#I want it done! I don't want to work on it I want new projects! I want to cut out more gloves!

[publishinggoblin]

What Makes Confluence New?

Right now on Backerkit, Confluence: The Living Archive is in its final 11 days of funding. This is a Table Top Role Playing Game unlike any other, but not just for the reasons you might think.

Look, yes, it's a 6 book set with incredible art and layout and an amazing world to explore. This is all true. It's a true living world you get to dive into and experience at the table. That's great, truly!

But the thing that made Confluence different from any other project out there that I've ever heard of, is that in this industry, freelance writing for TTRPGs pays pennies on the word you turn in.

Some people were recently talking about how 10 cents per word is pretty good! You write 5000 words for a project? That's a nice $500. Other indie people were talking about paying 7 cents per word. But what they almost never offer is hourly pay, or pay for work you do outside the writing (including researching the game material you're writing for, or research for what you're writing!)

The Confluence Contract

Confluence has always meant the world to me. Truly. I tried to fund it and make it on my own multiple times in the past. When the Alleyman's Tarot was successful, I immediately wrote the contract with my lawyer for Confluence.

Everyone who worked on the project would make $25/hr for any work they do on the project. We would all feel we had equal pull and power here in that way, as it had to be collaborative.

Everyone would be paid an up-front Retainer of $10,000 if they were going to work part time, or $20,000 if they were going to work 30 or more hours a week. This was to alleviate current financial stress and give them space to explore the game with more freedom.

Everyone who worked on the project would share ownership with things they make. New cool mechanic? It lives in Confluence AND the creator can take it to their own games later. Awesome NPC? In Confluence and can be adapted anywhere else! I didn't want anyone to hold anything back. As far as I know, this has never been done before.

I did all this because, you see, I had an amazing team of people who came together to help bring this to life. People in the US, yes, but in Canada, the UK, Brazil, India, the Philippines. You can learn more and get links to them on the Pub Gob website here!

Do You Expect This to be the New Standard?

No, I don't expect all indie publishers to start doing this for TTRPGs. It's costly and not easy. But I want to stress that this is a unique situation we will likely never see again. And Confluence can only exist into the future with such an amazing team if we can step up support on the crowdfunding project!

This experiential game doesn't want to change the industry, but it changed the process behind the scenes already. If you believe in such a thing, a possibility for people to be paid fairly and have equal say and keep the rights for their works, consider believing in this project with us. Confluence needs your help to reach its funding goal, but it also needs your help to push further so the team can continue working in this amazing space to bring you even more materials in the future!

So check us out on Backerkit today!

[eponymous-rose]

Monday!

It's been a while since I've done one of these week-in-the-life posts (and I LOVE reading them from others), and it's a particularly stressful week where I'm trying to stay off social media for Reasons, so hey, let's do this again!

It's a busy day, but it starts relatively late - I don't have to leave for the office until 10AM. So, you may ask, why on earth do I set my alarm for 8:30? Is it because I have an elaborate morning routine? Is it so I can hit the gym and go for a jog? No, no, no, it's because I have a little cat who takes the alarm as her cue to cuddle and I don't want to disappoint her, so I inevitably spend half an hour hugging her like a purring teddy bear first thing in the morning before I get up.

I respond to some e-mails as I get ready and on the bus ride over - mostly prep for our department's holiday party (I'm in the band and we're trying to get as much practice in as possible), but also a little work getting supercomputer access restored for an undergrad research assistant, offering to write a letter of recommendation so my colleague doesn't have to (we both know the student well and said colleague is traveling across the country for a funeral on a redeye flight tonight...), reworking some elements of the rubric for the faculty search committee I'm on, and confirming a meeting with my grad student.

10:45 - I get to the office and go to make my usual mug of tea... and realize in the moment I close my office door that the keys are still inside. I get the hot water from the lounge and meander by the office, but nobody's there. Just as I'm about to work up the nerve to go interrupt a more senior professor's meeting to borrow his keys, one of the office staff walks by and is happy to open the door for me, phew.

11:00 - My most senior grad student is doing an internship in Colorado this quarter (it's the location he most wants to do a postdoc at as well!), and we've set up a call to catch up after a few weeks without chatting. It's a bit of an awkward chat because he wants to go to his second conference in two months, and I had to bring out the "well, um, this is a side project you're doing with someone else's research group and you may want to check with them about where the $2000+ for conference costs is coming from". I possibly have an avenue - I might ask him to just attend for a couple of days instead of the whole time, so I can use some funding from a different grant, but I'm hoping we can get some cost-sharing going here, or possibly the other professor he's working with can present his poster for him if need be. Still, his work's going great and I'm hoping we can get him to this conference! He finishes his PhD this year, and I can attest to how helpful conferences are for landing postdocs.

