before Season 3, even if she only gives it up in a moment of weakness to Mic. Ever since she lost, she's just felt...off. Ever since she's lost in Season 1 she's felt off, and it's been chaining her to this show like a ball and chain.

So, in her mind, the only way to stop the feeling...is to stop the show. So she doesn't feel like this anymore, so nobody else has to feel like her, end up like her, whatever that means. Ironically, this means she feels aimless but realized her endgame way sooner than in canon. Truth or Flare is just when she gets desperate enough to physically intervene because they're so. close.

She's tried to leave the show but she can't, something inside of her that's been there since the finale won't let her. She has to be in the show, but this is the only role she can have after what she did. She doesn't even really know why she did it, she just felt so…wronged after losing, such anger she'd never really felt before, it should have been her, it should have been her-

…and then she blacked out. And she woke up the villain.

I'll get more into how the swap functions in their minds in a bit, but there is one thing I wanna tackle before I get into the II2 finale, and that is:

Season 3

I'd like to think OJ would actually love the idea of being in Season 3, as opposed to his canon counterpart- instead of focusing on the hotel and focusing on how everyone else is doing, he takes Invitational as a way to prove Season 1 wasn't a fluke, that he does earn his keep, that he is as good as he says he is.

But then...he does lose. And as Silver Spoon boasts about being the one to dethrone the king of Inanimate Insanity, something within OJ snaps. His original programming, come to roost. For a moment everyone sees a side of OJ that is frankly terrifying, even to Silver Spoon- especially since it mostly comes out through screaming in the silverware's face. He is furious in a way he's never been before, in a way that makes his earlier fight with Paintbrush look tame.

And then...he snaps back, looking at himself in shock before MePhone quickly gets him knocked out before things get any worse. The show must go on, after all...

OJ goes back to the hotel and pretends Season 3 never happened, sliding into denial...sort of because of his loss, but moreso the fallout of it. The person he became for a moment, the anger he felt inside of him. Best to just pretend it never happened!

The Reality of the Situation

The strain this creates rears its head again during OJ and Paper's fallout in The Reality of the Situation, which ends up being way worse due to Paper bringing up OJ's outburst and OJ's...well, crumbling ego. He ends up X'ed, like in canon, but people are a lot more split on it- it's terrifying, sure, but...not the worst person it could've happened to.

Taco, on the other hand, just tries not to think about the confliction she feels whenever she looks at it. Deep down, in a sense, she's won. She outlived him. But she never wanted it like this.

Through No Choice Of Your Own

Things are mostly the same for Taco, she talks with Mic, trying to parse her feelings on the deceased OJ and Pickle and her failed attempts at reconciliation...

...and then MePhone explains that he made them all for the show, and it ends up hitting her way harder than it did in canon. She basically regresses to her intense villain side from the end of S1/start of S2 and tries to kill him out of desperation because he's why she feels so broken, he's why they're all broken. She can't handle that she's been trying to stop the show when the show is what made her. She is the show. They're all the show. It's all in his voice. It's always been his voice.

Mic and MePad get her to Purgatory Mansion, but she's still a mess- but a mess away from MePhone, at least, even if she's deluded to the point of being paranoid that MePad's in on it. She doesn't try to hurt him. The others who are brought with her? They are shocked by seeing how much Taco's fallen. After everything they had heard from Baseball and Lightbulb and Microphone, she looks more broken and desperate than...evil. But she still made her choice, they said. Even if once again she did it in a fugue state. At least that means they don't try to push her buttons while she's clearly not in the right headspace, if on Mic and MePad's request.

And she spends her last moments lost in her own head, trying to make sense of everything. She can't.

She just can't.

Objects in Mirror

Taco and OJ appear next to each other in MeAfterlife. (Frankly, I just thought it was weird that Taco and OJ never got to interact and that besides a one-off line by Paper, she never interacts with anyone from Season 1). He doesn't know that she's been really not in the right space and at least somewhat trying to get better? So he just treats her like a villain and stuff, and Taco is just not having it- and without anyone to hold her back, she lays into OJ hard.

TACO: "Oh, and that precious game you won?! The- the one that made you a millionaire, gave you the love and adoration of everyone around you?! It's fake! It's ALL fake, WE'RE fake!"

OJ: "W- What-"

TACO: (She laughs, her face cracking slightly. She sounds on the brink of madness.) "MePhone made us, OJ! We were all so stupid, we couldn't see the truth dangling in front of our faces- this isn't a game show, it's the sad, sad story about how one bastard created a theatre of nightmares and made every actor to dance forever on the stage! And I'm just his favorite mistake, stuck playing the role of the villain!"

OJ: (He stands firm.) "I- Even if you're right, that doesn't change anything! I still heard about how you were interfering with the season, you tried to steal the million from me, you still chose to be a villain."

TACO: "Chose?! CHOSE?! How- You're really not getting it! Unbelievable! We- we- we we we we we can't escape, I've tried to escape, you think I wanted to be chained to a show where everybody hates you?! Maybe that's why he let you win, you couldn't see the truth if it in his shoddy bloody handwriting!"

OJ: "…Are…you crying-"

TACO: "I WANTED TO HELP THEM, OJ! I THOUGHT IF I JUST STOPPED THE SHOW THEY WOULDN'T…they wouldn't end up like…me. And. and…"

OJ: "…Taco?"

TACO: "…i would have just made it even worse…it's- it's pathetic, really. all these plans and schemes and…i never thought about what i'd do after."

The air- the non-existent air, really, no need to breathe in purgatory- is still, awkward. OJ doesn't really know what to do, he thinks Taco's finally lost it. He almost pities her, he can see that same doubt he's been grappling with for...what, months now? But she made her choice. And this is probably just some weird pity play she's conjuring up- not real, that's ridiculous! If this wasn't real then everything he'd done would've been for nothing, and he can't accept that.

He can't accept that.

Just don't think about why you woke up in a place that looks like MePhone and you don't have to accept anything!

But of course, just as MePhone4S and Knife found themselves at the tables, OJ soon finds himself stepping on something else. A piece of paper.

"FULL OF HOT AIR".

He keeps looking through them, unsure of why these papers are here. "MICROPHONE", "MARSHMALLOW", "BASEBALL- ALWAYS STRIKES OUT", "KNIFE- MEAN, JERK, CHANGE OF HEART?"…

Taco eventually wanders over and calls them as she sees them- these…are the blueprints for the II cast. OJ can't handle it, but then he mumbles something that gets the gears turning in both of their heads.

OJ: "...i can see what's wrong with me..."

They silently began to scour through the papers, seeing the faces of (almost) everyone they've ever known. Floor, Salt, Yin-Yang, Nickel, Apple, Taco almost breaks down when she sees Pickle's…and then they find theirs.

And they just. Can't understand it. Why is OJ's all negative? Why is Taco an "underdog"? She manipulated everyone to get to second, she played the role of an underdog but if MePhone made her to be the villain, why is she being called a genuine underdog?

…Why does it sound more like OJ was made to be more of a villain than she was?

And all of a sudden, she's ripped away. She closes her eyes, and she's suddenly with everyone again, next to Paper…

And then she hears something.

FAN: "Weird, I thought I just pressed OJ's button."

The gears turn.

They turn again.

A look of abject horror overtakes her.

TACO: "Press my button."

Fan doesn't think much about it, pressing it.

And OJ appears, still holding the two papers in his hands.

FAN: "Huh- I guess something's wrong with MeLife?"

MARSHMALLOW: "Great, another thing he was hiding from us…"

FAN: "I was wondering why he turned away when he had to recover OJ back in the season premiere! Thought he was just building up suspense for the big reveal of how he revives every…oh, that makes a lot more sense now."

PAINTBRUSH: "Why would it just be their buttons though? Everyone else's work fine."

TEST TUBE: "Well, you flip a 0 and a 1 somewhere and who knows what could go wrong!"

CABBY: "He is a known dyslexic…"

(The two of them just stare at each other as everyone else talks.)

(You flip a 0 and a 1.)

(A 0.)

(and a 1.)

(A failure.)

(and a victory.)

(You flip a winner and a loser and everything goes wrong.)

Taking a step away from the two of them for a moment, because to be entirely honest...I wanna do something more with the red line game. Felt a little too...one-and-done, the only actual stakes ended up being because Marshmallow fucked up. Yes this a mild fix fic for II2 18, you are just under two thousand words into reading about the timeline of an II darkfic, neither of us have better things to do.

I had an idea that maybe they're more in groups. Like they can't convince everyone all at once, but eventually they all need to try and get out.

