#I'm already pretty efficient with my space

[deoidesign]

we will recieve some glimpse in what Time And Time Again would have been if webtoon gave you enough time?

To be honest, at this point I don't think it would have been entirely different. It would have been More, I guess. Each part perhaps a little longer, development a bit slower, delving a bit deeper into their psyches, more time periods and mysteries...

The kinds of things I feel sad about missing are things like. I wanted to give Steve a cane. I wanted to touch more directly on Adam's PTSD. I wanted to get more into vampires, share some more of the worldbuilding I did, I wanted to send them to so many places, I have a list that's like an entire page of ideas! just... More! I still want to do these things, I'm trying to fit everything I can in... But yeah. Theres really only so much I can do with the limited time!

It's hard to explain, but when you rewrite everything to make it smaller, it's not necessarily different in very tangible ways. It's not quite like "this was the original ending but I had to change it" (for me, at least) it's more like... I planned a five course meal for my guests, but had to go with three. Everyone is still getting fed! And no one expected five courses anyways. The goal is that we're all full and happy.

I know this makes it confusing why I'm complaining about the situation, if it's no different tangibly what's the problem? Well the answer to that is it's extremely hard to condense things that, quite frankly, were already pretty dense. It's really hard! But it's work worth doing, to me...

So to answer your question, the glimpse into what it would have been is what I'm going to give you.

[mortalityplays]

Forgive me if I'm mistaking you for another person, but I remember you speaking at multiple points on the unsustainability of free social media services (I think especially in response to the cohost collapse?), and I'm curious on what your thoughts on bluesky are so far. I'm not an expert on the subject, but from what I've read previously it seemed like they were on track to be financially sustainable, but I don't know if the recent floods of users has thrown those projections off. Sorry if I'm mixing you up with someone else on my timeline, in that case just ignore me.

bluesky will almost certainly follow the same trajectory of monetisation => bloat => enshittification => decline as every other major platform built on venture capital and user hoarding. it's a terrible model that only works in the short term as a mirage for attracting funding and making founders look good for a year or two before they sell.

you can see the same effect in the decline of all the subscription box services that came into vogue just before covid: they feel great to use for as long as the initial injection of venture funding lasts, because the purpose of that funding at that stage is to attract users and impress the next round of funders with how pleasant/intuitive/efficient/ethical/good value the service is. that's the stage where they're handing out freebies and bowling over influencers, and every ingredient in the box is fresh and high quality and locally sourced. wow what a good deal, what a great system!!! why hasn't anyone done this before? the answer is because it's unsustainable by design. they rack up good reviews, sign on a billion new users, attract new funding from a bunch of much more credulous investors, and then gut all of the expensive parts. portions get smaller, ingredients get worse, packaging gets flimsier, prices go up, freebies turn into "5% off your first 9 boxes when you invite 3 friends", and customer service vanishes.

with social media (and platforms like discord) the logic is the same, it's just a little less glaringly obvious to the end user because they're not coming home to leaking packages of rancid chicken on the doorstep. bluesky has an advantage over tiny operations like cohost because it was founded by a billionaire making a point for the sake of his own image. it got a really significant chunk of startup funding, and the owner had existing connections and rep in the space to attract more. That's why it has survived the goldrush period, why it still feels good to use, and why users who have been burned so many times before are finally accepting it as a stable, reliable option. It's still in its venture capital honeymoon phase where the only thing worth spending money on is making the service attractive to users.

What I expect we will see next, with another mass influx of users from twitter and new funding from a rogue's gallery of tech venture sickos led by Blockchain Capital is a strong ramp up into monetising that userbase. They've already been pretty forthright about how they plan to do this, and I think it's a solid roadmap of how Bluesky will bloat and decay over the next few years:

this is a huge lol. don't worry, we're not going to hyperfinancialize the social experience through NFTs. the thing even crypto freaks started feigning amnesia about a year ago. real "our health conscious sodas are 100% arsenic free" messaging here. They know perfectly well that rubes users are suspicious of their typical 5 dimensional tech finance chess games and are patting our hands about last week's bogeymen so nobody worries too hard about whatever 'decentralised developer ecosystem' just happens to be helmed by a bunch of crypto guys. this definitely means something good and based and not a google-like single sign on user data harvesting operation.

This is the same shit that's currently rotting the floorboards of discord. Bluntly, there is no way to run a platform on this scale without gating functionality behind paid services. Discord has been squeezing free-tier file uploads and call quality etc. down steadily and cranking up subscription costs over the last year or two, throwing in chaff like animated avatar frames to try and justify the user cost. They're also doing the same misdirection thing again here, pointing to Thing We All Hate to deflect from thing we might not like very much when they do it. Booo elon booo we all hate elon!!! wait how do we feel about subscription models again,

watch out for this to kill porn on bsky like it has killed porn on every other social platform 👍 boooo we hate elon boooo stupid idiot and his 'everything app' booooo wait why do you need my tax information, what's that about mastercard,

Look, we are all aware social media is a money pit. Let's not forget dorsey was looking to sell twitter in the first place, long before elon's very public plunge into total online derangement. Subscription services are not going to plug the hole, so we are gradually going to see more and more spaghetti thrown at the wall while early funders shuffle cards and do their pyramid scheme bit bringing in stupider and stupider investments. this is the window in which bluesky will be temporarily worth using for us, for the idiot public, the poorly rendered crowd jpegs in the background of their venture capital MOBA. it's in their interests to slow and pad the decline as much as possible, because that is how they get maximally paid.

Given the scale of the money involved, and dorsey's weird ego investment, I think bluesky will probably manage a controlled drift for a good few years before it gets really bloated and painful. and by then we will all be so used to the *checks notes* decentralised developer ecosystem that we'll just be posting through it, watching another generation of columnists call another collapsing platform 'their beloved hellsite' and passing around that meme about not getting out of our chairs no sir until idk we all get on a fediverse neurolink alternative to stick it to the elongated muskrat and our brains pop peacefully in our sleep. which I guess is the closest thing to viability any social media platform can achieve.

anyway diogenes the cynic is also on bluesky

[dnfao3tags]

Finding Deleted Fics: A Multi-Method Guide

i feel like we are the fandom who needs this post the most any fandom has needed it ever.

all of these methods require you to know the title, author and/or link of the fic.

[disclaimer: the fic i am using as an example is not deleted, i just can't think of any other fics to use as an example right now.]

Method #1: Wayback Machine

this is my go to method that i always try first.

steps:

every fic on ao3 has a url of archiveofourown.org/[specific-numbers]. you're gonna need that url, doesn't matter if it doesn't work anymore.

eg.

2. now you're gonna go to archive.org and enter your url in the search bar.

3. something like this will come up. it probably won't be saved as many times though, just once or twice.

just click any of the links now, either the dates marked blue on the calendar or the earliest/latest date. that's it.

drawbacks:

often, a problem arises when searching for fics rated mature or explicit.

the site will have archived this page but not the actual fic. though, maybe lady luck is on your side and clicking proceed will lead you to a saved version of the actual fic. but usually not. and not all fics are saved here. in those cases, i have some more methods.

Method #2: Search Engine Cache

search engines like google and yandex often save a cached version of sites, though yandex is much more reliable than google. i'll give you a tutorial for both.

steps (yandex):

the link isn't completely necessary, just the title and author of the fic will suffice.

go to yandex.com and search for your fic by either entering the url or entering the title and author as such.

3. this will probably immediately come up.

just enter the captcha and it should let you in on the first go but there's a glitch i've encountered where you could be entering the captcha completely correct but for some reason the site still won't let you in. for that, you just have to keep trying again and again until eventually the site lets you in. might take more than 10 tries.

4. once you're in, search results will pop up. directly clicking them will only lead you to the not found page. what you're gonna do is hover over the box of the search result and you'll see 3 dots pop up on the right.

click those and a dropdown menu will appear. click the first option 'saved copy'.

and thats it! this is a much more efficient method especially for explicit or mature fics.

drawbacks:

for some reason, when i open yandex in google chrome, i can't see the 3 dots. i can in firefox though. don't really know what thats all about.

i'll show you how to do it with google too just in case yandex doesn't work.

steps (google):

in the url bar, type cache:[link of fic]. that's pretty much it. google doesn't have a lot of fics saved though so you'll probably get a 404 page.