12:00 - Speaking of grants, I had a successful grant come through late last summer to study wildfire smoke dynamics with novel instrumentation (something new to me!), and the whole team is meeting up for the first time to talk logistics! I also have to teach real soon, so I'm only on for the first chunk of the call, but we get some of the plan set up. Looks like we'll be meeting at a NASA facility early next year to do some siting stuff prior to the first controlled burn. I genuinely have no idea what I'm doing on this project, apart from being willing to write a big chunk of the proposal, but it's a good time!

12:30 - Class time! This is my domain-specific intro-to-python class that I developed 5 years ago and have been iterating on ever since. It's going a lot smoother this week than last, and the students are pretty responsive to my jokes (priority #1, lbr) and seem to be following along quite well, judging by the handful of questions I get after class. Not a ton of technical issues today, either, which is a HUGE win over last week.

1:30 - Forecasting time! I'm once again part of our university team in a giant forecasting contest. While I'm decidedly average at it (usually around 250th out of 1000 participants), my grad student was #1 for a while there. We chat in broad terms about the next week of weather in our targeted forecasting region.

2:30 - Meeting with another graduate student! We talk about some of the researchers he reached out to after his first conference a couple weeks ago, and we're starting to narrow down a possible author list for his first paper. He's working on writing up the methods and data for that paper while he incorporates a few new datasets into his preestablished workflow. He's been doing really well! Being a dual-major in CS means his code is a heckuva lot more organized than most second-year grad students I've had.

3:30 - ...nothing??? I've decided to skip my usual seminar and postpone one undergraduate student research meeting this afternoon (the one currently locked out of the supercomputer he needs for his project) since I have a couple of grant proposals due very shortly. I head out to grab some teriyaki to bring back to my office for lunch/dinner, but the restaurant just has a big sign out front saying "closed for FIRE" so I opt to go across the street for some chicken katsu and boba tea instead. I approve the final budget (coming up on a million dollars, no pressure) and keep plugging away at the statement of work (which is basically "what are you going to do, in detail, with one million dollars over the next three years? please tell us in exactly 15 pages, not counting your 3-page bibliography and 6 appendices"). I even find a perfect paper to reference to discuss one of our theories! We've made it through one round of reviews with our pre-proposal, and man, we'd love to do this project - it would be myself, a colleague, and a postdoc looking at some really novel stuff in severe storm predictability over the next three years. I also get a little work done on the invited talk I'm giving to a student journal club tomorrow, and work on some more e-mails (trying to set up a meeting with a friend's graduate student to help her out with some methods she's using from an older paper of mine).

5:15 - One of my colleagues has retired this year and has a farewell song he wants to sing at our holiday party, which happens to be mostly voice & piano, so we agree to meet up before the main practice and go over it a couple times before the rest of the band shows up and he has to head out to dinner. I'm really sorry to see him leaving (although I know he's delighted to get to spend more time with his kids and grandkids) - he and his wife were extremely welcoming when I started here, and were so kind and supportive when Mom died. Just very touched that he reached out to me to play piano on this one. Tragically, though, whoever was supposed to bring in the keyboard hasn't left it in the practice room, so we'll have to wait and run through it with the rest of the band on Thursday. Instead, it's back to the office to get caught up on e-mail and try to slog through more of the grant application (all today's research and work has netted me... 1 page of writing, blah).

6:00 - The rest of the band shows up! We run three songs of our eight-song setlist, and I'm somehow now playing on 4/8 of them, despite there being five people signed up for keys. It's a good time, though!

8:00 - I make it home and give Clara a bunch of new toys that have arrived with her prescription food (one of which she licks for 15 minutes straight). Luckily, tomorrow's work schedule is much more chill!

[itsmyfandomandilikeit]

What we actually know about the renewal of Star Trek: Prodigy

Ok so there's been some speculation going around that Prodigy is or is not being renewed. The fact is that there has been zero news on the topic, official or otherwise, and anyone claiming to know differently is wrong or lying.

That being said, there are some things we do know:

1. Netflix is of course notorious for canceling things. I am an Inside Job fan. I know. However, they almost never leave things ambiguous. They aren't shy. When things are canceled, they make a clear public statement saying that it's canceled. Usually within two weeks of airing.

2. All of the clear public statements we've gotten from Netflix and the Prodigy crew have been consistent: Netflix will decide when they get more data. Recently, Aaron Waltke said on a podcast that they will review the viewing numbers from the first six months after season 2 was released, which occurred on July 1. This lines up with Netflix's data release schedule, which collates viewing data from the first and second halves of the year.

3. They are also waiting on a few other things. Namely, Netflix still commissions Paramount to create seasons of Prodigy. The sale of things like DVDs, Blu-Rays, digital downloads, and those new ship models that are coming out this December, affect the price of a season of Prodigy. Merchandise sales and licensing pay for a portion of it, and Netflix has to cover the rest of the cost. I'm sure the new theme park ride affects this as well. The cost to commission a season of Prodigy is determined by a number that is very much, at the moment, in a state of flux because of the upcoming physical media and merchandise releases, which could do well or not.