The main group, the plot-important group with like Knife and Suitcase and Marshmallow and stuff can go first, they're the biggest and they need to fulfill their lore obligations- I'm thriving, I'm not a monster, they can keep their sappy happy ending.

But then maybe more people start to go because…well, nobody knows what happened to Knife. Did he die? Did he make it out? Did anyone make it out?

It also helps that a bunch of people won, which means it is winnable, and that gives more people hope to do it and go for it.

…Until it's just Taco and OJ. They both have that same, awful feeling in their heads. They both know. They know the other know. They both dance around it, a waltz where even one misstep will destroy them both but eventually they need to break away to look out.

They both approach the buttons.

Taco presses her button. OJ feels it.

OJ presses his button. Taco feels it.

There's a long silence, neither of them know what to do. What to say.

What could you even say?

OJ: "…i'm sorry."

TACO: "…"

TACO: "let's just go."

They both make it out, of course. How could you worry about some ghostly images, some lies from your brain, when the truth is so much worse?

They're the last two out, since everyone was a tad more split in arriving it's not too alarming. MePhone won't leave for good until everyone is out, but he's keeping his distance from everyone else.

And boy is he surprised by Taco and OJ looking at him like they've just seen a ghost! (I mean they haven't even seen Knife yet.)

MePhone half-expects Taco to try to kill him again, but instead he's bombarded by a bunch of questions he can't answer. Why? What's wrong with them? What made them this way? Why did everything go wrong? Why won't the feeling go away? What went wrong so early? Was OJ really supposed to win or was it supposed to be Taco?

MEPHONE4: "…I…don't know? I'll admit, a lot of it was, uh, on the spot back in Season 1, and…okay, also Season 2. And Season 3-"

(OJ holds out the papers of him and Taco.)

OJ: "THEN WHAT ARE THESE?!"

(MePhone holds the papers in surprise.)

MEPHONE4: "Oh…wow! Heh, the things you forget, huh? …Uh, I know these maybe aren't the best things to cherish, but-"

TACO: "ANSWER THE QUESTION!"

MEPHONE4: "I don't know, okay?! I was young, I was stupid- sure, maybe I wanted you to win deep down or whatever cause I thought stupid was funny, but you two should know better than everyone that the finale was a mess! Partially because of you."

TACO: "I ONLY-" OJ: "If it wasn't HER, it was going to be ME!"

(MePhone just…shrugs.)

MEPHONE4: "Well, uh...it wasn't? I'm sorry if that's a bad answer, but at this point it's all I got."

(And he begins to walk away.)

TACO: "W- Where are you going?!"

MEPHONE4: "Eh, I don't know. You two were the last ones, and…frankly I've made enough of a mess here. Enjoy your lives."

MEPHONE4: "…Oh, and, uh…I can't respawn you anymore and there's a funeral happening right now. I'd say you two should go there now but honestly you look miserable as-is and I think it'd…just make things worse."

OJ: "Wh- Who died? Everyone got out…unless-"

MEPHONE4: "Knife's a ghost, but he's…fine?"

("As fine as a ghost can be, really.")

MEPHONE: "It's not for one of you guys…"

(They both pause for a moment- if it's not MePhone and it's not one of the contestants, then...)

TACO: "…no."

TACO: "No no no no no no no no no no no NO NO NO NO NO-"

(Taco immediately makes a run opposite MePhone- if he's going away, then following his footprints would lead her back to them and she can see MePad, he's not dead, he didn't die, she can still apologize, she can still…)

(She can still…)

(She realizes someone's holding her back.)

TACO: "OJ, GET OFF OF ME, YOU'RE- THIS IS ALL YOU DO! ALL YOU'VE DONE IS HOLD ME BACK! I COULD'VE HAD EVERYTHING, I COULD'VE BEEN A WINNER, THINGS COULD HAVE BEEN RIGHT AND WE COULD HAVE BEEN HAPPY BUT YOU- YOU, YOU…"

(She lets out a scream of despair. As she collapses into OJ's arms, sobbing, she feels like she's about to break into a million pieces.)

(They both do.)

I imagine only OJ comes back. He offered Taco a place in the hotel, but they both know it’s an empty gesture. They’re too freaked out to even be near each other afterwards, afraid of what could happen, afraid of what they could become.

OJ pretends everything is fine, deep down his ego still won’t let him confess the truth. He fears everyone would hate him for taking Taco’s life, even if he didn’t mean it.

Taco wouldn’t mind if she knew- her self-destructive mind would never want someone else to take her place. It’s her burden, she tells herself, she chose this.

Even if it’s a lie…it’s the devil she knows.

Hey So Nova, How Does The Swap Work Anyway?

Great question! I wanted to do it earlier but I got sidetracked by my II fixfic/darkfic.

Let's set a baseline: Taco was supposed to win as the goofy underdog while OJ, the manipulative and egotistical guy (if one that puts on a role of leadership) snaps from being denied his victory because he hates losing- but due to Bow, OJ wins instead of Taco, so without realizing their code is forced to correct and fast.

Taco goes from a charismatic if silly… (leader? I don't think she'd quite be a caretaker like OJ is in canon, moreso a general friend-to-all maybe?) to a suddenly villainous puppetmaster who'd been playing the audience and contestants for fools.

OJ goes from an egotistical timebomb to a firm leader and caretaker, if one that tends to get lost in his own head sometimes without realizing.

In a sense, even their worst parts are taken from each other.

OJ's timebomb nature turns into Taco's self-destruction as she believes stopping the game is all she has left.

Taco's ditzy, clueless nature turns into OJ's blindness to his now-unchecked ego until the doubt sets in.

Another detail along this train of thought but focusing on a different part of the question of how is...

Well, the main thing with their last talk with MePhone is that that first season, even if he realizes it, was guided subconsciously. Maybe he did want Taco to win, maybe he had it be equal- remember, this AU was more or less founded on a hypothetical twist before MePhone's intent was ever discussed in-canon that in execution would have been more of a meta twist based on what the viewer knows.

There's a lot of things he can't answer for himself or for them, and there definitely aren't any answers that are gonna make them happy with him. MePad had a point- what he wanted and what the reality was are probably very different. And unfortunately, he's just as good at discerning which is which as the rest of them.

They might never know the definitive answer- they might not even ever learn Bow's the reason this all happened. At the end of the day, it's more of a question of if they can move on despite it.

(...or, you know, if they can't, which is fine by me- can't thrive if there's no suffering. It's why I went quiet after II2 18 dropped, how was I supposed to thrive in those conditions?)

Yeah I Don't Care, Now What?

Well, that's for Part 2! I imagine Mic wouldn't be willing to leave Taco alone, especially based on what OJ says after he returns about Taco being distraught about MePad's death and feeling the bridges are too far burnt down. Sure, the...revelation made things worse, but it was a shock to everyone. Mic just hopes they can start to recover that progress someday, even if she doesn't know the truth.

Like I said, they can keep their happy ending, Cobs is dead, everyone's gonna get to live their lives...just really the emotional states that'll end up in question.

Especially for the latest winner and her new friend. But that's a story for another day.

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velvetvexations · 4 months ago

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i feel really selfish saying this, but i really wish there were more general trans movies with characters who aren't trans women. like, i'm really glad that they're there and there should be more, but on the other hand, its kinda all thats there? obviously there ARE movies like this, but 9 times out of 10 when there's a recommendation to go see a trans movie, its either a trans women or a character heavily implied to be a trans women there. and i'm really glad those movies are there! but i'd just wish there could be a big discussion about movie and there would be a trans man or a nonbinary person representing the community.

(this also goes for other types of media too)

i sent an ask complaining about how the majority of trans movies that the community talks mainly show trans women and i wanna take that back cause a lot of those media are shitty towards trans women. i dont think its fair to complain about that when those media are awful towards trans women. i apologize

anon of the trans ppl in media asks you can publish them! i retracted it cause im kinda emotional rn and i couldn't really remember if i was being fair or shitty

I think what you're forgetting, anon, is that while trans women are depicted badly in a lot of places - less so over the years, people mainly reference things from the previous century - there's still way more positive transfem rep than there is of anything for transmascs, and that doesn't mean transfems have it better, but as always hyper-visibility and invisibility are two sides of the same coin. It's okay for invisibility to not feel good. There should indeed be more media about transmascs.