Method #3: Reddit

there's a subreddit called r/DeletedFanfiction that can probably help you out. either search for the fic as it may have already been posted or req it and someone will probably get you a google drive link soon enough. u/throwthisaway11112 is my lord and savior.

afaik it's still up and running fine despite the reddit protest thing (which i recommend taking a minute to look into).

Method #4: Archive.org Database

okay, now you're gonna need a lot of memory on computer for this one. i'm not gonna even bother and try to explain it, i'll just link you to the original post. thank you once again to the anon who sent me this method!

Method #5: Fandom

if absolutely none of those methods work, you can still just send me an ask and maybe my followers or i will have a saved copy. same for any other fandom, i recommend asking around in popular fandom spaces, someone is bound to have it.

[nothorses]

So I'm thinking of going on low dose T, and ofc I'll get more feedback from doctors when I see them, but I know one of the changes is that you run warmer and have lower heat tolerance, and I'm already kind of heat sensitive (sweating is a sensory ick). Do you or your followers have any kind of coping strategies that have helped with that?

I ran warm before, too, and I'm definitely warmer now! I also have Raynaud's which kind of makes the whole experience a clusterfuck, but that's besides the point. lmao.

I live in a pretty cool/temperate area, so it isn't normally an issue except in the (increasingly horrible) summers, but I've found that the hardest time to stay cool has been at night. I share a bed with my partner who runs even warmer, and it's been 2.5 years of struggling to figure out how to be a comfortable temperature together.

The best advice I can give you is to just stay as far away from synthetic fibers as you can; "sweat wicking" and "cooling" and "athletic" stuff included. It's a lie. They're all plastic, and while they might feel cool to the touch at first, plastic doesn't breathe. It'll trap heat and moisture against your skin after enough time, especially in the form of blankets. (Fuck the Rest Evercool. Worst recommendation I've ever gotten.)

Look for 100% linen, or 100% cotton. I've heard wool also works well, but I haven't had luck with that personally. Woven fabrics are going to be cooler and more breathable than sateen, and waffle weave is like, the single most breathable weave afaik (it's more common in blankets, but some clothes are waffle).

Some of these things can be pretty scratchy at first, and I recommend a couple of washes on a high heat & some fabric softener before you start using them. We were able to break in our waffle blanket super quickly this way! (I know some folks recommend against softener for breathability reasons, but it's the only thing that actually worked for us, and it hasn't impacted breathability). After you break them in, though, cotton and linen fabrics are SUPER soft!

I also recommend staying away from leather. It's natural, but trust me: it's not breathable. It's coveted in outdoor rec spaces BECAUSE it's somewhat waterproof.

Outside of that, I'd really encourage you to lean towards multiple light layers that you can change/remove throughout the day to suit your needs (ex: light tee + fleece + wind/rain layer, maybe throw in a flannel somewhere), instead of one or two heavy ones (ex: shirt + big puffy cold weather jacket). It's a strategy common in the PNW that works great for regulating your temperature when you're dealing with humidity and somewhat unpredictable weather, and imo, it also really translates if you're just generally sensitive to heat and sweat.

Outside of that... depending on where you live, I really recommend having an AC/dehumidifier. Don't bother with trying to rig up a swamp cooler if you're sensitive to sweat- the increased humidity will make things worse. The general advice I heard when researching a good AC was that window units will always be more efficient than portable units (and a mini split is better than either), but if you have to go with a portable unit, go with a dual-hose. They'll be more efficient just because they don't create a vacuum that pulls in warm air from outside. This is the model we settled on- it was really highly recommended and cost effective for what it is, and it's been absolutely fantastic this summer.

Idk how you are about pits, but I wash mine with a benzoyl body wash and then use a deodorant with antiperspirant every day, and I virtually never smell or sweat. 🤷‍♂️ ymmv though

I'm sure folks will have things to add, so check the notes on this post- and good luck!

[swan2swan]

One of the things Skeleton Crew nailed more than most other Star Wars projects is the efficiency of the character design on the kids.

Neel is obviously an alien. He's got blue skin. And a trunk. Those big black eyes. He wobbles. This infuses the show with a diversity we haven't had since Resistance, something unique to the toybox we're playing in.

Then there's KB. She's got a cool Space Visor...which is not Essential, a la Geordi in Star Trek, but does give her an immediately recognizable face in a way we haven't seen since Sabine in Rebels (which may also not count because she's just got a Mandalorian helmet, which was already associated with Boba Fett...in fact, I'd call this Completely New). She's also got the white hair that falls across her face, and while if you put a gun to my head and told me to draw her clothes, I'd die, that's not necessary for her design: she can swap clothes whenever and she'll be identifiable.

Fern looks pretty basic, but she's got a Cool Jacket. That ties her in with Kay, Han, and Cassian (I'm gonna be honest, I think they were trying for something similar with Poe's jacket and Finn in the sequels, but they never really pulled it off for myriad reasons). The dark color of the jacket contrasts well with her pale skin, dark hair, and bright shirt (orange below, white for the main story). The blue patch also makes it have Instantly Identifiable Potential.

And then there's...um...um...*sweats*...Protagonist Kid.

He's probably got the most easily-forgettable design, but that's okay, he's the protagonist, he's meant to have some Audience Imprinting. A little subtlety can go a long way there, it's been a staple of Star Wars. But his hair has a VERY distinctive silhouette, and that's enough. Worked for Luke Skywalker back in the day, after all...and Anakin later. From bowl cut to that stupid Padawan cut to the moppy mullet foreshadowing that of his son. Sometimes all you need is "It's the guy with the Long Hair" and you're golden. As long as he doesn't pull an Ezra and lop that off to ruin his look entirely (yeah, I'm still not over that, I get it, but I really think Ezra's design suffered in the later seasons), he's Good Forever.

[sunflowersandsapphires]

Hi, can I request comfort fic with Frank? I just don't really like how my life looks right now... I don't like my job, but don't know what else I can do so I'm stuck here... and I feel really lonely recently and like I don't know what to do with my life... and reading fics are one of the few things that brings me joy...

So I thought about a fic where reader is sad and to cheer her up Frank planned a whole day for them to distract her from not kind thoughts?

And I'm sorry that I kinda dumpt it on you... I have trouble with expressing/describing my emotions and I think that was the first time I expressed those feelings to someone... Of course if you don't feel like writing this you can freely ignore this message, thank you 🫶🏻

Anon, I absolutely feel your pain. I’ve been dealing with my own work drama for months now and some days it feels like I’m going to have to completely start over to be happy. I hope I did your request justice, and if you ever need to rant to someone, my DMs are open :)

pairing: Frank Castle x fem!reader 

summary:  Frank helps you when work is breaking your spirit.

warnings: swearing, hints of smut but nothing graphic

w/c: 3k

Digging your jagged nails into the flesh of your palms, you forced yourself to tune out the overwhelming plethora of stimuli that was currently bombarding you on the subway. Screaming children, the heat of bodies crowding around you, the shrieking of wheels on metal tracks, some old guy coughing up a lung at the back of the car, the bright fluorescent lights beating down on the dozens of people crammed in here like sardines. Fuck, you hated the subway. 

It was especially unbearable on days where you were already overtired from work—which, recently, seemed to be every day. This job was supposed to be your ticket to a good life and a stable future, but instead it was a joyless, energy-sapping, waste of your fucking time. Your coworkers were catty, your boss far too demanding for the bottom of the barrel wages you received, and the work itself was dreary. Each day you sat in that cubicle, you could feel the light inside you flickering, just waiting for one more lackluster employee review to be completely snuffed out. 

Clearly, you weren’t the only one who felt this way about your place of employment, given that over a third of the staff at your level had quit in the last two months. Unfortunately for you, this meant longer hours and crankier conversations with your superiors, who were consistently disappointed in your performance despite you efficiently accomplishing everything that was asked of you. 

Not only did longer hours lead to you getting overstimulated on the subway, but it meant you’d been spending less time at home with your boyfriend. You’d barely seen Frank this month, between his trips out of town and your rigorous schedule, and it was driving you up a wall. All you wanted was to let him wrap himself around you, petting your hair as you cried and holding you tight when you eventually fell asleep. Though, with the way your days were going lately, most of the time you didn’t want to be touched. You just wanted to shove crap food in your mouth and pass out before you had to go back to that hellscape in the morning. 