4. It was announced that the Hagemans have been added to a LEGO Ninjago project, and there has been some speculation that they will be unable to work on Prodigy because of this. This is irrelevant. The Hagemans have stated repeatedly that they typically work on 2 or 3 projects at once. To my knowledge, Aaron Waltke was working on Transformers One during the production of Prodigy season 2. This is just normal. They're getting work because their work has done well.

5. Prodigy costs the least of any Star Trek project to produce, but it is also the only Star Trek project that Netflix has access to. If, say, Section 31 does extremely well, Netflix can't get any portion of that success except for through Prodigy. Netflix also knows that very few new users are actually signing up for Paramount+, and indeed many users are leaving the platform, so Prodigy remains a good investment for Netflix. No matter how well this season of Lower Decks does, Netflix can't buy it because it's not for sale.

6. Data from 2023 indicated that Prodigy outperformed all of the rest of Star Trek on Netflix (admittedly, the US is not counted in this). What's especially notable about this is that it was only available for one week in 2023. In the first half of 2024, Prodigy continued to do well on the Netflix platform, despite it effectively only playing reruns during that time. Netflix will not release numbers for the second half of 2024 until next year.

7. Prodigy has the budget and appeal of a children's show, but it also has an avid adult audience. Many adults are watching it just because it's Star Trek or because they want to keep up with the overall story. Anyone who wants to maintain Star Trek completion must watch Prodigy, which is only available through Netflix.

8. Marketing is typically the lion's share of the cost of any media, but no marketing was done for Prodigy. It relied on word of mouth and the Star Trek brand. This affects how expensive it is to Netflix.

9. Finally this is not about the show itself but I just don't think that the story is over because plotlines in Star Trek never really end. Watching TAS is like the Leo Dicaprio pointing meme of seeing how Discovery was designed from a ton of these episodes. Every detail of the older shows is spun into entire plotlines in NuTrek. Whether or not Prodigy is renewed, these characters and species have been added to the canon and more than likely it will never let them go. If there isn't a new season, there will be video games, books, comic books, theme park attractions, stupid hats (that I'll buy), sunglasses, t-shirts, board games, markers, branded blankets, posters, and anything else you can think of. I kinda don't know how I feel about this but it is what I think. No matter how many seasons of Prodigy there actually will be, I'm sure the characters and settings will be brought back thirty years from now for better or worse.

[overnightheartbeats]

“It matters to me. When I’m being told I’m doing this for fun, I kind of like to know why.” Her frown was in clear display. Why wouldn’t it matter? Well, at least he wasn’t telling her to go away, so she took a seat next to him and turned to face him. This could go either way, and if this was where everything went to shit, she wanted to make sure she got everything.

Hearing his level tone was new, especially when she was used to bigger displays of anger or just silence altogether. "You keep saying I had my fun? I don't," she paused, shaking her head. "Do you think I'm so shallow that I use my free time to flirt and mess with guys? Okay true, I did seek you out and maybe that was a little too forward, but I didn't do all of that just because I was bored and needed a..pet project." Listening to him recount what happened had her experience a wave of emotions - stunned, confused, and just generally lost. He described Jenny in a way she had never heard before. It wasn’t landing in her mind, but as he spoke, her mind was already working through it. He had no reason to lie, right? Clearly, he had no issue saying what he thought. But if he did, where would he even get all of this? "Jenny told you I'm playing you?" That sounded outrageous, but why else would he be so upset towards her. “That doesn’t sound like her, but I guess, yeah.” He had no reason to lie to her, did he? She couldn’t quite place it, but there was a part of her that did trust him. Even if her mind was clouded with doubt. Her mind was running at one hundred miles per hour, but it all came to a halt with his latest mention of fun and their kiss. Laurel was upset about many things right now, but their moment being tainted like this was the most irritating (even above him thinking the worst of her). "I didn't kiss you because of some game or to have fun, stop saying that. I did it because I wanted to, and I liked you," she blurted out, exasperated by the conversation and confusion drowning her.

The silence was killing her. It was her worst nightmare, she rather go back to him telling her the different ways she was playing him and how her friend was this big bully. Laurel and silence never really got along, it made her uneasy. She pulled her knees close to her chest, a sense of defeat washing over her. This was done, wasn't it? So much for Juju's optimistic outlook, and that first date. If this situation didn't indicate the end, his comment on girlfriends certainly did. No one being worth the fucking effort, noted. Laurel shook her head once more, "sorry. I..I just thought that you were running off for a girlfriend, and then what you said in class about wanting to stay. I just thought that..well, it doesn't matter." She thought he was like the typical college guys, yeah. "I assumed, my mistake, but that's also why I asked. Because, like I said, not a game to me. It felt that way, and I don’t want to misread something. I didn’t have any other context, just you running off and being gone for however long. Then what you said earlier…well, yeah.” Whether intentional or not, he was drawing lines. Ones she had quickly ran past the last time around. "I am glad that your family holds so much value, I confused that. I’m sorry, you’re right. We just met and I’m not entitled to your personal life.” Even with all of this, he still said bullies - her included? There was no changing this. The annoyance in his tone was clear, even if she wanted to ask anything else, it was not very inviting. “I don’t know, are you up for answering? Or we’re still strangers?”