Now I'm finally doing that. This year I made my first ever hand sewn cosplay. There are definitely mistakes, but it's pretty sturdy and I can't express the sheer sense of pride I got from wearing something I sewed myself. There are some things I wanna tweak on it, like I must have made a mistake when measuring the waistband because it's WAY too thick. But it's functional, it's accurate, and it even has a zipper! It was expensive because of course for my first ever sewing project I picked a character with a pleated skirt (you need 3x your waist in fabric and im fat which definitely adds up lmao, plus i got the fabric custom printed from a print-on-demand company) and the pleats took forever to do. But I'm so so so proud of it. I'm looking into armor crafting with EVA foam for a future cosplay, and it's intimidating but I'm really excited at the idea of working with it. I've seen so many amazing armor sets and props made with EVA foam and I can't wait to make my own. I'm thinking I'm gonna cosplay Maple from BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, So I'll Max Out My Defense.. Then again, that might be jumping off straight into the deep end again like I did for the last cosplay since she has a GIANT shield. At least I'm sticking to her main outfit, not the one with giant angel wings lmao. I may have watched several videos on wing crafting but even I'm not brazen (or stupid) enough to try making those for only my second real cosplay lmao. Anyway this has been your regularly unscheduled cosplay info dump. Thank you for tuning in, we'll see you next time!

Ambitious! I hope it all turns out great, it sounds like a lot of big projects to have on one's plate.

My opinions are a lot more nuanced than most takes on 'shipcourse' that ive seen, but I've gathered that im generally included when people say 'proshippers dni' based on how people define it in said dnis. I'm not gonna purposefully interact with someone who obviously doesn't want me there. But that makes it frustratingly difficult to find people to follow who also believe in things like transandrophobia. It happens all too often that I find someone with great takes and go to follow them, then see that they have a dni that includes me. It especially sucks when all the other things in the dni are things like "racist" and "transphobic". I'm sorry, but I just can't see having a nuanced opinion on fiction as being on the same level as being a bigot towards others. It sucks to be put on the same level as actively hateful people because I have concerns about the normalization of censorship. I believe that when you open the doors to censoring media because of morals, you set the groundwork for things like the Hays Code. Censorship has always been disproportionately used to silence marginalized groups. I just can't get behind that, no matter how 'noble' the intentions behind it might be.

If it helps any, I'm also what one would call a pro-shipper but find the word itself beneath my dignity because I think it's ridiculous it's an argument in the first place.

#discourse

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the-lark-ascending69 · 10 months ago

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Near-future, black mirror esque AU in which Nancy, stressed college student with loads of childhood trauma, gets recommended by her psychologist to get an emotional support robot. That's what they're called, yes. They're sold to very lonely people to pretty much look after them emotionally. Nancy has always hated the idea, and doesn't really like androids or robots of any kind. Plus, she thinks it's quite sad that she's so lonely she needs an android to keep her company. She also couldn't possibly afford it.

Her friend Steve, though, who hasn't seen her in a year despite living 15 minutes away (she has a tendency to isolate herself and use her studies as an excuse), got her one. It's a second-hand unit, a slightly older model that's seen several repair shops in the past, but it works, and it was half the price of a new one. He shows up to her apartment with the box, looking smug and proud of himself. If anything, Nancy feels insulted.

She doesn't touch the box for a few weeks, and doesn't get rid of it either, because her studies take her so much time, she can't bring herself to keep her apartment clean. When her mother visits and sees the mess she's living in, with a perfectly functional android willing to help her, she finally caves, and as soon as she's alone, she decides to see if this thing can at least help her clean up.

It surprises her that it looks so... human. Its skin is soft and warm, with all the natural imperfections of a human's skin. Same as her hair. She's dressed in old worn-out clothes, and she curls into herself, in fetal position, inside the box. Only the button under her skin on the back of her neck reveals her as an android. Nancy reads the instructions, presses there for 10 seconds, and waits.

Or she planned to wait - eight seconds in with Nancy's fingers pressed on that spot, and the android's eyes flew open. She cried out, screambled out of the box and looked around, breathing heavily and hugging herself. Her eyes fix on Nancy, look her up and down with a frown, and asks:

"Who are you?"

Nancy opens her mouth to reply, then looks down at the instructions, hoping they'd say something about this kind of scenario, and that her new robot didn't go rogue and try to kill her.

"Wait, are those my instructions?" The robot asked. She looked down. "I really don't mean to complain about my living situation going from extremely fucked to simply fucked, but that is not my original box. Mine was smaller, and it had a bunch of little dots on the side. Did they sell me again?"

The instructions said nothing about this possibility, so Nancy decided it was time to improvise.

"I... my friend got you at a garage sale, I think."

"Oh. Well, that is low, even for me," the robot said. She rubbed the back of her neck. "Should my neck hurt this much?"

Nancy blinked.

"Shouldn't you know that?"

"Honestly, I don't even know what levels of pain are normal for me. It always hurts just a little bit somewhere, like, right now, my whole spine really hurts." She laughs. "At least I think it's supposed to feel like pain? I don't think we're wired to feel pain, exactly, I mean, that would be just sadistic. Talk anti-natalism to me. But I swear this spot right here just feels really really bad. Or maybe it's anthropocentric to... perceive it as pain, don't you think? It's very existentialist, actually, the whole... perceiving thing - I bet Berkeley wrote something about it, at some point, but I haven't read him in ages."

"You read books?"

"What? Oh. Oh, uh... I - I think I'm offline? Like, I don't have access to the database, so I kinda have to do it the old-fashioned way if I want to learn somethin," she said. "It's cool, though! I like reading a lot."

"...Okay. So, um... here it says your model is..."

"Robin," the android said. Nancy looked up.

"I'm sorry?"

"That's my name," she said. "I came up with it, I - I thought it sounded nice. Do you like it?"

Nancy stared at this... thing, a million thoughs coursing through her head. The first one was a newfound understanding of her low price.

She made a movement with her head that could be understood as both a shake and a nod at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah, sure" she said, brows knit together. What the hell did Steve get her into? "It's... nice."

"Oh, thank God, because Mom and Dad hated it."

"Mom and...?"

"My first owners - Richard and Melissa, I always called them Mom and Dad. They... they, uh, they hated that, too."

Jesus Christ.

"So... Robin," Nancy said. "I was wondering if you could help me put away some of my things while I study."

"Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure." She stood there, eyes wandering, around, until they fell on Nancy's bookshelf "Holy shit, you have Dostoyevski! Is it in Russian?"

Nancy blinked, opened her mouth, took a step back and shook her head. Robin was already striding towards her bookself, tracing the spines of books with her fingers.

"Actually, why don't you read after you clean this up?"

Robin turned to see her, eyes wide and a growing smile, like a kid in a candy shop.

"I - I can read all of this?"

Nancy was going to kill Steve.

She shrugged and shook her head.

"Sure," she said. "After you clean this mess."

"Aye aye, cap!" Robin chirped, making a quick salute with her hand and getting to work.

Nancy was, for certain, going to murder Steve for making her responsible for this... thing. There was something wrong in her system, and that was very much obvious. She looked down at the instructions manual - surely there would be a way to turn her off for the night. She wouldn't want Robin to murder her in her sleep, or worse - wake her up at 4 am to talk about books.

Or she could just tell her to shut up. She was a robot, anyway. It's not like she could feel anything.

#ronance #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #Android Robin AU #my posts #wake up baby new AU just dropped

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jizzweiner · 1 year ago

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what are your dirkjake gender heaadcanones

my fanfic acc is @jermer10, i mostly write for tf2 but i take reqs for a number of diff fandoms including homestuck disclaimer: i have to stress that some of these practices are extremely dangerous irl, please do your research before binding and taking hrt

dirk: - ftm transgender, homosexual - doesn't have top or bottom surgery because he lives in the middle of a fucking ocean - he binds using bandages and duct tape - created his own testosterone through extremely dangerous trial and error (doesn't give a shit as long as he can grow sideburns) - he mechanically created his packer (yes, it is completely functional as the real thing. no, he would not recommend trying to penetrate with it) - he primarily wears masculine clothing but likes headbands and hair clips - will also wear makeup occasionally - extremely secretive abt his gender identity, the only people who know are his bro and roxy - jake and jane don't find out until they meet him in person and see his bewbs and then it clicks why he never joined vc or would use funny voice changers when he did, why he never really sent selfies and when he did they would be head n shoulders only

jake: - amab nonbinary, bisexual - they use he/they pronouns and have no intention of any surgeries (social dysphoria + gender dysphoria but not much dysphoria abt his body) - they mostly wear feminine clothing because its comfortable - had the most trouble with his gender identity, and didn't even know dirk was trans until he met him in person for the first time - and that's when it clicks that they might alsoooo fall under the trans umbrella - he confides in jane about this before making a coming out speech to dirk and roxy - the general consensus is literally 'yeah i mean it was kinda obvious' - (all of the alpha kids r trans to me so like yeah ofc they dont care) - doesn't really like labels and prefers to remained undefined, he's the kind of person who hates feeling trapped or held back - absolutely HATES being perceived, they hate when others try to project a certain image onto them that they don't agree with but also hates it when they give him labels that he does agree with

#homestuck #dirkjake #dirk strider #jake english #homestuck headcanons #dirkjake t4t

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dokidokitsuna · 1 year ago

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...I just remembered I wanted to make my own statement on the AI thing. ^^;

So you've probably heard, but in case you haven't: Tumblr just sold out everyone's data to the AI trash compactors, they probably did it long before they gave us the option to opt out, and even if you do opt out they're probably still taking and using your work anyway (telling people to opt out instead of actually asking for their permission is already scummy business practice, but when it comes to AI it's functionally meaningless. :/ It's always "well, we're telling them not to use these people's data and we're hoping they'll be nice and go along with it" with no regulations or consequences if they decide to just steal everything indiscriminately...)