Frank was the kindest, most thoughtful partner you’d ever had, so he gave you plenty of space on the days you came home in an emotion-filled silence. He could read your moods pretty well at this point, and always respected your wishes, even if it meant he’d be nursing a beer in the living room alone until he went to sleep. You’d hoped that today would grant you enough energy to enjoy some time with him, but the world wasn’t that charitable. 

Shuffling off the subway amongst the masses, you let your body droop slightly as you trudged back to your apartment. Practically crawling up the stairs, you eventually reached the door—shoving it open in frustration as tears pricked at the corners of your eyes. 

Instantly, you were greeted with the sound of soft music and the smell of onions and garlic cooking. Frank was in the kitchen, swaying almost imperceptibly to the song he was listening to, stirring a pot of what looked like tomatoes.  

“Hey, doll,” He greeted you softly, throwing you a smile over his shoulder but remaining planted at the stove, probably in an attempt to give you space.

“Hi.” Your voice was breathy and small, your stony face accented with glassy eyes. 

Frank knew better than to expect that everything would change in a day, but the sight of your crumpling face broke his heart. Stepping towards you with a furrowed brow, he tried for a small smile. “Another bad day?” 

You nodded, the force of the movement drawing two parallel tears down your cheeks. Sniffling, you didn’t respond, confident that your voice would crack if you did. 

“Do you want a hug?” Frank asked, hesitating a few feet from you as he waited for your answer. 

“I’m n-not sure, Frankie.” You admitted, more tears pooling as you did. “Not r-right now, I think.” 

Nodding in understanding, Frank crossed his arms, as if to keep himself from hugging you anyway. “Alright, sweet girl. Not a problem. Why don’t you go lay down while I finish dinner, hm?” 

Sighing, you nodded once, padding to the bedroom and collapsing into the blankets with a poorly stifled sob. Frank winced at the sound, his hands burning with an ache to hold you, to make everything better, but he couldn’t do that until you were ready. 

You’d only given him glimpses of the nightmare you were living. Whether you didn’t talk to him about it because you were worried it would scare him away, or because you didn’t trust him, he wasn’t sure—though the dark parts of his mind were convinced it was the latter. Regardless, Frank did his best to maintain a cozy home for you. It couldn’t be easy to have a mass-murderer-turned-government-hit-man as a partner, waiting around on your own for days while he worked odd jobs for Madani, but you’d never let it impact your love for him. 

You were thoughtful, sweet, and adorably shy—not to mention you balanced him out in ways he’d never expected. The pair of you brought out the best in each other, despite your peculiar relationship. You’d never made him feel distant or guilty for leaving, simply welcoming him back from his trips with open arms and eager eyes. Yet, the past few months your job had been eating at you, sapping the life from your beautiful eyes and leaving a listless husk of his girlfriend behind. 

He didn’t want to pry, far too afraid of snapping your already fragile composure and ruining the bond you shared. But every day you came home holding back tears, and it was going to kill him. He’d rip your office apart with his bare hands if it would end your misery, though he knew you’d never ask him to do that. 

So, instead, he did as much as he could—laying out his softest sweatshirt on your bed, playing quiet music, making a warm meal for the two of you to share—all in an effort to take something off of your plate, to remove an ounce of weight from your shoulders. After a week with no indication that any of this was helpful, he’d started scheming. 

Hopefully, it wouldn’t take too much begging to convince you to take an extra day off…

Stirring the tomato sauce one final time as he removed it from the heat, he tilted the pot over the cooked pasta, letting a ribbon of sauce drape over the noodles before giving it a quick stir. Scraping a dollop of sauce out of the pot with his finger, he popped the digit in his mouth, eyes closing in satisfaction at the array of flavors. 

Brushing his hands across his jeans, he plated two generous helpings of pasta, assuming you had worked through lunch once again, and set them in front of two chairs at your table. Steeling himself for the sight of your tear streaked face, he shuffled over to the bedroom and knocked softly. 

“Darlin’? You ready to eat?” Keeping his voice low, he gingerly opened the door. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light that managed to slip through your curtains, his heart squeezed at the sight of you sleeping, curled in fetal position. Your delicate hands clenched around your covers like they were your lifeline, your damp face squashed against his pillow. Biting his lip in thought, he returned to the main room to cover the pasta. 

Spending very little time tidying up, he wandered back into the bedroom, stripping out of his clothes in exchange for a pair of sweats and a worn Henley. Settling behind you with a book in hand, he slipped under the covers as unobtrusively as possible before his inner monologue made him pause. Would you even want him beside you? Was he crossing a line?

Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry about that for long as your sleeping form unconsciously wrapped around him, a small sigh falling from your lips as you nuzzled into his stomach. Smiling down at you, his free hand came up to stroke over your hair, his own grin widening when the soft touch made your lips twitch up in a sleepy smile. He thumbed through about a chapter of his book before you began to stir, shining lashes fluttering as your eyes opened. As the sleep disappeared from your eyes, Frank felt another wave of apprehension cresting in his chest, but the tide was quickly settled by your sweet gaze. Nestling into his side more deeply, you hummed in appreciation. “Hi, Frankie.” 

“Hi, sweet girl. Did you have a good nap?” A teasing mirth danced in his gaze, making you avert your eyes bashfully. 

“Mmm hmm. Sorry.” You murmured, rubbing your face against the fabric of his shirt. 

Clucking his tongue, Frank slid down to face you, tracing a thumb over your cheek. “No reason to be sorry, dollface. I’m glad you slept, you’ve been tired.” 

Sighing deeply, you traced the buttons on his shirt. “Work’s been a lot, recently.” 

“I figured as much, doll. Ya don’t gotta tell me anything, but I’m always here to listen, yah?” The tip of his thumb caressed your ear. 

Blinking back tears, you looked up at him apologetically, “I didn’t mean to keep you in the dark, Frank, it’s just so stupid and I—“

“Hey, hey, it ain’t stupid.” Frank tugged you impossibly closer, brushing tears off your face carefully. “If it bothers ya, it’s not.” 

“You just…” You drew in a ragged breath, the inhale catching on a sob. “You have so much to worry about already, and I don’t want to be a burden!” Bawling now, you felt your chest constricting at the thought of dumping more work onto Frank’s already overflowing to-do list. 

“You’re not a burden.” Frank spoke fiercely, looking deep into your eyes. “You have never been a burden, doll. Never.”

His words were a promise, you drank in his commitment with immense desperation, praying to forces you didn’t believe in that he was being truthful. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Frankie,” Your voice cracked on the admission. “I’m fine at my job, but nobody can see that, and I don’t feel satisfied by the work that I’m doing but it’s all I know! I can’t just quit, I don’t have any other plan, this is everything I’ve worked for and—“ Your ramble broke off into sobs, your breath hitching as Frank shushed you quietly. 

“I know, I know, doll. It sucks right now and I’m so sorry.” Rubbing a hand over your back, Frank encouraged you to breathe, waiting until your lungs could actually take in oxygen before continuing. “Sweetheart, if ya wanna quit, I’ll support ya. If ya wanna stick it out, I’ll support ya. Regardless of what you choose, I’ll be right here at the end of the day.” 

“I can’t quit, Frank, we need the money.” You whimpered. 

“Hey, we can figure it out if we need to. It ain’t a problem.” 

Nodding against his palm, you considered your options. “For now, I’ll stick it out. But, thank you.” 

“No need to thank me, honey. It’s my job to look out for ya, remember?” His sappy remark sparked a tiny smile from you. “You’re my girl, sweetheart. I’m always gonna take care of my girl.” 

Nuzzling into his chest, you stifled a yawn before abruptly looking up at him with wide eyes. “Shit, Frankie, what time is it? Did I miss dinner?” Wriggling out of his embrace, you wiped the lingering tears off your face before sitting up. Frank bit his tongue to keep from chuckling at your genuine concern. 

“Dinner is waiting for us, sweet girl. I’m in no rush.” Cradling your neck, Frank pressed a languid kiss to your lips, taking advantage of your distraction and flipping you on top of him. 

“Frank!” You squealed, beaming down at him with more happiness than he’d seen from you in weeks. 

“What?” He questioned innocently, gently leading your face back to his for another kiss. 

“What’s gotten into you?” You wondered aloud, returning the kiss but looking at him with feigned exasperation. 

“I ain’t allowed to love on you now?” Frank asked, raising an eyebrow at you. 

You rolled your eyes, shuffling off of him and out of the bed. “C’mon, you sap. Let’s eat the dinner you made before it’s ruined.” 