Jenny knew Laurel’s schedule, being roommates and all. After messing with Eli, she went to grab a quick bite and grabbed something for Laurel after class. She figured if she showed up with lunch, plans would be decided for her. Walking down the empty hallway, she was surprised to see Laurel outside of class but soon it made sense. There he was with her too. Rolling her eyes once, she willed her best smile and walked right towards them. “Hey guys! Ugh, you guys look so cute - right out of a movie! No class today? I came to meet you for lunch, but didn’t think you’d be out so early! You could join us!” She directed at Eli, though she knew that was unlikely.

Despite himself he moved the books and made room for her next to him. "Does it matter?" It seemed laurel wasn't going to let it go so he sighed. "The bully brigade. Your friend Jenny is the leader. She made it seem like you knew and have just been playing a game with me because you're bored. Which if that's the case, I want no part of it. Just leave me alone. I'm not a pet project."

"I called her what I did because that's what she is. I don't tend to say something I don't fucking mean." The rage against Jenny was strong but he kept his even tempered tone. "She's made it her personal hobby to keep badgering me just because we keep hanging out. You must like me better than her might be going around in her head. I don't want trouble. I can see my way out of this equation just do me a favor and leave me out of it. You've had your fun. Had your kiss. Let me go back to obscurity. You can go back to her. Since she's so scared to lose you to a nobody. Her words not mine."

He sat there in silence too exhausted to get up and walk away. The flight had him wired enough not to sleep and he was paying for it now. His eyebrows knitted together as their conversation came to mind. "Why on earth would you think I'd kiss you if I had someone back home? What kind of asshole do you take me for." Girlfriend made him snicker. "Doing this much for a girlfriend," he shook his head. "No one is worth this much fucking effort. I didn't run away from you because I wanted you to think I was playing. I'm sorry but we've just met. There's no questions or hesitation when my family calls. Least of all my little sister. Could I have been more straight forward , sure but no one is entitled to my personal life. Especially bullies. It's earned."

Setting his arms over his knees he watched the empty hallways. "Anything else you need to know?" He had been annoyed but he also wanted to be left alone. If this was a trick then he'd rather have Laurel pull the bandaid off.

[archduchessgortash]

Unpopular Opinion

An 'evil power couple ruling Toril together' ending for Durge and Gortash is a horrible idea, and I'm glad that it doesn't happen in Baldur's Gate 3. If it ever did, it would not be a happy ending for either of them.

If that's your kink... cool. It's such a popular ask in the fandom that I'm sure someone already wrote it months and months ago.

My kink is redemption, but hardly anyone seems to want that for Gortash, and it makes me sad. I really think it should have been an option.

Here's why I don't want Durge and Gortash ruling Toril:

Durge and Gortash have both been abused, manipulated, and treated like complete shit by their families, their caregivers, and their gods. Bane's treatment of Gortash isn't exactly clear except that he tortures his soul for failure even though Gortash did everything he possibly could to succeed in the Absolute plot. By the time we meet him in-game, Gortash has become as bad, if not worse, than his abusers. Pre-tadpole Durge was a piece of work, too, although Sceleritas does mention that they struggled to stay the course that Bhaal had set them upon even before their lobotomy.

We know that one of the themes in Baldur's Gate 3 revolves around cycles of abuse. Even when the victim-turned-abuser isn't arguably 'as bad' as the one who hurt them, if they choose the same sort of path, they lose everything they were ever really fighting for: themselves.

I know Ascended Astarion stans will stomp their feet and say he hasn't become Cazador 2.0. To them, I say: 'You're right. He hasn't... yet.' However, he has eternity now and a delusional slave of his very own to bring out the worst in him. There's a reason that spawn Astarion mentions how he felt everything he'd learned since meeting his new friend/partner slipping away when he thanks them for stopping his ascension. Because that is what ascension does to him. Astarion loses. Cazador wins. Even dead, he has won. That the fandom doesn't get that boggles my mind.

Some fans like the idea of evil Durge and Gortash taking out Bhaal and Bane, becoming gods themselves. In my opinion, this is so much worse. Killing or torturing their abusers as revenge isn't 'finally showing them' or proving their strength. It is, in fact, a mirror of their abuser's own weakness manifested in their victim. Gortash has already crossed this line. Dravo Flymm is effectively dead, animated only by his tadpole. This is another reason I wish Karlach had the option to forgive Gortash--not for him--but for her.

Gortash intellectualized his own abuse so hard that he actually thinks he was helping Karlach by giving her to Zariel. He has not truly dealt with anything that was done to him. He projects it onto the people around him and makes his own problems into everyone else's. I believe this is why there's no ending in which he survives. That, and running out of time and money to do him and Wyll justice with their storylines.