Despite that, I am not leaving Tumblr anytime soon. I'm looking into other sites*, but at this moment in time, I have nowhere else to go. ^^; Besides, I still like it here. When I left DeviantArt I was already getting sick of the place, having my art stolen regularly by "fans" and paradoxically getting less and less interest in my work over time. By the time the devs turned the website into eye-blinding slop with Eclipse, I was more than ready to move on.

But I still enjoy using Tumblr. I like writing long text posts that no one would bother to read anywhere else, I like answering asks, and I like the unique sense of humor and style among the users here. ^^ It would take a lot to force me out.

Also, I can take a little solace in the fact that AI-bros do not value "low-quality" art like mine. ^^; If messy cel-shaded sketches with visible pixels ever become popular, then I'll worry, but for now I think it's highly unlikely that anyone will want to wholesale regurgitate my art. If anything, I think prioritizing it in their datasets would only make them worse...and on that note, if you do have "high quality" detailed/painterly/semi-realistic art that would be targeted, I'd recommend 'poisoning' it with Nightshade/Glaze. Although I heard a rumor a while back that AI is "building immunity" to Nightshade and already learning to work around it, but I'm really hoping that was just a wishful lie from the trash compactors themselves. I haven't heard it repeated since then, so I think it's still worth a shot. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So anyway, like the post I reblogged said, I think the best thing we can do now is to make it clear that WE DON'T WANT AI ART. We don't care how easy it'll be to instantly generate thousands of hours of mindless 'content' to look at; we don't want it. Since regulation is lagging so far behind (wanna know why Disney's copyright hounds didn't shut this down on sight? Most likely, they're hoping to profit from it down the line) the only way to fight this right now is with individual litigation and consumer demand.

Don't support projects made with AI**; don't hate-watch them or spotlight them. Focus your energy on the millions of human artists who are still here, and need your support now more than ever.

*I've heard people mention moving to Twitter and/or Artstation: fam, you're jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. ^^;;; IIRC, Arstation was one of the FIRST art sites to start flirting with AI, and Twitter has been selling off its users' data for several months already. Go there if you must, but don't go under the impression that it's "safer".

**Please keep a cool head when discussing AI art, and keep in mind that it used to mean something other than "mass theft". Artists have and still do create AI tools that are built on limited data sets with permission/compensation, that are used to aid them in their work and encourage human artistry (Vocaloids and DAW's, for instance) rather than stamp it out. Until a specific word evolves into popular use for exploitative AI, we're kinda stuck with this confusion, so remember to get the facts before you speak out.

P.S. Praying every night that this is a dumb fad that will soon die and go to the same hell as NFTs. >_< Praying every morning that the influx of AI art into its own datasets will eventually corrupt itself and make it useless. >_< >_< Praying every afternoon for both at once! >_< >_< >_< Like to charge, reblog to cast, all that

#musings

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probablytrapped · 5 months ago

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There's been an ongoing debate for years between users on AO3 about whether or not people should be allowed to add works from other authors to collections.

Generally this debate is now over with the the default for a work to not allow others to add it to anything, meaning less and less works are available to add, which I really do think it is a shame. I understand the the general danger of losing fics since whoever was running the collection could make the works all anonymous, and the original author couldn't undo. That's pretty scary and annoying. Not sure exactly the the mechanics, but in general the issue stems from the fact collections were not designed for what users were ending up using it for.

Some argue that this is what the Bookmarks function is supposed to be, but I disagree. Bookmarks, while they can be either public or private, don't have the same social or organization power that collections had. (And if I'm remembering correctly, have a slightly stunted filter..)

Any reader could see what collection a work had been added to...And this is a bit of bad thing honestly, some fics have been added to SO many collections that it sometimes is a larger block than the actual tags. But that doesn't change the fact that it was a user built "what to read next" function.

I'm not suggesting that that's something that AO3 needs, I DO believe that a huge part of reading fanfiction is learning to fucking dig and search for what you want. But, user curated lists of recommendations? I don't see the harm in that. If often times is just a smaller pool to dive into rather than all of a specific tag or series.

Bookmarks aren't that easily delved into. Usually you might find an author you like and check out their bookmarks, but it isn't quite work the same as reading a specific fic and then seeing it's part of a collection called "NaruSasu timetravel fics I LOVE". Someone else also really loved that story! and here are some other works that they thought were similar! how nice!

If we COULD keep the collection system open and in use as it was or create something similar, I do think it would need some improvements:

Default number of viewable collections or rec lists should be capped at like 10, and then there's either a toggle to show more or a link to a new page with all the collections the fic is added to.

The ability to hide the collections list entirely from readers. It'll still be in the index page or something, but ultimately if authors don't want people redirecting to other things from their story....I get that.

I don't really love the idea of authors being able to remove their stories from a list, but that might be something to keep people appeased. But I don't think people should be able to opt out?? If there's no harm created by adding to a list I really don't see the point. Of course maybe someone starts a "Trash fic that should DIE!" kinda thing....anyway it's complicated

Being able to subscribe to a collection who be rad as hell. This unfortunately feeds into the social media aspect that I think AO3 tries to avoid, so I'm not sure if that would go over well. Maybe the people who run the collections can't have their accounts public on the collection page? dunno

And to spice things up, some general OTHER upgrades to AO3:

can i PLEASE get some easy to read indicator on a fic in the search level that i've read it before? There are so many extensions I've used over the years for this, but most of them break after a certain point...But I just need a "you've given kudos" or "you're subscribed" or SOMETHING. I don't mind rereading fics, but I don't love being Gandalf half the time!

In the same vein as above....just a personal status tracker button. Maybe it's visible on the front end, but anything really to indicate if it's "TBR", "Reading", "Finished", or "DNF". The "DNF" is kinda important to me. Since if I mark it, that means I gave up for A REASON. This should all be private an not visible to authors or anyone else.

I would like to see all the fics I've given a Kudos to. please.

#ao3 #archive of our own #here's my 15 years of use complaint lol #fanfiction

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skinny2tb · 8 months ago

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€d vent and life update:

Sooo... I'm really upset rn because I managed to fast for 5 days without anyone noticing and it felt GREAT. I mean it's kinda sad that my parents just simply don't care anymore. They used to encourage me while I was in recovery and actually getting better but oh well that's how it is sometimes I guess. I once weighed 43kg that's why I originally went into recovery and as I began to gain some weight back they just assumed my €d was magically cured. But that just wasn't the case and here I am once again. Without anybody noticing or actually caring. Sadly my eating disørder is even worse this time and I'm feeling no will to live anymore.

Anyways, I'm thinking of another liquid fast right now because as I said I'm really upset that I just broke mine 20mins ago with some leftover noodles (230 + 55kcal for the cheese) and I'm freaking out atm because I'm afraid I'll gain weight after eating those. But I can't work out because my parents and their friends are downstairs and I don't want them to hear me doing some exercises. Although I know they probably wouldn't even care.

Lately I've been pretty busy studying (literally lol) because of my finals this and next week. I've already completed three out of four and I just have to pass the math test and honestly I'm shitting myself even thinking about it. But as for the others I'm pretty confident.

My hot guess:

• english: 1-2

• french: 1

• german: 2-3

• maths: 4?

Only thing I know is that this years final math exam will include exponential functions which I hate.

I also wanted to say hello to everybody new following me, just wanna let you know I do appreciate it<33

Btw I managed to book my first ever nail appointment for next week and I'm kind of excited?? Let me know if you guys have any cool design recommendations. So far I really fw acrylic, stiletto shape, classy french nails with some gems and tiny rhinestones..