As the night sky populated with stars, Frank doted on you insistently. He’d reheated your dinner, turned on your favorite movie, even brought you a pint of your favorite ice cream for dessert. You’d gratefully accepted his comforts, yet he still seemed to be holding back. As he puttered around in the kitchen, doing the dishes alone (he’d staunchly refused your help), you could see the wheels turning in his brain. 

“Frank, is something wrong?” You asked, picking at a stray thread along the seam of the blanket he’d wrapped around your shoulders, gazing over at him as your heart rate pounded anxiously.

“Huh?” Your timid question snapped him out of his thoughts, his hands nearly flinging the soapy dish across the room as he spun towards you. “Oh, uh, no. Nothing’s wrong, sweetheart.” 

Unconvinced, you nodded, nibbling on a hangnail poking out from your thumb. In an attempt to self-soothe, you shifted your attention back to the tv, but Frank’s energy still seemed out of place. 

Placing the last plate in the dishrack, Frank dried his hands, ambling over to you with a hesitant smile. “I gotta ask ya something, doll.”

Nervousness spiking, you nodded, tilting your head in anticipation of his query.

“If I asked ya to call in sick tomorrow, what would ya say?” Frank’s jaw was tight as he asked, clearly expecting anger in response.

“I’d say absolutely, love. Why do you ask?” “I was hopin’ you’d wanna take an extra day, to escape those assholes and maybe do something fun?” If you didn’t know any better, you’d say Frank Castle looked nervous. His eyes flirted between your gaze and his lap, his trigger finger twitching. 

“Oh, Frank, I’d love that!” You gushed, throwing your arms around him. He grunted in surprise, his own hands coming up to hold you in place so you didn’t topple off the couch. “I’ve been hesitant to take sick days because everyone’s been so on edge lately, will you sit with me when I call in?” 

“Course I will. If anyone gives ya trouble, they’ll have me to answer to.” Frank assured you with a menacing glint in his eye. Kissing his nose, you stroked a knuckle over his stubbled cheek. 

“Thank you, handsome.” 

“Anything for my girl.” 

True to his word, Frank made sure you were seated comfortably in his lap when you called in sick, both so that he could rub reassuring circles along your waist, and so that he could hook his chin over your shoulder to listen for any flack you might be given. Fortunately for your boss, they grumbled an “ok” and hung up quickly. Anything ruder than that, and they might have been on The Punisher’s shit list. 

Sinking backwards into your boyfriend’s sturdy chest, you shuddered. “Glad that’s over with.” Breathing deeply, you took a moment to collect your anxious self before standing to get ready for the day. Or, trying to stand, at least. 

A set of strong hands caught your hips, yanking them backwards to hold you in Frank’s lap. 

“Frank!” A small fit of giggles burst out of you as his fingers pressed into your ticklish skin. 

“What’s the hurry, doll? We’ve got all day.” Planting heated kisses along your neck, you felt Frank smile when you mewled in response. “Attagirl, let me make ya feel good, hmm?” 

Whisking you back to the bedroom, Frank helped you forget all about your shitty job. 

Slightly breathless following your morning exercise, you hummed happily as Frank continued to press his lips to the exposed flesh of your body, taking care to show every piece of you as much love as possible. Boxing you in with his massive arms, he molded his beautifully crooked nose against yours, finishing his trail of kisses with a lengthy kiss to your lips. 

“So, what did you have planned for today?” You asked against his lips, threading a hand in his hair. 

“Nothin’ much. I was thinkin’ maybe nice coffee and a trip to that museum you’ve been talkin’ about?” A blush crept over his cheeks. “Sorry, doll, I, uh, I ain’t too good with this…” He gestured between the two of you. 

“Aw, Frankie,” You scolded gently, kissing him tenderly. “You’re plenty good at ‘this’.” You mirrored his gesture and he rolled his eyes. “I’m serious, honey. You’re the most romantic partner I’ve ever had. And that plan sounds lovely. Let me clean up and we can go for coffee.” 

As you curled into a seated position, Frank caught your wrist. “Hey! Where do you think you’re goin’?” 

“To wash up!” You giggled, striding back over to the bed where he slotted you between his legs. 

“Nah, you’re gonna sit right here while I draw you a bath. And I’m gonna run to the coffee place across the street and get ya one of those sugary drinks ya like so much. Then we can go out, if ya feel up to it.” His demanding tone made you smirk, his military tendencies tended to come out when he was concerned about you. 

“That sounds perfect, love.” You kissed his cheek, sitting on the bed as he headed to the bathroom. 

The rest of the day passed quickly, leaving you longing for more cozy time with Frank. Though he considered himself lacking in the romance department, he’d provided you nothing but pure love on your day off, indulging your every whim just to see you smile. 

And as you fell asleep at the end of the day, you clung tightly to him, trusting him to get you through whatever life threw your way.

[lilbeanblogsabit]

Ok, I have to ask, what is a full flow staged combustion and why is it the best rocket engine despite being overly complex?

Ohhhhh Anon you have NO clue what you just did...

This is going to be a super run down version of things, because I could write an entire 10 page paper.... ok here we go...

Ok so a Full Flow Staged Combustion Engine is a type of rocket engine that has incredibly high specific impulse, is incredibly efficient, and general wear and tear on the engine, leading to easier reuse.

The name can be broken down into 3 parts. "Full Flow" "Staged Combustion" and "Engine."

Starting with the simple one, the "Engine" bit is not the 2.0 L 4-cylinder that you find in the back of your Aunts Prius, its a rocket engine. These produce quite a bit more power.

Staged Combustion relates to how the propellants are combusted. In this kind of rocket engine, that process happens over several "stages" hence the name "Staged combustion". The first stage is a pre-burner which atomizes the propellants, and then injects the atomized propellants into the main combustion chamber.

Full flow relates to the propellants that flow into the engine. Every rocket engine needs 2 things, the first being fuel and the second being oxygen. Full flow simply means that both the oxygen and fuel are being put through the staged combustion process as I explained above.

Ok... now onto why its so good. Due to the nature of the pre-burner, which atomizes the fuel and the oxygen needed to run the engine, both the fuel and oxygen are already in their gaseous forms.

All this means it is WAY easier for them to mix together, which leads to more efficient combustion, and therefore a more efficient rocket engine.

2nd reason, and this is a TON of math and silence and equations so I will just make it very simple.

There is this thing called Enthalpy, and for the sake of this all you need to know is it helps show how much heat is absorbed or released during a process. Higher the Enthalpy the more effective you are, but also the more heat you produce.

But, there is also another variable, which is Flow, specifically how much of what you can pass through what in what time. since you have 2 pre-burners, the load is essentially cut in half, meaning you can pass a whole of a lot heck more fluids, at lower temperatures.

And the more you pass, the more calculated and efficient you can be, the more efficient you can be, the more the engine can lift into space. So the lower temperatures + being able to flow more things through means you can flow things through faster, and there for also get more power out of the engine.

Lost? Does it sound incredibly complicated? Duh! Its rocket science! and it is one of the most impressive pieces of engineering that has been created on this planet. Everything has to go Perfectly or bad things happen.

Truth be told it is complex, but what you get out of it is a incredibly efficient and high powered rocket engine, and currently only 1 engine being flow, so far quite successfully, even though its still in its developmental phase. It quite literally is on the cutting edge of bi-propellant rocket engines.

...Hows that for a Dumb Baby @enby-foxx? What other Babies know rocket science? huh? HUH?

Thanks for the ask anon... I'm pretty sure your going to be overwhelmed lol... but gosh I love that yall are willing to engage with my kinky likes AND my non kinky ones!

[writingtraumaforever]

Uncontrolled Chaos: Chapter 23

Notes: Kinda short. Sorryyyy! My weeks are getting busier as the holidays approach. But I'm trying!

Summary: The alt. gang comes up with a plan, and Shadow tries to reach out more.

UC Masterpost!

Link to my AO3!

Start:

One of the many perks of Sonic moving in with Shadow is he isn’t home to lecture Tails about sleep anymore.

Well. To Tails it’s a perk, to Sonic it’s an absolute problem and worry.

Either way, the kid worked his little ass off on his chaos studies and applied it to some adjustments he made to his communicator. He’s gotten pretty far on it, and is confident it could work. He just needs to manage to make the connection with their Shadow’s own wrist communicator he was given when he became a part of the team. And connecting across dimensions is easier said than done.. especially when one of said wrist communicators hasn’t been adjusted to do that.