I don't like Durge and Gortash becoming worse together. A history of abuse does not excuse its continuation. I don't want to watch them be overtaken by their own weakness, to weep as I gaze upon the manifestation of their inescapable cowardice.

I want to see them win, but my definition of winning is not ruling. My definition of winning is choosing to no longer emulate their abusers, to become what tiny glimpses into their back stories show us they once had the potential to be.

The idea of Durge and Gortash enslaving the world and ruling it brings to mind a line from one of my all-time favorite songs: Veteran of the Psychic Wars by Blue Öyster Cult.

'Did I hear you say that THIS is victory?!'

Well... it is. Just not theirs.

Repeating the cycle of abuse is nothing short of ensuring the legacy of the abuser.

Like I said... I want Durge and Gortash to win.

[vinceaddams]

Any tips on learning to make buttonholes? I've been putting it off for.... *checks notes* like three years.... but better late than never and all that. I don't have any fancy machines so I gotta do it by hand but that seems right up your alley.

Thanks!

It IS up my alley, yes, I do most of my buttonholes by hand!

I'm actually part way through filming an 18th century buttonhole tutorial, but I expect it'll be a few more weeks before I finish that and put it on the youtubes, so in the meantime here's the very very short version. (The long version is looking like it'll probably be about 40 minutes maybe, judging by how much script I've written compared to my last video?)

Mark your line, a bit longer than your button is wide. I usually use a graphite mechanical pencil on light fabrics, and a light coloured pencil crayon on dark ones. (I have fabric pencils too, but they're much softer and leave a thicker line.) You may want to baste the layers together around all the marked buttonholes if you're working on something big and the layers are shifty and slippery. I'm not basting here because this is just a pants placket.

Do a little running stitch (or perhaps a running backstitch) in fine thread around the line at the width you want the finished buttonhole to be. This holds the layers of fabric together and acts as a nice little guide for when you do the buttonhole stitches.

Cut along the marked line using a buttonhole cutter, or a woodworking chisel. Glossy magazines are the best surface to put underneath your work as you push down, and you can give it a little tap with a rubber mallet if it's not going through all the way.

I'm aware that there are some people who cut their buttonholes open using seam rippers, and if any of them are reading this please know that that is abhorrent behaviour and I need you to stop it immediately. Stop it.

Go get a buttonhole cutter for 10 bucks and your life will be better for it. Or go to the nearest hardware store and get a little woodworking chisel. This includes machine buttonholes, use the buttonhole cutter on them too. If you continue to cut open buttonholes with a seam ripper after reading this you are personally responsible for at least 3 of the grey hairs on my head.

Do a whipstitch around the cut edges, to help prevent fraying while you work and to keep all those threads out of the way. (For my everyday shirts I usually do a machine buttonhole instead of this step, and then just hand stitch over it, because it's a bit faster and a lot sturdier on the thin fabrics.)

I like to mark out my button locations at this point, because I can mark them through the holes without the buttonhole stitches getting in the way.

For the actual buttonhole stitches it's really nice if you have silk buttonhole twist, but I usually use those little balls of DMC cotton pearl/perle because it's cheap and a good weight. NOT stranded embroidery floss, no separate strands! It's got to be one smooth twisted thing!

Here's a comparison pic between silk buttonhole twist (left) and cotton pearl (right). Both can make nice looking buttonholes, but the silk is a bit nicer to work with and the knots line up more smoothly.

I've actually only used the silk for one garment ever, but am going to try to do it more often on my nicer things. I find the cotton holds up well enough to daily wear though, despite being not ideal. The buttonholes are never the first part of my garments to wear out.

I cut a piece of about one arm's length more or less, depending on the size of buttonhole. For any hole longer than about 4cm I use 2 threads, one to do each side, because the end gets very frayed and scruffy by the time you've put it through the fabric that many times.

I wax about 2cm of the tip (Not the entire thread. I wax the outlining/overcasting thread but not the buttonhole thread itself.) to make it stick in the fabric better when I start off the thread. I don't tend to tie it, I just do a couple of stabstitches or backstitches and it holds well. (I'm generally very thorough with tying off my threads when it comes to hand sewing, but a buttonhole is basically a long row of knots, so it's pretty sturdy.)

Put the needle through underneath, with the tip coming up right along that little outline you sewed earlier. And I personally like to take the ends that are already in my hand and wrap them around the tip of the needle like so, but a lot of people loop the other end up around the other way, so here's a link to a buttonhole video with that method. Try both and see which one you prefer, the resulting knot is the same either way.

Sometimes I can pull the thread from the end near the needle and have the stitch look nice, but often I grab it closer to the base and give it a little wiggle to nestle it into place. This is more necessary with the cotton than it is with the silk.

The knot should be on top of the cut edge of the fabric, not in front of it.

You can put your stitches further apart than I do if you want, they'll still work if they've got little gaps in between them.

Keep going up that edge and when you get to the end you can either flip immediately to the other side and start back down again, or you can do a bar tack. (You can also fan out the stitches around the end if you want, but I don't like to anymore because I think the rectangular ends look nicer.)