(not my pic btw)

Prom is also coming soon so ofc I'm hella nervous because I haven't fully opt which of my two dresses I'll wear but eitherway it's gonna be navy blue with sparkly details and an open back. And when I tried the dresses on infront of my mom I could clearly see the disbelief in her face of how thin I have gotten again. She didn't say anything tho. I just looove the feeling of clothes that have gotten too big on you and would slide down your body if you didn't use a belt or hairtie.

Yeah, also there's this cute guy in my class. Same age and we went to the same elementary school but back then we had nothing to do with each other. You're probably asking what that has to do with me. Well, at the beginning of the school year when I was the new girl in my class he asked me to go to prom with him and I agreed but now I'm scared, because I do know and everybody always tells me that he has a huge crush on me. But I just can't handle that much affection yk?? The dance course will also start in a few weeks and we both can't look each other in the eyes... Everytime I think about him I'm like what do you even like about meee, I mean why me when there's a bunch of other beautiful girls, right? But well, what can I say at least I pull? Seems like I got that shy rizz*~*

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally happy but at the same time I feel like I don't deserve this kind of love. He's so good looking too with his hazel eyes, big lips and dark brown hair, plus he's way taller than me. So literally my dream guy? I even got to see his abs and stuff when our class went on a trip to a water park. Since then I'm head over heels.. I catch him often secretly staring at me but as soon as I gaze in his direction he pretends to be busy doing other things, like sir I SAW THAT

Ugh, I'm sorry that was pretty much about my personal shit but also pretty much needed.

(Lastly I wanna say that you guys DESERVE recovery and if you feel like you or anybody you know might suffer from an eating disørder don't hesitate to see professional help. You're loved♡)

I'll probably post again in a minute cuz I'm bored rn and want to avoid a b¡nge.

#anorexla #ed dairy #starv1ng #tw ed but not sheeran #tw ed sheeran #pro @n@#pro miiia #crush #promdress #nails #tw 3d vent #tw ana bløg

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thatskindarough · 9 months ago

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Oh it was only 3 actually, counting that one animatic on YouTube (that BTW i had no idea was yours! I was pleasantly surprised <3)

And I found it so funny that you have somewhat an idea of who I might be PFFF you can throw the guess, it would be funny if you get it right (don't have to say my name if you don't remember it, you can just go for something you remember NFKDSJ)

also time for an actual question since i'm already here, what program did you used for the animatic? I've always wanted to get into animating but most softwares cost money or are free but really bad so I could use some recommendations 👀

Good to hear there is no imposter lol. I should probably start using the false pfp so people know it’s me but I’m too lazy to change them all 💀 also my guess was right as to who you were but probably mainly because I put on my Aziraphale detective hat and you were the last notification before the ask inbox notification and your icon had a red beanie. We meet once again.

As for the animatic I used procreate for drawing and capecut for composting. Not the most efficient method but I liked it. I ended up segmenting off each camera angle into a different canvas and making any animation for the shot that way. I love capecut because the free version has every editing function you need for an animatic and the watermark only appears as a black screen at the end so it’s so easy to crop out. It’s probably the best free editing software I’ve found. (I also used a screen recording device to record the audio cause even if you buy a song it sometimes doesn’t allow you to put it in the program.)

I honestly recommend procreate if you have a device that supports it. I think it’s still only a 10 dollar onetime purchase. But if you don’t have a device that supports it, I have used things like flip a clip which is free, and the paid version is pretty cheap. I have also dabbled in an app called rough animate, also free (you don’t have to pay for the onion skins) which was also okay. I got frustrated cause of the lack of brush choice but other than that it’s not bad at all. If you can’t pay anything at all I’d recommend this because, unlike flip a clip, you don’t have to pay to unlock the a lot of the really helpful features. Ibis paint also added an animation feature I think so that’s an option. Idk if you need the paid version for it, but I remember only having to watch ads for a minute to unlock all the brushes so maybe it’s the same for the animation feature lol.

If you have a computer set up, I’ve also heard nice things about Krita for animation. It’s free and from what I remember it had a really good timeline set up. I actually tried to use it, but my computer at the time was old and slow and it lagged to much, and then I had a shitty no screen tablet and my hand eye coordination when it came to drawing and writing is quite bad, so it just wasn’t a good set up for me personally. But I know people make it work. I mean, people make this kinda shit in MS paint, if you’re dedicated enough you can technically do it in almost any program (though you may not be able to make it as polished as you’d like.)

Then there is Clip Studio Paint, which does cost money but is way less expensive than like, harmony or adobe. The EX version which gives you a second of free animation per project is a $5 monthly subscription for once device, PC MaC IOS, and the Pro version (which is more expensive) gives you unlimited animation animation access for I believe around 10 -15 dollars a month (still less than most streaming services lol). There’s also a one time purchase version that is $50 dollars, but it goes on sale A LOT for $25! Although I don’t think it gives you more than a second of animation. CSP also has a very long free trial period, for EX it was legit like 3 months. so if you try it out and like it, I’d definitely suggest finding a way to pay for it. It’s actually used in some professional studios in Japan, so if you have any professional aims for your work it’s a good starting platform to get into industry software. However a lot of the nice things CSP offers for animation are not needed in the story boarding/animatic stage, so if that’s as far as you wanna take your animations it maaaaaaay not be worth it unless you love it.

If anyone else has other cheap or free recommendations feel free to add on. I have attempted to make animatics on procreate, rough animate, and flip a clip; all of which I have uncompleted projects on. It just so happens that procreate is what I was using when I finally made an animatic I liked enough to see until completion. Whatever software you do use, just make sure you learn how to use it before attempting a big project. Do some smaller stuff before you try anything big.

Edit to check the comments! We got other good recommendations for computers!

#personal

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nexus-nebulae · 4 months ago

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would you recommend terraria

‼️‼️INFODUMP INCOMING‼️‼️

uhh i mean probably it's a pretty good game like a 2d minecraft (i started playing mostly bc i stopped being able to play mc), we mostly play it because there's a lot of items we can sort and alphabetize (spin go brrrr) (and we haven't even started modding yet! *stares at the dozens of mc mods i downloaded solely bc they add hundreds of items*) also similar to minecraft the devs are still making updates and putting out new stuff,

it is pretty hard to Just Start Playing, you'd have to read the wiki a lot or look at reddit for tips (or we can try to give tips if we know the subject (NOT wiring i repeat NOT wiring we are just as bad at terraria wires as we were at minecraft redstone 😔)), and I'd kinda recommend playing in Journey mode at first to get your bearings. Journey mode is like terraria's almost-creative mode, where you can still play survival but everything's super easy and also you have options to turn on god mode and item duplication- except to duplicate an item you have to collect a certain amount of it first, so it's not an instant cheat code. personally we actually love it that way bc that's how we've always wanted to play survival minecraft (i mean, we basically do by using commands to get infinite amounts of what we know we've already collected once). if you're too lazy to collect all the items yourself tho there's also character downloads you can get that have everything already so you can just get it all at once

it's an enclosed world, it's not infinite, though you can pick different sizes of world (small, medium, and large). Worlds always spawn with the same major biomes (minus a few), and usually in the same order, but there are also a lot of special (and sometimes rare) mini-biomes you can find within the big ones. Also some things are mutually exclusive items to spawn in the world, like if you have Corruption you can't also have Crimson (usually), so to get certain things you will probably have to jump worlds multiple times (there are special worlds that do combine these things into one world BUT I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT RECOMMEND THEM FOR A BEGINNER THEY ARE. ROUGH)

You can create multiple player characters and each of them can play in literally any world, and go between them (while keeping your items!) so it's like. GREAT for when someone is in front and wants to look like themselves. also you can change your characters' name and appearance at any time. it reminds us a lot of the Stardew Valley character creator, with how you can pick your hair and eye colour and your tiny pixelated outfit (you start with a pretty plain outfit, though, until you can find other clothes in the world) also! you can wear functional armor AND cosmetic armor so if you hate how your armor looks you can just wear something on top of it or just remove it from view entirely.