It’ll be a one-way communication for a bit, but he’s hoping their Shadow will find a way to have his own wrist com updated to communicate back. Surely he can get in contact with the other world’s Tails and have him help.

This has all been buzzing in his head nonstop, sleep being a far away thought despite how he nods off at his workbench now and then. He tries to make up for it by playing loud music here and there or drinking some coffee. He doesn’t really like the stuff, but it’s effective.

He’s currently screwing in a micro screw when he hears the familiar rumble of the Dark Flyer from outside. Ears perking at the sound, he stands to look out the window and see Sonic and Shadow arriving with Knuckles gliding down to a landing beside them. He’s instantly excited to show them the work he’s done so far, eager to see their reaction to how impressive it all is. That, and he maybe craves Shadow and Sonic’s approval a little too much..

Quickly rushing to his workshop’s door, he swings it open and waves them in as they shut off the bike, “Hey guys! Come on in!!”

Sonic smiles upon seeing his brother, but there’s a slant to his smile when he also sees the dark bags under his eyes and the way his two tails droop with exhaustion..

“Hey buddy,” he greets, walking over with the other two, “you get any sleep last night??”

“Not important,” Tails quickly dodges the question by waving it off, turning to run over to his workbench, “What’s important is I think I may have found a way to communicate with our Shadow through dimensions.”

Shadow speaks now, “Already??”

“Yup! I told you I could do it. I’m very efficient,” he assures with a nod.

Shadow just nods in an impressed way, not questioning the kid after seeing all the modifications the Dark Rider has. 

“I see you guys brought Knuckles,” Tails smiles eagerly, “Good. I think he may be able to help us with the last link I need to completing my multi-dimensional communicator. ’MDC’ for short.”

Sonic whistles at the sight of the fancy gizmo Tails has whipped up sitting on his workbench, “That thing looks pretty cool, Tails. How’s it work??”

“Well— it doesn’t.”

Shadow frowns. Sonic just smirks, confident his brother has a solution in mind already.

He’s right.

“But it will. It just needs a power source that’ll manipulate time and space.”

“You need a chaos emerald,” Knuckles adds simply, arms crossed as he looks the little machine Tails has made over.

“Exactly,” Tails nods, “At least one. And seeing as they were all recently scattered around the world again..”

“We need to go on a good ole fashion treasure hunt,” Knuckles smirks now, excited about finding the emeralds again. This is what he was best at! 

“Do we have any leads on where any could be??” Shadow asks with a quirk of his brow.

“Well, we have my chaos tracker,” Tails says, gesturing to the X Tornado parked off to the side of the large garage, “It’s always done us well before.. but I’ve also heard a certain National Organization may have already gotten their hands on one..”

“GUN?” Sonic frowns.

“Exactly,” Tails nods, “Figure while we take the Tornado hunting for the emeralds, we can contact some extra help to infiltrate the place and swipe it.”

“I can,” Shadow says confidently, “I know how to handle GUN.”

“Too risky,” Tails shakes his head, “Can’t have them picking up on what we’re doing or the fact you’re an alternate Shadow. They’ve been trying to get their hands on our Shadow for years, they’d go nuts to get their hands on one from another dimension.”

Shadow hums at this, wanting to argue but unable to. The kid has a point.

Knuckles frowns, “Then who..?”

“Weeeelll…,” Tails smiles slow and nervous, knowing Knuckles isn’t gonna like the answer.

“Nope..,” Knuckles immediately shakes his head, “No. Not her. Anyone but her.”

“She’s one of the best jewel thieves on the planet, Knuckles! And she works for them, so she already knows the place inside and out.”

“But how do we know we can trust her??” Sonic points out, “She hasn’t exactly been shy about double-crossing us before..”

“She’ll want payment,” Knuckles huffs, rolling his eyes and already hating the idea of working with that bat, “She won’t risk her job for nothing.”

“We don’t even know if she’ll agree to then,” Sonic points out with a shrug, “And whose to say she won’t just keep it for herself once she has it??”

“I’ll talk to her,” Shadow inputs, knowing good and well the only person they could be talking about is his partner. All three of the others looking at him now.

He shrugs, “I may not know her in this dimension, but I know Rouge. I can get her to cooperate.” He’s confident in this. “She’s certainly mischievous and conniving, but she’s not unreasonable. If she knows it’s a matter of life or death, she’ll come to our aid.”

“Right..,” Sonic says quietly, eyeing Shadow, “You’re friends with her in your world..”

“I am so sorry,” Knuckles apologizes sympathetically as though the thought of being friends with Rouge is absolutely tragic for anyone.

Shadow just rolls his eyes and huffs, “We’re partners. Not friends.”

Okay, maybe they’re friends. But he isn’t gonna just say that.

“Well, that sounds pretty solid to me,” Tails nods with a shrug, looking at the other two now, “Sonic and I will take the Tornado. Knuckles and Shadow can contact Rouge.”

“Why me?!” Knuckles protests with wide eyes.

Tails just deadpans him, “Because you have her number, and we all know it.”

Sonic bites his lips together, looking at Knuckles and trying not to laugh at his face. Not every day you get called out by a thirteen year old. 

Shadow just smirks, raising a brow at the blushing echidna.

Knuckles flounders a moment, trying to think of some comeback or defense. But he eventually settles on jerking his phone out instead and marching outside while grumbling, “I have to make a call..”

Sonic snorts and Tails just shakes his head with a sigh.

Shadow watches with slight amusement. Just another one of those constants in the multiverse it seems. No matter what world, Rouge seems to have her claws hooked in that echidna.

“Welp. I’ll ready the Tornado,” Tails concludes as he makes his way to the plane.

“That kid so doesn’t need to be driving that tired,” Sonic sighs with a fond shake of his head.

When he turns to look at the blue hedgehog, Shadow finds a slightly nervous look on Sonic’s face..

He ponders this a moment, his mind going back to what he overheard on Angel Island..

He’s worried about Shadow. Both Shadows. Him included. And he likely isn’t fond of the idea of being separated from him..

Eyeing the hedgehog for a pause, he eventually reaches out and places a hand awkwardly on Sonic’s shoulder. Sonic tenses a bit, obviously not expecting any form of touch to have been engaged by the hybrid.

He wants to tell Sonic to be careful. Show he cares, that he’s not a total asshole.. maybe the familiarity of Shadow showing concern will comfort him??

Instead, what comes out is:

“Don’t be stupid.”

Welp.

That was something at least.

Sonic snorts a bit at that, looking at Shadow now with a raised brow, “Kinda random. And I hate to break it to you, but stupid is how I roll.”

“I know,” Shadow deadpans before adding, “But you need to be.. safe.”

Sonic blinks at this. This painfully awkward attempt at showing concern. It’s endearing as hell and extremely nostalgic for Sonic’s first few months with his own Shadow.

He would tease him.. except, he doesn’t want to discourage good behavior.

So instead, he settles on a little smile and, “Yeah. I will be, no worries.”

Shadow nods, removing his hand from Sonic’s shoulder a bit tensely— like a robot, “Good.”

Sonic nods in return, “You too, by the way. Be safe.”

Shadow nods, crossing his arms again as his gaze shifts to the fox preparing the plane, “I’m always safe.”

“You literally got all of us into this mess in the first place by not being safe!” Sonic points out with a chuckle. Shadow can’t help but sheepishly smile in return, “Fair.. but my track record is pretty safe.”

Sonic snickers at that, Shadow giving an amused hum in response.

It’s progress.

And it’s.. not so bad, Shadow finds. Initiating contact with the hedgehog. Initiating physical contact with the hedgehog. It’s not as near impossible as he thought it to be. Nor is the hedgehog as insufferable about it as he expected him to be.

There’s the vague sound of yelling from outside, muffled by the workshop walls. Sonic and Shadow both glancing to the door Knuckles had stepped out through, the blue hedgehog chuckling with an eye roll, 

“Must’ve contacted Rouge.”

“Must’ve.”

“They like that in your world, too?”

“Constantly,” Shadow sighs with an exhausted shake of his head at the thought of one of Rouge’s endless rants about the red echidna, “Can’t hardly go on a mission without her rambling on and on about their latest interaction. Whether it be an argument or a date. Most the time it’s both.”

Sonic hums at this, “So they see each other then?”

“They’re complicated, but it’s pretty common knowledge that if anyone dared to hit on either one of them, the other would show up to kick ass.”