Here's a bar tack vs. no bar tack sample. They just make it look more sharp, and they reinforce the ends.

For a bar tack do a few long stitches across the entire end.

And then do buttonhole stitches on top of those long stitches. I also like to snag a tiny bit of the fabric underneath.

Then stick the needle down into the fabric right where you ended that last stitch on the corner of the bar tack, so you don't pull that corner out of shape, and then just go back to making buttonhole stitches down the other side.

Then do the second bar tack once you get back to the end.

To finish off my thread I make it sticky with a bit more beeswax, waxing it as close to the fabric as I can get, and then bring it through to the back and pull it underneath the stitches down one side and trim it off.

In my experience it stays put perfectly well this way without tying it off.

Voila! An beautiful buttonholes!

If you want keyhole ones you can clip or punch a little rounded bit at one end of the cut and fan your stitches out around that and only do the bar tack at one end, like I did on my 1830's dressing gown.

(I won't do that style in my video though, because they're not 18th century.)

Do samples before doing them on a garment! Do as many practice ones as you need to, it takes a while for them to get good! Mine did not look this nice 10 years ago.

Your first one will probably look pretty bad, but your hundredth will be much better!

Edit: Video finished!

And here's the blog post, which is mostly a slightly longer version of this post.

[masonjarsmoments]

🙃🫠

[descaladumidera]

Okay, so I'm finally putting all the stuff about the other characters on this post as well that @illicien and I came up with. It's not that much, just bits and bobs for different characters. Yeah, I wanted to do this ages ago, but I forgot. Do not judge me or I'll cry.

Let's start with Tony.

He is an engineer for SHIELD, building the Jaegers. He is quite miffed that he is allowed to build but not to pilot. Makes for a grumpy Tony. Alas, when the base gets attacked, he turns the weapons inside out and manages to use them against the attacking Kaiju, saving a lot of people and destroying a big part of the base in the process. Fury is pissed. Tony is proud. Nobody can fire him, 'cause they need him. Fury even allows him to use his bots to clean up the mess, 'cause he needs Tony to keep working on the Jaegers and more defenses.

(He also absolutely is working on a mini-Jaeger called Iron Man. But it's his little hobby side project, because nobody is letting him have any fun. At all. Ever.)

Next is Peter.

He is the kid that's on his own and builds his own Jaeger, after his aunt and uncle got killed in a Kaiju attack. His Jaeger can be controlled by one pilot (yes, this is a Scrapper reference) and is named Spider. He ends up at SHIELD by accident and gets adopted by literally everyone. Even Fury has a soft spot for the kid.

And Stephen.

Stephen was a Jaeger pilot, but he also lost his partner, which scarred him deeply and fucked with his mind so hard he never sets foot in a Jaeger again. It takes a lot of convincing, but thanks to him having deep knowledge about neurology (which was the main reason he was recruited in the first place), he stays at SHIELD, helping Tony refine the sync machines in the Jaegers.

About Thor and Loki.

Obviously they pilot a Jaeger together. They're insufferable. They work well. But, damn, everyone wants to smack them into the next dimension.

The package deal of Steve, Bucky, and Sam.

Steve (who comes from a long, proud line of Jaeger pilots) and Bucky used to pilot a Jaeger together rather early on. But shit went south and Bucky lost his arm and they thought Steve was dead. That led to Fury putting Bucky and Sam together as pilots, because they are compatible. Well. Drift compatible. They're always on each other's throats otherwise.

Through some fucked up kind of luck, though, Steve survived and turns up at SHIELD months later, healed up and ready to get out there again. Only that his old partner has a new partner. That leads to Tony engineering a new Jaeger—one for three pilots. Turns out that Steve is the buffer Bucky and Sam need and they work together like a charm.

Not-really-married Natasha and Clint.

Of course Nat and Clint make a team. They know each other inside and out. So much, in fact, that people think they're actually married and don't dare approach any of them to ask for a date.

Rhodey and Curtis and their white idiots. Also Pepper, Christine, and Karen and their male idiots. And Trish, Claire, and Colleen and their idiots in general. There's overlap.

Just stuffing all these characters into one room, giving them an abundance of alcohol, and letting things play out. There's a lot of complaining. There's bonding. I need a whole series of them just being Done With Shit™. They're so tired.

We did not forget about Bruce.

He is just. Quietly suffering. Bruce is hopping between helping the analysts and helping Tony and nobody gives him the appreciation he deserves. Poor guy. Let me pet him. He is the one listening to people complaining about everyone else.

Another three-person-Jaeger for Jess, Luke, and Danny.

They join SHIELD later on, bringing their people with them. It's clear they also need a three-person-Jaeger, so Tony gets to work. They're good, but really inexperienced, so there's a steep learning curve.

For some reason Zemo gets a part as well. (The reason is my wife, who I love dearly and he is their blorbo, so gotta incorporate him somehow.)