the lore seems to me similar to minecraft again, where none of it is in your face but you just find relics with no clue how they really connect. There's A LOT of outer gods/lovecraftian type stuff (there's gigantic skulls in the backgrounds and creatures that seem to be the somehow still living decapitated body parts of beings beyong your understanding and also there are QUITE A FEW random floating eyes. like everywhere there are so many eye motifs in this game). there are A LOT of bosses, and as you travel up the chain you sort of see a vague story piecing together, it's kinda cool. Also the npcs sometimes have lore dialogue depending on the time and state of the world. there's also a lot of enemy spawning events, like blood moons and goblin armies. Some of these you can do at any time, some of them are a progression chain you need to move up. It's actually not that hard to speedrun the game since you can technically skip a TON of bosses that are not enforced but definitely suggested within the progression chain (the in-game achievements can sometimes give you a vague hint as to what to do next) though once you unlock Hardmode- kinda the halfway point of progression- it becomes a little more linear

we bought the game in february (of this year, 2024) and so far we've clocked in a little over 1600 hours (THATS. OVER 66 FULL DAYS. HADN'T DONE THE MATH UNTIL NOW DEAR GOD. OUR PLAYTIME TAKES UP A FULL 2 OUT OF THE 8 MONTHS WE'VE HAD THIS GAME) in this game so uh. i guess that kinda speaks for itself huh

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bisexualbaker · 1 year ago

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Dreamwidth and Lurking

In (I think) the notes on my "Why is everyone recommending Dreamwidth as a Tumblr alternative?" post, someone asked if it was possible to lurk on Dreamwidth. My first instinct was to automatically reply with "yes", since wasn't lurking just kinda. Hanging out and reading someone's posts and generally not letting them know you're there in any way? But getting the question at all made me stop and think for a minute, because if that's all that lurking is, then why would someone feel the need to ask the question in the first place? Does that mean that lurking means something different on Tumblr than I'm used to?

This lead to my initial question post, and, a few days after that, my All About Lurking Poll, which wrapped up yesterday. I personally found the results fascinating, and while the answer that got the most votes out of the 2808 responses was "You do not interact in any way with the poster(s); you can only read", other answers together made up more than 50% of the responses.

So when it comes to the question of whether it's possible to lurk on Dreamwidth, it depends heavily on what you consider lurking to be! I'll be covering the first four options, which should between them cover at least most of the rest of the poll answers.

Option one: "You do not interact in any way with the poster; you can only read"

Generally possible! I had five different Tumblr accounts each open to their own tabs before I broke down and got my own account to condense them down. Given how many tabs I have open as a result of that decision, for reading or reblogging later, that backfired a bit, but the intent was there!

I did it for at least five LiveJournalers back in the day that I was too intimidated to add to my friends list (basically the equivalent of Following on Tumblr), only that was also before tabs, and I hated having extra windows open, so I would cycle through the links in the search bar.

That said, there are some people who have their journals set to "Access Only"; they have posts that only people with a Dreamwidth account who they have granted the ability to access these "Locked" posts will be able to see. It's a privacy feature that's very beloved at Dreamwidth, and it means that anyone without an account, or without access, can only see posts that are shared publicly.

I want to add that I'm not actually sure how Dreamwidth works on other RSS Readers, which I'm sure would simplify things somewhat, but I do know that you can subscribe to RSS accounts through Dreamwidth! If someone wants to chime in with more details, I would welcome them!

Option two: You can follow the poster, but not interact any farther than that

Yes! I've got any number of "ghosts" following me, who have Dreamwidth accounts and who have subscribed to my account, but who haven't granted me access and who don't comment on my posts.

Aside from the above-mentioned RSS Feed idea, the easiest way to do this is to create a Dreamwidth account and, well, subscribe to someone whose updates you want to see! It's basically the same as following on Tumblr, with a few functional differences; and for the purposes of this poll answer, it may as well be exactly the same.

As an important note, you don't actually have to grant anyone access to your locked posts in order to subscribe to them! On LiveJournal, these features were connected (you could only follow an account by adding them to your "Friends List", and this would grant them access to all of your locked posts, IIRC), but Dreamwidth made a point of separating them. This allows greater privacy for everyone involved. Dreamwidth went one step further, and created "Access Filters", so a given journal owner could make a post that only a certain subset of people could see, but that's a post for a different time.

Option Three: You can follow the poster and like their posts, but not reblog

Unfortunately, this is where things fall apart for anyone who likes this answer best: Dreamwidth has no "Like" function. The closest you can come here is to create an actual comment, and only include an emoji in the text. This is probably a little bit more interactive than a lot of people are interested in when it comes to lurking, and understandably so!

If you want to read about why Dreamwidth doesn't have a "Likes" system, site co-owner/co-founder Denise talks about that in a comment on an official news post right over here. (Full disclosure, I'm soc_puppet on Dreamwidth, so that's me replying to her comment there.)

Option Four: You can follow the poster and reblog their posts, but not like them

Almost no one picked this option 😂 I can understand why, since reblogging is a higher-interaction function than liking, and if you're reblogging already, you might as well go for the lower-interaction function as well.

That said, the answer for this is surprisingly: Yes! You can do this form of lurking!

Reblogging is not a native function of Dreamwidth, though, so it takes a bit more work to do it. If you want to reblog things, you need to learn how from this post. I'm still used to the old way of signal boosting from LiveJournal, so it's not something I ever installed myself, or really intend to install. But if you're looking for a way to reblog stuff on Dreamwidth, this is your answer!

Ironically, I'm pretty sure this script makes the Dreamwidth equivalent of reblogging lower-interaction than the Dreamwidth equivalent of liking. I'm reasonably sure that the person you reblogged from with this script doesn't actually get any sort of notification of your reblog, so you can add just about anything in the tags, or even in your own reblog, and it's very unlikely that they'll see any of it.

What about Asks, anonymous or otherwise, and DMs?

Dreamwidth doesn't really have an Ask function. A lot of Dreamwidth users have a pinned introduction post, and some of them doubtlessly use it to welcome questions from the public, but Tumblr's Ask function is pretty unique. There may be communities with an equivalent feature or interaction (such as posting questions to a community, which may or may not have moderated posts), but it's not something you can generally do with individually owned journals. But Asks aren't something that everyone on Tumblr has enabled either, anonymous or otherwise.

Dreamwidth does have a Private Message feature, but as on Tumblr, a journal's owner has control over who can send them a message.

So that's it!

That's all I can think of to tell you about Dreamwidth and lurking, and lurking on Dreamwidth. If you have any questions I didn't already cover, feel free to ask, and I'll do my best to answer them!

#long post #lurking #let me tell you about #dreamwidth #let me tell you about dreamwidth #lurking on dreamwidth #internet culture #dreamwidth culture #tumblr culture

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lordofdragos · 6 months ago

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BIG TEXT POST PART 4

Oogh I should really be copy and pasting this part or something... Anyway! This post is about me playing through In Stars and Time, and I highly recommend you do not look if you haven't played the game before! If you think you may at any point play the game DO NOT LOOK BELOW

Is this actually helping...? Aren't we kinda robbing the person of their agency Like they haven't given it to them yet... Oh well. Love wins!

This is one of my favorite dialogues!!!

This picture part is gonna ruin me at some point I already know

uH I swear this dialogue wasn't like this Didn't they like its small face or something? OH OF COURSE I ACTUALLY HAVE TO HIT IT FIRST SO THEY CAN SEE IT OF COURSE ACTUAL LOGIC I THOUGHT I WAS GOING INSANE HELP WHY DOES THIS GAME GET EVERY DETAIL RIGHT ARGHFDGF

The game does the time blip thing when you open the door to the keyknife but Don't I need that…? I can't just open up the doors up when I loop right I always start at Dormont because I'm a weirdo but Then I wouldn't be able to get the stone… right…? Hrngh… might have to use game mechanics at some point… lame…

Bathroom conversation huh because I'm not cheering to myself? Sure . . . Ah. I'm pretty blind aren't I. That... makes a lot of little things fit.

OH GOD THE MUSIC STOPPED AGAIN WAS COMING BACK HERE A MISTAKE OF COURSE ITS HERS AND WE MADE FUN OF IT DAMNIT EVERY TIME MAN

That's the spirit!

Sif says something when they sharpen? It's the name isn't it I SEE THE PIECES BUT I CANT PUT THEM TOGETHER YET ARGH THE CARVING TOOLS ARENT HERE ARE THEY The party looking at Sif run around like a maniac looking for the carving tools room (it ain't here) then calling Loop It's Joever Well King time I guess The shield should still help right?

Oh yeah Claude is Mirabelle's roommate I was right!

I have fought so many battles so definitely enough for them to notice and for it to not be weird honestly

I can... not take the fritters...? That would destroy Bonnie I think GAH THIS GAME THE TASTE IS ALREADY FADING FOR SIF ITS SO OVER

DOES HE THOUGH?? ODILE EVEN KNOWS I MEAN I GUESS THAT MEANS HE IS IN TUNE WITH THEM JUST NOT ACTING ON THEM BUT-

. . . I'm asking.

Yeah so he's talking about that huh...

bro? I can't do that?