Sonic snorts a bit, “Cool. Cool.. so when you said you and Rouge were partners and not friends..”

Shadow blinks at this, turning his head to look at Sonic who is trying to look nonchalant about it but failing miserably. 

Does he— does he think Shadow and Rouge are—

“No,” he states firmly, “Not like that. I meant we work together. On a team.”

“Oh,” Sonic smiles a bit more at that, seeming slightly more at ease with this information, “A team, huh??”

“Yes, Team Dark.”

The hedgehog chokes out a laugh at that, Shadow’s eyes narrowing at him.

“Team Dark??? That’s so fuckin’ on the nose, dude—“

“Team Hero..?”

Sonic’s laughing stops immediately.

“Touché.”

[parsnippety]

Brainstorming-

Mkay I have several ideas for alien/human posts so I'm putting them here before I forget. If this gets popular maybe I'll actually write some lol

Songs/singing : sounds being very powerful w/ other species; the most severe (?) sounds you'll find are soft clicks/rumbling and most languages developed through touch / what we'd call sign language. So these species are mesmerized by human singing cause they either can't do it / don't have enough control over the pitch of their voice or they "hear" by feeling vibrations and process tones differently.

This has endless possibilities- a human singing softly while working and causing some extreme reaction in the mechanics of the ship or their crewmates, humans taking over ships by accessing the intercom system, humans knowing the first thing to do if they're kidnapped is to yell at a really low pitch then a really high one cause chances are one of them will do something, videos of humans harmonizing becoming really popular (and being banned in several galaxies), two humans realizing they both know a song with a harmony and proceeding to sing it (causing everyone on the ship to stop what they're doing and just listen in awe), sign language becoming the main form of communication and ships having soundproof rooms so humans can talk to each other / themselves...

Species variation : most species didn't figure out efficient space travel for millions of years. Pair that with gene editing (to get rid of "imperfections"- usually this portion of the species' history is their "dark age"), and each individual looks pretty much identical. Most species have some sort of fetishized/slur word for individuals with any kind of abnormality, cause they're really really rare at this point. Think crocodiles; maybe some color variations but they've stayed more or less the same for millions of years. But humans? No two look the same- except maybe identical twins, but they could have different haircuts (don't even get me started on body modifications- other species do it, sure, but humans are already so different that it makes them a nightmare to teach about.) And in space the beauty standards are all over the place so if you want tattooed stripes you can get them- but wait, aren't there already some humans with stripes? And pointed ears? Dyed hair?

There's also the constant battle between human willpower and circumstance. When other species carefully figure out how to turn and move around an obstacle, humans are literally slingshotting themselves off of it. But for every death-defying feat, there are God knows how many feat-defying deaths. One human got an adrenaline rush and lifted an entire gnarflax. Another fainted 'cause they stood up too fast. Most species have clearly defined limits, so there's no pressure to push past them.

And mimicry : As if humans' vocal range isn't enough (what's that clicking? Sounds like a xhrhghfnl from my home planet- nope, it's John. Machinery malfunctioning? Alarms? Nope. F***ing John.), they can also make disguises and act. See, most species can manipulate the holograms or whatever but there's no way they'd be able to do convincing impressions in real time. Just going for it? Completely irrational.

One time, a human even convinced an entire rhusngi fleet that she was a rhusngi inspector "in disguise". (Honestly that line should've given it away but it walked and moved with the same mannerisms- the same- I don't even know. We were completely- what's that human expression?- shook.)

Not knowing what someone's going/been through unless they tell you is a completely novel concept. Imagine a human acting all violent when you take over their ship so you put 'em in the brig somehow, only to pull up the camera feed later and see them sobbing or completely frozen in a fetal position, or even worse- hurting themselves somehow. But the second you go down there, they're spitting curses at you and showing zero signs of weakness.

If anyone wants to write about these pls go right ahead. Sorry if they've already been done/overused (if they have, please lmk so I can go read them).

[nowtoboldlygo]

so anki is the love of my life, and i'd like to discuss it re language learning.

spaced repetition systems in general

SRSs are helpful tools to prevent memory loss for specific facts. there's some criticism behind the specifics, but it's pretty safe to say that it's good to have a huge flashcard deck with relevant flashcards where you review the new-to-you stuff with relative immediacy and your already-reviewed stuff with relative distance.

flashcard model recommendations

go for a monolingual deck!!! if you absolutely can't, edit the flashcard to monolingual after you're vaguely familiar with the word!!! (i use wordreference - it's good but imperfect)

edited to add - a TL/NL vocab deck can be very efficient if languages are from the same family

i use a picture for the front unless the vocab word is too high concept, and using a picture would just be misleading/ineffectual.

i use soundclips about half the time - i pull clips from wiktionary, forvo, & the collins dictionary.

i use the fill-in-the-blank feature (cloze) pretty heavily with antonyms, and if i'm trying to remember specific usages of common words/phrases

i also use the fill-in-the-blank feature for chunking, altho i use this fairly rarely

i recommend 25 new words daily, or anything that'll set you for your regular pomodoro time for studying vocab (which is 25 mins for me).

i'm not at an advanced level yet for language learning, but this format is recommended for higher levels!

i lowkey recommend including example sentences on the backside, re chunking, but the utility really can depend on the vocab word

limitations

some limitations are a bit obvious - the quality of your study is 100% down to the quality of the flashcard (e.g. accuracy, relevancy, does it need more explanation for you to understand it)

it's also a hell of a time-suck to create these decks. i study 25 new cards a day, which means i have to create about two hundred flashcards every week. i make this quicker by having an ongoing list of words to add to my deck, instead of trying to look up vocab lists or whatever in the moment. i also do the whole week at once because i do get into the rhythm of dictionary-picture-audio searching while watching tv or whatever.

there are some fun add-ons (like for deadlines), and some complicated customization within anki itself. i usually just google if i have a question - a ton of people use anki, so there are tutorials for almost anything you want to do.

fluent forever

if you're unfamiliar, the fluent forever guy wrote a book about language learning which really hinges on a specific model of flashcard. he has tons of tutorial videos on his website, but basically he incorporates the phonetic alphabet, Google Images, and other relevant info for a vocab word (and grammar) in a flash card.

i think his flashcards take an unrealistic/unproductive amount of time, with a bunch of useless filler. however, i do recommend doing a quick read-through of his model and reasoning, as he might speak to something that you're struggling with. (for example, i've never struggled significantly with pronunciation so i think the IPA stuff is 100% useless.)

here's an integration to create the fluent forever flashcards much much faster. i don't use it but i've seen it recommended before.

outside of language learning!

i've used anki to learn for my work certification, for english vocab words from books i'm reading, and for titles of paintings that i want to remember forever. i wouldn't recommend shared decks for language learning, but i emphatically recommend them for other subjects!

[sugolara]

Disappear

ft. Katsuki Bakugo x Shoto Todoroki x Izuku Midoriya x fem! reader

Synopsis: After a deadly virus leaks all over the world, every country is forced to close down it's borders and airports to prevent anyone from coming in and out. Though, it's to late for some people. The dead has rose and is looking for revenge. Cw: gore, quirkless! au, apocalypse! au, zombie! au, weapons, death, angst, lots and lots of blood, cannibalism, suicidal thoughts, slow burn

previous || series m.list || next

Shoes crunching leaves of different shades, the three walked through the woods that surrounded the city Rhote. With the moon already up, they were thankful for the fresh cool air, though they had to be wary of any lingering rotter as they didn't have any flashlights to help.

At every noise they heard, they would still their movements and have their weapons ready. Occasionally, the culprits would be the critters that roamed the woods, a few being rotters that rested against the trees with moss growing on their melting bodies. After countless restless nights, it was evident that paranoia was showing.

F/n quieted her yawn, "Please let there be a house nearby."

Beside her, Katsuki swatted flies away, brows furrowed in annoyance at their buzzing, "I doubt it. Theres nothing but trees and these damn fucking flies that are begining to piss me the fuck off."

"Maybe they are attracted to you because you smell." She shrugged watching the blonde mockingly laugh as he glared at her. "Aren't you fucking funny. You smell like shit too."

"I meant it in a nice way." She said, waving her hand in the air to shake off the flies.

"There is no nice way when you're covered in sweat and blood and other different types of shit." He scoffed, examining her clothes, "Don't tell me that you spent your whole life smelling like ass and thinking it's normal."