Not too sure about his part, yet, but some kind of intelligence operative, feeding info to Fury about the Kaiju black market and other things normal people wouldn't be able to know. He might have to work together with David at one point, gather as much information that SHIELD can use as possible.

Also. Bucky starts to flirt with him. Steve and Sam are not impressed. Nat is delighted. Clint is actively helping (he is making it worse).

Fuck it, I'm gonna put out my ideas for a Fratt Pacific Rim!AU. Do with this what you want.

Okay, lemme paint the background picture.

SHIELD are the ones behind the Jaeger program, with Nick Fury at the head. Once Curtis lost his leg during That One Mission, Fury seeks him out and recruits him (like Fury does), which leads to Curt dragging in Frank and Billy, because he knows they would be damn good at operating a Jaeger together.

Now on to Frank.

Frank and Billy were marines and friends first, so they have the discipline and they are drift compatible. They go on a lot of missions (don't have a name for their Jaeger yet—maybe The Punisher? *coughs*)—successful missions. They're the heroes of the Jaeger program. Until everything goes to shit. A Kaiju attacks New York and kills Frank's family. Frank and Billy try to stop it, but they fail, their Jaeger breaks, and Billy dies on this mission. Frank is �� not in a good place. He wants to find a new partner, wants to take revenge, but Fury and Curt deem him too unstable and pull him out of the program. Frank goes back to New York (meeting the Liebermans during that time).

((Lieberman tie-in.

David do as David does and hacks into databases he shouldn't hack into. So when he finds stuff he shouldn't find, he panics. But he knows that a rather legendary Jaeger pilot (Frank) is back in New York, so he finds him.

"You have the connections! You can tell SHIELD about the illegal Kaiju trade!"

Frank does not want to do this. He does not. He tells David as much, shoves his middle finger into his face, and leaves. But David is a persistent asshole, so he tracks him down. Again. And again. And again. Until Frank groans and comes by to at least look at what David has found. That's when he meets David's family ('cause he has his set-up down in the basement of his house). Of course Leo, Zach, and Sarah make Frank stay for dinner. And then they make him come over again. And again. And again. Until he can't help but feel integrated into their family. Goddamnit.))

And now on to Matt.

Matt has been part of the Jaeger program family since he was a kid. Jack got recruited just after Matt got blinded, desperately needing to provide for his son, and the people at SHIELD were his best bet to give Matt the care he needed. Jack actually was Fury's partner and they operated a Jaeger together (also no name for this one—maybe Daredevil? *coughs*). Of course shit goes south and Jack dies during a mission, Fury taking it upon himself to keep Matt at the base and raise him.

Matt goes on to become one of their analysts, one of the best (at one point Foggy and Karen get recruited, too, and work alongside him). Despite not being able to see any of the Kaiju and the samples that end up at the base, Matt can draw conclusions from the data he has like nobody else. He, Foggy, and Karen find out about the pattern in which Kaiju will appear.

Now onto Frank and Matt meeting.

This discovery prompts Fury to seek out Frank, because, well, they need the best of the best and it has been years by now, so he wants to give Frank another chance. Frank comes back when he hears what's at stake (and brings the Liebermans with him—he doesn't want to lose another family and David can join Matt, Foggy, and Karen). The problem is—nobody is drift compatible with him. They try the best of the best: Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Bucky Barnes, etc. None of them work.

On one night, Frank thinks it would be best to find out anything he can, so he goes to the lab and asks the analysts himself for all the details. Because he knows Fury and he knows that Fury's secrets have secrets. And that's when he meets Matt, that's when he realizes how goddamn fucking smart he is. And he wants to try to drift with Matt.

Fury is like, hell no, of course. But Frank is nothing if not persistent, and Matt has a secret desire to try this. Because of his dad. Because the Murdock boys have the Devil in them. Because he is just so tired of not doing enough. Fury is still like, hell no. So Matt and Frank just. Do it. Without Fury's permission. 'Cause they're assholes.

Of course Matt, never having drifted before, goes down the rabbit hole. That's when Frank learns that Battlin' Jack Murdock—the man he had looked up to since he was a kid—was Matt's dad.

I have a shitton of other ideas, all expanding the universe and including other characters. But this is the more specific stuff I came up with.

[cappurrccino]

i was gonna say "i shouldn't have to go to work when my brain feels like a depression slushie" and then i was like "wait but then i'd basically never ever go to work" and i'm actually doubling down on the first part now bc my god how am i supposed to heal my brain from burning out 5 years ago if i can never get an actual break

[icewindandboringhorror]

Apparently I can meet my goal of roughly 400,000 words in 6 months if I just somehow write at least 2,200 words a day ghbjh... Almost 2,500 today... huzzah...