Yeah ok you need that shield like 100% uptime it does so much less damage and you will instantly die without it

G-Good? Anxiety meter rising... Let's keep that shield up no need to save my very large amount of salty broths anymore

BONNIE STOP TALKING SHIT THE KING IS GONNA NOTICE YOU I should probably break this tears...

I mean There is a point there A bad point but it kinda exists Like when Mirabelle mentioned how her friend at least had their dog with them so they'd be happy This is giving me chills man I don't feel good OH WAIT THATS NOT LIKE A PHILOSOPHICAL DEBATE THATS A HINT TO USE THE SHIELD AGAIN How do I function sometimes honestly?

also uh Stars.

No music.

NEVERMIND HYPE MUSIC THE GAME IS GONNA RUIN IT SOMEHOW THOUGH TAKIN BETS!

I suddenly feel like I should get a new real life hobby Some change can't hurt I guess...

The King is gonna punt Bonnie like a football that's what I would do in his position

SIF PORTRAIT YOO

ITS HYPE!!!!

Bro if the game is like "Um actually if you were a higher level you would've hit him hard enough and won" I will have words

He was talking about that huh... HOW DOES IT ALL CONNECT

ACHIEVEMENT GET!

Alright one final post after this one

#isat spoilers #isat #drago plays games #some people know whats coming next #I am one of them since I'm from the future after I had all of these thoughts

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dnpsuck · 2 years ago

Note

If you could recommend Dan any comedians (or media) to study who/what would you choose? Like things that might help him improve his craft? Not in a mean way just in a honing his skills type of way. A little homework as a treat.

you have no idea how much you're indulging me with this right now, but let's fucking gooooo

i honestly think dan is well-versed in comedy and having the experience he's currently having with touring his comedy material is only gonna help him (even if it's mainly to an audience that already likes him), so in general i think he's on the right track, so the things i say here are way more for people who are interested in comedy in general than about what i think dan should do, but i will mention some stuff related to him just to further contextualize his comedy.

what i would recommend anyone that is interested in comedy (not only as a career path but as a genre, a study subject, etc) would be getting into theory to understand some of the whys and hows of comedy.

i wrote my undergraduate thesis on comedy (and i got an 100% score 🤓) and as torturous as writing a thesis can be, reading and learning more about comedy through an academic lens was extremely exciting, which is why i recommend diving into the different theories and theorists and how comedy is perceived in different historical contexts.

under the cut i put some more thoughts and recommendations to learn more about comedy:

There are several theories that try to explain what is comedy, humor, why we laugh, etc. but I try to narrow it down to 3 main ones: Incongruity, Superiority and Relief.

Although I have not read ALL of them ENTIRELY (some of these I've only read the bits that helped my thesis), for pure theory I recommend some of the work I used for my own research:

• Poetics by Aristotle

• Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Bergson

• Humour by Terry Eagleton

• Essays on Poetry and Music by James Beattie

• Humor by Sigmund Freud (Yup. That guy)

• Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious by Sigmund Freud

• Human Nature by Thomas Hobbes

• Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

• On Humor by Luigi Pirandello

• Histoire du rire et de la dérision by Georges Minois (I couldn't find an English version of this book online, but it's available in French and Portuguese)

Another way to be exposed to some theory without a lot of effort is by watching Nannette by Hannah Gadsby because she quite directly addresses Incongruity and Relief in that special. I also think it's a good experience overall, so even if you don't wanna learn about comedy, go ahead and watch Nannette.

When it comes to comedy as a tool for social change (which I see as an important aspect of comedy, and I believe that is also a goal for Dan's journey with comedy) I recommend the following (especially the first one):

• A funny matter: toward a framework for understanding the function of comedy in social change by Caty Borum Chattoo

• Storytelling for Social Change: leveraging documentary and comedy for public engagement in global poverty by Caty Borum Chattoo & Lauren Feldman

• Why stand-up matters by Sophie Quirk

When it comes to mental health, a big topic in Dan's comedy, needless to say Bo Burnham is a great source for that kind of material, but the truth is many comedians (big names and beginners) are talking mental health nowadays in their work, so there is a lot of work to explore out there. But I recommend watching Laughing Matters, a short documentary featuring several comedians talking about their mental health and their careers in comedy, and John Mulaney's part on Netflix's The Hall: Honoring the Greats of Stand-Up where he talks about Robin Williams. These works help demystify that terrible myth that in order to be a comedian or seek comedy you have to be some sort of tortured soul, that whole idea of "my trauma made me funny", etc. Still kinda on that line of mental health but a bit more, like, autobiographical, which is kind of the line where Dan is going, I feel like Nannette, as previously mentioned, is a good one and so is Rothaniel by Jerrod Carmichael (HBO Max). Although most comedians will do kind of autobiographical work, I think these two just kind of hit closer to where Dan is aiming.

To understand more comedy from the POV of comedians themselves I recommend any podcast on comedy like Comedy Bang Bang, You Made It Weird, Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend, etc. and listening to episodes featuring comedians you like. I think having a favorite comedian and watching anything by them where they talk about their journey with comedy can make this easier. Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee is also this great window into this world of comedy and the way these comedians see their craft and their journeys (fair warning about this show and, honestly, getting into comedians in general: many people here are talented but suck ass as people. Consume their work at your discretion).

For me, I love John Mulaney as a comedian, so I tend to favor his views on comedy and I find that his interview with Larry King in 2018 is quite a great way to see his understanding of performing comedy and his own role in it. I also like Robin Williams, Bill Hicks, Julio Torres, George Carlin, Patti Harrison, Maria Bamford, Jerrod Carmichael, Joel Kim Booster, and many more. But honestly, my main reference is John Mulaney, and most of my comedy knowledge comes from the US comedy, so I do think having a niche helps.

You may like British comedy better, or maybe you enjoy comedy from your country better, or maybe you just don't get physical comedy at all, or you can only feel alive when you consume cringe comedy, etc. I like comedy a lot but I'm not into every kind of comedy in the same way. But I would say that being exposed to as many different kinds of comedy, formats and comedians as possible can be very positive because there's so much to learn from any well-done joke, y'know?

For me, one type of comedy that feels indispensable to any performer is improv comedy. The "yes, and..." mentality is essential to anyone going on stage and facing an audience. And to anyone writing comedy, being given a random situation and not escaping from it but learning to expand it is essential. And, honestly? Just regular living can be improved with some improv. So, obviously: Whose Lines Is It Anyway? is a good way to start there (I favor the older ones but that's because I ferociously consumed every 90s-2000s episode of the US WLIIA when I was a teenager). If you're Brazilian, Improvável by Barbixas is a great way to start as well with almost endless content to explore.

And, honestly? Any video essay on comedy, comedians or comedy media you enjoy. We all love a good video essay. I like:

• How Nathan Fielder Undresses People by Nerdwriter1

• The Power of Storytelling: John Mulaney by PhilosoFun

• The Hidden Formula Behind Almost Every Joke on Late Night by Slate

• Efficiency in Comedy: The Office vs. Friends by Drew Gooden

• The Death of Laugh Tracks by Drew Gooden

• Is SNL Even Funny? by Drew Gooden

• I watched one SNL episode from every season by Drew Gooden

(What I mean here is that Drew Gooden needs to make more video essays on comedy, please.)

Oh, another thing that is really important is delivery. I will, once again, bring up John Mulaney because I think his delivery is phenomenal. The Salt and Pepper Diner is a masterclass on comic delivery, I believe. I mentally quote "Hey, November Rain is over! ... No, it's not. There's more." all the time. Which brings me to another point, listen to stand-up albums. I love watching a good stand-up special but audio makes you really appreciate the delivery of the joke. The comedian has to convince you they're worth of your time with their ability to get a joke out of their brain into the world with no help of visuals. It helps you understand that comedian's comic voice. And I think John Mulaney does that really well.

Of course there is a variety of different comics with different deliveries to also be impressed by: Dan Mintz and Nathan Fielder have kind of similar styles of voices but their humor is kind of different. Leslie Jones, Pete Davidson, Conan O'Brien, Katt Williams, Bo Burnham, Julio Torres, Daniel Sloss, Ali Wong, Katherine Ryan, Hannah Gadsby, Wanda Sykes, Tig Notaro, Chris Rock, etc, they all have different ways to speak, but they know how to work their rhythm well enough to land their jokes the right way. You gotta find your own rhythm.