"Actually, I did." She thought back to her camping days and she should have mentioned that part as the blonde gave her a disgusted face, "Not the normal part, but it was very efficient for attracting animals."

"What?" He wanted to laugh, but he swallowed it down, "What the hell are you even talking about?"

In front of them, Izuku shook his head as he let out a quiet sigh. He too had the same thought when he told her something about beavers. He had actually spaced out trying to imagine how she had done the process and it felt too rude to ask her to repeat it when the conversation finished. However, she probably should have left this one to herself as the blonde looked like he was about to run off.

"I'm talking about attracting animals." She waved her hand, "You know?"

"No, I fucking don't." He looked at her as if she was crazy, "Are you saying you have a thing for ...animals?"

This time she looked at him as if he was crazy, "What are you talking about?"

"What are you talking about!?" He quietly shouted.

"I'm talking about attracting animals as a trap." She again waved her hand, expecting him to know, "So I can kill it for dinner."

"You could have said that in the first place." He rolled his eyes, "And why the fuck would I even know that information?"

"I don't know, you look like the type of guy to know that." She responded with a shrug.

"Well I don't and its pretty fucking weird how you even know that." He scoffed, giving her a suspicious look, "How do you know that?"

She hummed, her eyes on the back of Izuku's head, "My father taught me. He's...an interesting person."

"That explains." He eyed her. Then he shook himself off, placing his hands in his pockets, "Well, thank fuck you don't have some sort of weird fetish, otherwise we're going to have a serious problem."

"What's that?" Izuku let out another sigh at her comment. It really was like Shoto was with them, except a female version, and a rather unique one. Pushing that aside, he was glad that she seemed more open to them. Three months in the woods was all it took for her to come out of her shell, or perhaps it was the home where she felt safe. Either way, he was just pleased with the way she was turning out to be.

With the two behind continuing to chat, Izuku kept his ears trained on any other voice that wasn't theirs. As he looked around him, in the very distance he spotted what seemed to be a building in the open with the woods surrounding the place. When he stopped, it caused the two behind him to do so as well, their voice no longer being heard as they stayed quiet.

He pointed to what's ahead of them, his voice being kept low, "There's a building up ahead."

Katsuki squinted as he tried getting a good look, but he could only see an outline, "It looks big."

"Probably a warehouse." Izuku mumbled, "The doors look too big."

She glanced around them, expecting for someone to be shown, "Watch out, anybody could be nearby."

Izuku hummed, "I don't know, it looks too clean and alone."

"I don't see any shoe print either." Katsuki said as he looked down around them. With the little moonlight that showed, he was able to see partially.

"We should still be careful." Izuku said before carefully proceeding forward, "Stay low."

They crouched as they walked by the bushes to hide their figures and when they saw nothing suspicious, they quickly headed for the double wide doors. There seemed to be a chain lock hanging on one of the handles and thankfully enough, the lock was undone. So quietly, Izuku opened the doors, letting his friends inside before closing the door behind him.

The building was dark, much expected due being night, but the windows high above the walls did allow some light to enter. The blonde reached into the small pocket of his bag. He pulled out a lighter and with a click, the fire bounced off his face. He extended his arm, shining the lighter until he was shown next to him where a crate rested and on top of it was a flashlight.

"So damn dark in here." F/n said, her eyes trying to squint in the darkened. The boy next to her agreed, using the moonlight as help, "Watch your steps."

With a flashlight in hand, Katsuki placed the lighter away as he turned the light on. The bright light caused them to shield their eyes, but when they regained vision, their eyes had grew.

"Oh my..." Izuku eyed tall racks of shelves stocked with supplies.

"This is months of supplies." F/n mumbled, "Who the hell even managed to grab all this in a short amount of time?"

Snapping out of his daze, Katsuki glanced to find a couple duffel bags. Grabbing them he handed it to the other two, "Hurry up and grab everything. Someone isn't dumb enough to leave all this behind."

Agreeing, the three separated as they noticed the shelfs held different items. While Katsuki and Izuku stayed at the front, F/n headed to the back as she had spotted what looked like a gun. She ended up grabbing a flashlight on her way there and perched it above her as she crouched to place the weapons in her bag.

She could have smiled if it weren't for the fact that this place seemed to clean for it to be left abandoned. Not to mention, someone wouldn't leave this place unlocked if it contained many supplies. Either who ever claimed this building was around or was already in there with them.

And to her amusement, her thoughts were answered as she felt the tip of a gun press behind her head as well as the sound of a quiet cold voice, "Try anything and I'll shoot."

The guns laying around her were probably emptied and even if they weren't the person behind her had the advantage. It only took a second for the trigger to be pulled, so to keep her head intact she listened at his orders. "Stand up."

The male behind her watched as she carefully stood up, her hands were by her side though her fingers twitched. He saw a flashlight up ahead, but he couldn't pinpoint how many were with her due to their careful movements, "How many are with you?"

The last thing she wanted to do was endanger her fellow companions. If she tried to be cocky or if she tried to play something that he didn't like she already knew her outcome. To keep herself and the males safe, she carefully turned to face him, hearing the gun cock and the gun still aimed at her.

Taking in his figure, ignoring his two toned hair and a scar on his right eye, she let her eyes discreetly glance at his height. Due to the dark clothing he wore, she wasn't able to see how muscular he was, but she didn't mind, "I don't want any trouble. I'll grab my stuff and we'll be on our way."

He scoffed, eyeing her like the gum underneath his shoe, "No."

Taking his answer, she nodded and glanced away before quickly shifting her body to the side and hooking her arm underneath his extended one. She then elbowed him and the sudden impact allowed a chance for the gun to clatter. With the opportunity she unlatched from him and headed for the gun, but he refused to let her as he pulled her back, shoving her behind him.

However, before she could fall, she grabbed onto his sweater, both tumbling to the floor. A grunt was emitted from her mouth as he elbowed her stomach, right where her wound was. Thankfully, it had healed, but it still hurt.

Before he could get up, she wrapped her hands around his chest and with her legs she pushed herself off the floor, turning over to where he could be underneath her. She let her weight lean on him ignoring the male trying to pry her arms away as his arms stayed glued to his hide. While he did so, she looked around for the gun, the male struggling as he did his best to not alert her friends, but he wasn't sure how long he could take it as he needed the upperhand.

Though sure enough he got it when the girl had unintentionally placed her hand near his face and without hesitation he bit into it causing her to let out a yelp and soon her arms unwrapped. With her weight no longer on him he pushed himself off the floor before brutally kicking her to the shelf behind them, causing it to stumble with a creak before falling. The amount of supplies had tumbled over her and she quickly wrapped her arms to protect her head, but with her vision being blocked she failed to see the male grab the gun, ready to fire at her.

His heavy breathing failed to notice the rushing footsteps behind him as his mind wanted to pull the trigger, eyes watching the girl move the boxes of supplies off her. From when he first spotted her he just wanted to scare her off, but when saw others with her he figured he could tie them up and drop them off somewhere far away, giving him enough time to pack and leave.

But she just had to ruin everything and now as the girl removed a box from her face he was able to get a good look at her. For a girl, he had to give it to her. He really thought she had him there.

Gritting his teeth, his finger twitched against the trigger, his eyes never leaving her piercing glare and just before he could shoot a short gasp and what sounded like his name was heard behind him as he quickly turned only for a bullet to echo through the building.

Eyes widening, Katsuki briskly reached to grab Izuku before he could crash to the floor. His widened eyes stare at the blood that trickled down Izuku's shoulder, a nice round gunshot wound embedded. He turned to glare at the girl and boy, eyes hardened, "What the fuck did you guys do!?"

Releasing a breath, F/n stood up, her throat clogging up as she looked at Izuku's fainted figure. The gun in her hand, the one she managed to find suddenly and the one she pulled the trigger only to miss, fell to the floor, "I..I didn't mean to."

Hearing her voice, the scar eyed male once again spinned to face her, this time gun ready to fire at her but before he could pull, Katsuki stopped him, "She's with us, Icyhot!"

His hand didn't waver, but he did let go of the trigger as his glare did not soften, "She just shot one of us! You expect me to let it go!?"

Adjusting Izuku, the blonde scoffed, eyes going back to Shoto and F/n, "We'll figure it out afterwards, but right now if we don't help Deku, he'll bleed out! So work with me!"

The girl swallowed harshly, her eyes never leaving Izuku, "He's right, we can hash out our feud later."