[48787]

New Transmission The fucking Scientific Instrument Class Pseudocons apparently developed what they're calling "Hetero Sapience" and are corrupting the brainmodules of the non-Pseudo 'cons around them by using annoying xenophilosophy words. Soundwave tells me they're 'Greek' and 'Latin' words, apparently. Cool, I guess? Anyway, if you see any SI Class 'cons causing... issues, just try your hardest to turn your brainmodule off before you start getting infected with their weird lingo, alongside all the other issues pertaining to letting the SI Pseudocons transmit data into your brainmodule in their own weird ways. Thundercracker, on a bet with Starscream, tried to get into an argument with one of them and his head literally exploded when it started talking about Alpha Trion's "Mythological Origins" in its weird dialect. He's mostly fine, CR Pods are working at 'peak' efficiency, but the facial reconstruction is apparently impossible due to some kind of corruption. I thought it was just some weird prank but there weren't even any scorch marks or anything. Just exploded. So yeah, just avoid optical contact and auditory contact to the best of your ability and you should be fine. Otherwise, try to force-shutdown your brainmodule if you can. Shockwave is working on a cure right now, mostly because I know he had something to do with this in the first place so he's going to be the one to fix it. He probably wanted a greater justification to do that weird data-transfer idea he mentioned previously. But it also explains the weird Thunderwing hypotheticals he's been asking me lately... Can I go one fucking cycle without someone trying to "Perfect Thunderwing's Work" or whatever other idiotic drivel that I keep finding our limited energon reserves siphoned into?? It's not even a Shockwave thing, it's like every damn Cybertronian these days thinks they have the "Missing piece of the puzzle" or whatever. In fact, Shockwave might be doing this as a weird threat against the other R&D 'cons to cement himself as the one and only Decepticon "Allowed" to have resources wasted on projects like that. Ugh, now that I think about it, that's probably a correct assumption and he's probably gonna expect me to thank him for it later. Ugh, and he's probably literally right. Ugh. At least his repairs both to himself and to his lab seem to be mostly complete so further research into the SI project should hopefully come along a little faster. Both Shockwave and Soundwave think the SIs could potentially be used as some kind of specialty weapon, but we'll have to see how they work on sparkless lifeforms, like biological lifeforms or xenomechanical lifeforms. The SIs don't seem to corrupt each other, but Shockwave keeps reaffirming that they're not "Sparkless Lifeforms" because they "were never lifeforms to begin with"... but I think he's trying to hide something. Usually Soundwave is the one to pick up on that kind of technological obfuscation, but he actually agreed with Shockwave and offered to send Ratbat to try to work out exactly what each "sapient" SI is now capable of on a personal level. We could have just had regular Cybertronians aboard to fill the role SIs fill. I would've preferred K Class to fill any role an SI could fill in all honesty!! But no, constructing cold wasn't enough, we just had to try to learn how to "Construct Frozen" and the "Absolute Zeroes" just had to be put on my ship. Whatever. I've probably said too much already. This was supposed to be a warning for my ship crew, but it's looking like it'll end up being transcribed on the golden disk as well so when this new Scientific Instruments of Destruction project backfires in some absurdly bombastic way there will at least be something remaining that says I was right. End of Transmission

New Transmission Okay so I was right, but so was Shockwave and Soundwave. Or, well, they were right just enough to make sure the backfire is postponed for at least another handful of cycles. Ratbat is still in CR from the investigation, but the cure Shockwave developed seems to be effective and Thundercracker is out and aiding the repair effort. Shockwave is now in contact with one of the SIs digitally and the other few are... integrating due to the personal efforts of Soundwave. I suppose now would be pertinent to mention not all the SIs developed the "Hetero Sapience" condition, many of them are safe for interaction. Soundwave is also currently monitoring their presence, Ravage is tasked with the regular SIs and Laserbeak is tasked with the "Sapient" SIs. Shockwave probably knows exactly what caused this event but he is preoccupied with the one he no doubt is either indoctrinating or ruthlessly interrogating. Report to Soundwave if you see any suspicious behavior, he has been working very hard to ensure the SIs have their purpose clearly defined (And closely monitored). And, Starscream, stop trying to convince the SIs that you are the leader of this ship. Not only have the majority of your efforts been wasted on subsentient automata, the only one you have actually found who possesses the ability to truly listen to you immediately came to the bridge to complain about you. They were the first sapient SI I communicated with directly and it was because they felt the need to complain about you. I almost feel embarrassed for you. Come back to the bridge so you can apologize to it or so I can teach it how to laugh at you. It's practicing right now actually! This moment of chaos should hopefully be largely under control now, the actual "population" of Scientific Instrument Class Pseudocons was actually quite fewer than initially expected due to an indexing error incorrectly labeling certain shells as SI class. At the very least, we have some more specialty warriors because of it all. End of Transmission EOF

[miodiodavinci]

oscillating rapidly and producing a low tone in the note of c

[lesbianwords]

i NEED to get back into writing but it's so hard and im being so brave about it😭

[windwardstar]

The time between finishing a chapter and waiting for betas to look over it so I can post it is like the days between christmas and new years where reality doesn't exist and you get to do whatever you want

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: May 3

"Life Less Frightening" by Rise Against

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

Mentally putting Eilis on every OC interaction tag.

"They wouldn't."