And I think a final thought is: authenticity. Not that you have to give 100% of yourself all of the time. You can tweak stories, enhance certain situations, hide things, not tell the full truth, you can even straight up LIE, and all that. but you gotta make it believable. An audience that senses a lack of authenticity, won't be entertained for long. If you're not explicitly coming in with a fictional character, your audience will be seeking your essence. Your comedy is a reflection of you. So whatever you say, whatever part of your life you decide to expose, whatever vision you share, your audience is associating that to you. You're not just a medium from where the jokes come from, you are it. Which is why you can't just tell a joke because you think it will be funny, you gotta tell it because it's honest to you, to your beliefs, it resonates with you. You have to understand that the audience will see that joke as an expression of yourself.

See why Dan's joke about not washing his feet back-fired? He either picked something unauthentic to him - according to him he just chose a random example - or he did pick something authentic to him but, like many comedians do, backed out once he got called out. He had the choice of running with it, owning the joke but he backed out. And if he's honest when he says he just chose a random example, then he made the mistake of not being authentic to his own beliefs when telling a joke.

In the endddd, my favorite way to learn about comedy is by watching comedians talk about comedy. And comedy is too rich of a field to be explored only through the academic angle, or one theorist's point of view so having people who live and breathe comedy talk about it is a great source of knowledge. That's one of the reasons why in my thesis, when I explained the theories of comedy, I didn't just quote theorists, I also quoted comedians.

Final thoughts: just, y'know, be yourself. Have fun. Don't joke about not washing your feet if you don't want people to think you don't wash your feet, etc. And most importantly, punching up will always be the best way to use your craft for the better.

If you read until here, why the fuck would you do that? But thankssss. <3

#lola.ask

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oreramar · 9 months ago

Text

Florist Talk: Funerals

Time to talk about the morbid side of floristry, the true bread-and-butter of the business, the dark elephant in the room: funerals and all they entail from this particular angle.

As always, keep in mind that this is from the personal experience of someone working in a small shop in the US and as such isn't gonna be full of universal truths. Use what I share as inspiration for your own writing and change what you must to make cultural sense of things.

First of all, here's a hard truth: your Florbo might well make more flower shop money from funeral pieces than from all the birthdays, anniversaries, congratulations and love-you's that might otherwise fill their days. Funeral arrangements tend toward the big and showy, with the center pieces like casket or urn sprays being the Most of all.

Heckin look at these things ^ Nobody but the rich is buying this kind of nonsense for an anniversary that comes around once a year, every year.

In short, Funerals are kinda important to the business side of things, so a Florbo might occasionally talk about them or reflect on that, depending on how philosophical you/your story/your character would tend to be.

So here's a few other details just to know or consider:

A Florbo will keep track of Obituaries for work. This could mean a subscription to the local newspaper and cutting the obits out every day it comes, or keeping local funeral homes' websites as pinned addresses on their browser. Yes this does look on the surface like the kind of thing a death-obsessed goth teen would do as a special interest. Do as you will with that knowledge.

They will also, as I said in my overview post, know the local Funeral People by name. They are essentially Business Associates. A good relationship with the people at a local Funeral Chapel means extra business as they will recommend Florbo's shop to those who ask, and they will default to ordering from Florbo whenever a family leaves those details to them. A poor relationship means Florbo's competition will get that business instead.

Sometimes funeral families - relatives of the deceased put in charge of ordering the official funeral flowers - come in person to look at pictures and flowers and decide what they want. This could be done in minutes. It could take them an hour. They could be in good humor as they reminisce about the deceased, or they could be functioning at neutral or just barely holding it together. The last can be the hardest if Florbo is very empathetic in the "if you start crying I'll start crying" sort of way.

Knowing the date and time of a visitation is actually more important than the date and time of a funeral - they're rarely the same thing. Often, but not always, a visitation will be the night before a morning funeral, and flowers/plants/gifts need to be delivered a couple of hours before visit. so that the funeral chapel people have time to place them on stands or easels.

Sometimes people will order something and tell Florbo the date for the funeral. Sometimes they will order something online and set the date for the funeral. Sometimes they will order something an hour or less before visitation starts reasoning that the funeral is tomorrow, so they aren't late. Florbo must be on top of all these things in order to get flowers to the visitation on time.

If your Florbo delivers flowers, and if you're writing a culturally US setting, then it might just follow that the Florbo will have seen more dead bodies than any other character aside from, say, a Mortician or similar role. This is because sometimes Florbo must carry the funeral flowers into the funeral chapel and place them on or around the funeral casket, in which already lies the funeral subject. An experienced Flower Delivery Florbo has been within arm's reach of bodies, multiple times.

Sometimes fate conspires so that the funeral chapel is closed and it is late when such a delivery is made (Florbo has a key or knows where an emergency key is hidden for such a situation) and it's winter so it's already dark outside as well as in, aside from a few low lights left on, and it's all in all very spooky feeling, being the only living person in the building and knowing there's also a corpse in the room.

Anyhow...

Aside from the big fanned-out floral pieces shown above, there are some key Types of florals exclusive to funerals, or at least very rarely encountered outside of them.

In order above: Casket Spray, Urn Spray, Hanging Spray and Wreath

All of these have particular frames and forms that help give them those uniform shapes. If you've ever wondered what's holding together the "big bouquet on top of the casket" at funerals (and why perhaps you should not throw it into the crowd to "see who dies next" wedding bouquet style), today's your lucky day.

First off, there's this plastic thing called a Casket Saddle, into which you place a block of green florist foam - aka wet foam, as it's designed to soak up water like anything. The foam is fixed in place either with those plastic cages or blocky U-shaped things in the first example, which snap into place snuggly over the foam, or with florist's tape if you use the cheap open saddles like the last example. Those are the ones I'm used to. The legs snap on, which means the frame is pretty useful for making hanging sprays without said legs attached.

The foam is thoroughly soaked - some casket saddles come with reservoir spaces inside them for more water to sit and feed into the foam as it dries over time - and greens and flowers are cut and inserted into the foam, which keeps them hydrated for a bit.

A big casket spray is unwieldy and, due to the soaked wet foam, kinda heavy. You can carry it fine, once you've managed to reach under and past all the hanging flowers and greens to find the saddle, but there's way more oomph there than a simple tied bouquet. It will not fling easily or lightly. In case you needed to know.

Also, sometimes people will order Script Ribbons on the spray - ribbons that say things like "Mom," "Grandma," "Great Grandma". These are going out of style a bit but are still common enough where I work to be worth mentioning. It's hard to get more than four ribbons into a single spray due to the size of them. Also the script names come as sticker sheets - you peel the cursive script stickers off and put them on the ribbons yourself.

Like this ^

When someone wants a script that doesn't exist on the sheets (for example, Grandma and Grandmother are standards here; Nana or Mimi are not) then you gotta use sheets of individual letters to spell the word(s) out bit by bit. Sometimes you don't have a single instance of a particular letter in the entire folder. Then you have to get creative and/or butcher some of the less-used scripts for scraps.

Typically we tell people that they should use the words/names they used to refer to that person, so "Mom" might be more appropriate to them than the more formal "Mother." That might vary culturally, though.

By the way, back to the wreaths and stuff - you might see those in shapes like Hearts or Crosses if you ever look it up. If you wonder how that's made, I've got the answer:

Floral foam again! Soak it and poke it (full of flowers and greens), easy as that.

For urn pieces, the place I work at just uses a circle wreath form, laid on the table, sometimes cut in half for a half-circle around the back but not front of the urn.

As a quick note while I remember - blocks of floral foam are also used to help those big fanned-out arrangements I showed at the start of this post in place. Wedge them into the containers at the base and they keep the flowers from just flopping all over the place, which is how you achieve that particular "long flower stems hovering perpendicular to the table" look at the bottoms.

So yeah! Florists and Funerals and all the details I can currently call to mind about them ^

#florist talk #funerals #this time with pictures #all pictures were found via simple google searches #you too can trawl the internet and find examples now that you can guess at what things are called #long post #florist au #flower shop au

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joycrispy · 1 year ago

Text

So I've mentioned before that I've had a lot of arts n' crafts small creative projects on the go (and a few not-so-small ones, but that's another post), and I just kinda felt like talking about 3 of them.

SO I WILL.

1. Bookbinding

This is more of an ongoing learning process than any one particular book I'm binding --but the process is going very well. Pictured here is the latest attempt, and my most ambitious attempt in that it was mostly me going, 'huh, I wonder if that would work' and dicking around until I got some sort of result.

(Example: I dyed that cover black. Did not know if it would work. It...kinda does? Further testing required.)

The final book is far from perfect, but I'm actually very happy with it. It's like a prototype of the kind of book I've been wanting to make all along, the whole reason I picked up bookbinding. Old fashioned tomes are the goal here.