As the girl went to pass by Shoto, he quickly used the handle part of the gun, hitting the back of her head before kicking her. He glared down at her, "I'll figure it out right now."

She let out a groan at the blunt force. She didn't have time to reach for her head as Shoto kicked her down. On her knees and hands she tried standing up, her vision swarming in darkness as another hit was marked and the last thing she heard was Katsuki's voice telling him to stop. 

[kradeelav]

so one of the technical bits i challenged myself with this gunter/corrin doujin was to:

(a) figure out an efficient process for professional multi-page artistic works in linux/true OSS programs - from ideation all the way to printer hand-off.

and

(b) a process that fit well with my brain and kept me from spinning my wheels endlessly redoing pages. it's a common problem with longer projects (aka why you see reboots of webcomics all the time, and also why i haven't been able to get "what greater sin" out for three years cuz i sucked at this lol).

why the focus on process though?

after mastering a certian degree of technical proficiency. it's what separates the hobbyist artists from the pros. not to toot my horn, but i'm quite good at project management process at work, and about two years ago it dawned on me to take some of that learned knowledge and actually apply it here if only to save eyestrain/wrist-strain time.

work lazier smarter, not harder etc.

before i get into the process outline, there's two programs that are doing the heavy lifting since i gave them a trial run with the last anthology and they worked great in tandem. (both cost no money and are available on all major OS's btw)

krita, my main drawing program. sketching/inking/speech bubbles/coloring/vector stuff can all be done here.

libreoffice writer - basically microsoft word for linux. i use it for arranging multiple pages, reordering, and exporting as .pdf to give to the printer (while amazing at rendering, krita can't export as pdf or show multi-pages)

so!

process wise, it occurred to me not too long ago that i needed to consolidate my multi-page creative projects into 3 major gates.

thumbnail sketches

proof of concept layout

"last 10" final

thumbnail sketches

thumbnails are a common concept in comics, but they're great for print front/back matter too. thumbnails ain't here to look pretty, their sole purpose to get the idea from your noggin to on the page.

here's a completely unaltered spread from my journal with a ton of thumbs and notes for this doujin.

so what's the kind of stuff i think about with thumbs?

how panels in a comic fit together with the major emotional beats + line of action. does the eye follow the pages naturally? do you "feel" the emotional impact?

does the compositions work with each other? negative/positive space, weight on top or bottom or diagonally, etc. do the pages feel claustrophobic or too empty? do they breathe?

decorative framing elements that reflect the tone you want + how they generally lead the eye across the page

random notes about overall tone or potential future pages

etcetc

at this point i import that digitally, and start drawing a proper sketch off of it.

fast forward from that sketch to:

"proof of concept" layout

i'm calling this proof of concept instead of a draft as they serve different purposes. a draft is a half-finished work you can just screenshot and show to anyone for feedback (like comms). proof of concept here is showing a certian level of completeness across draft pages to measure consistency.

lack of consistency is the mind killer killer of comics.

proof of concept is specifically meant to nip the 'fizzled out halfway' issues in the bud. it's to show you how cool it looks altogether already, but also shed a light on problem areas that are potentially popping up on the earlier side, so there's less time wasted.

this is a little premature in the process for a proof of concept screenshot, but you get the idea here in a later strip, shown here as screenshots imported into libreoffice writer:

another reason that made libreoffice writer essential is the accurate 2-page spread view. between that, being able to resize the page to whatever you need, and the very easy pdf exporter (with customizable compression), i don't know if i could do this kind of project here.

now, backing up - what kinds of consistency are we checking for here?

does the inking/coloring style change noticeably in a jarring way?

is there one comic strip that the pacing/paneling sucks in comparison to the others? or feels awkwardly added in tone and perhaps better saved for a different project?

is there one panel within a sequential series that's torturing you? what's the best way to throw it out and redo it even faster?

do the front/back matter support the meat of the inside in a clever, on-tone way?

did you accidentally change the font halfway through after you liked your new shiny toy? which one works better?

etc

keep in mind we're not just checking the consistency in one strip, it's for the book as a whole.

and then lastly,

"the last ten" final

"the last ten" is a mental concept i've used for the last ten years for single comic pages. it's especially tempting to noodle over endlessly making one comic page perfect, when you could have done ten reasonably good ones in the same time, and so i made this my last step making IC pages.

once when you approach a level of reasonably done, but kinda hate the page and are procrastinating on getting it out, stop, rest your eyes overnight, and list the last ten minor things you'd change.

once when you've changed those? out the door it goes.

i'm gonna switch to a different project but here's a good example of a "last ten" stage applied to illustrations when i did fallen!gunter's FEH mockups.

looks pretty complete, right? WRONG :D

i can't remember the exact last ten i used, but it was something like:

too much of one specific glowy purple on both, i wanted more contrast with the red glow + "water" texture

needed more effects on the first image to better match FEH's aesthetic

change Leigh's credits after they got a chance to see it and give the thumbs up

knee/shin on left looks unfinished painting wise, clean up

missing chest plate silver decorations on left, clean up

etc

this is the last hail mary check to hack your brain into being satisfied with the page. you've had your say, onwards to the next one.

now, you can also have an additional 'last ten' for the project as a whole. but it's especially critical for comic pages to help keep the momentum/tempo/pace going.

anyway!

we'll see how all of this actually works in practice depending on how fast i can get this doujin out. :)

[horizon-verizon]

I see that you have a lot of knowledge and I have a question. Why don't they end the blockade of KL by sending Vhagar to burn the fleet? Why was a naval intervention necessary? Especially once Meleys dies.Was that space between his death and the search for riders not big enough? What was Aemond doing that he couldn't take 5 minutes and go?

(I'll be honest, the timeline confuses me a little)

Well, first, it wouldn't be "five minutes and go":

And this was the Gullet of Blackwater Bay, where the Velaryons made their blockade:

These are the plans the blacks made at the first black council, after Rhaenyra is forced to birth the stillborn Visenya ("The Blacks and the Greens"):

Here Daemon makes it clear that it'd be dumb for any green and their dragon to approach their waters or anywhere close to their castle with all their dragons as it would be also dumb for the blacks to try to take KL when the greens are still there.

If you see the distance b/t KL and Harrenhal, you'll see that it's a little longer than that b/t the closest waters to Driftmark and KL. Which is pretty far even for a single dragon ride. Aemond took a little more than two weeks to get to Harrenhal while sticking close to the main part of his army ("Rhaenyra Triumphant"):

So I believe that if he hadn't decided to stick to the army's pace or hold Vhagar back to a pace he thought would cover that army's best speed while not being "too slow" (which could have been still slower than he could get), it would have taken Aemond at least a 5-7 days to reach Harrenhal on dragonback if he really decided to go alone. Again, that's what i am guessing.

There's already a big thing abt dragon vs raven speed, how it's possible ravens can get to a place faster than an approaching dragon in the fandom (and my answer to that is that it takes a while for the armies that these riders amass and wait for to be ready to set out, while a person who has observed these plans can ready an already destination-knowing raven can send said raven before the actual army arrives at the same place...like what happened with Aemond, Daemon, Harrenhal. If you look through Targs and their wars, the dragonriders almost nearly never leave their army behind to preemptively attack, or those dragons usually fought right after the 2 separate armies made contact and fought "normally" until the dragon v dragons came out and I'm talking about Maegor vs Aegon the Uncrowned. Dragons vs other dragons fought above the still fighting armies or if there were only dragons on one side, that dragon would be flaming the other side as their armies fought that side....thus why they are so efficient).

Why does all this matter? Since the distances SEEMS pretty similar b/t KL and Driftmark/Dragonstone vs KL & Harrenhal, I BELIEVE that Aemond didn't want to get into close range with the blacks' dragons who were all on Dragonstone and the blockade blocked the Blackwater Bay from the Narrow Sea. Such proximity where he was closer to them than he was to DrStone w/o being able to flee faster than they could get him.

Or/and Aemond couldn't or was pressed to not leave behind KL defenseless (as he later does and finds out just a few days after he takes Harrenhal w/Cole) if he were to attack the blockade, as he wouldn't make it back in time to block the blacks and their dragons. Yeah, there was Sunfyre, but still the greens had less battle-useable dragons and it's not advisable to send out your ruling king to fight. Plus, Helaena was no warrior/was the Queen Consort.

Another idea is that maybe the greens wished to preserve the fleet for future use for if/when they expected to win, but I doubt it since Otto orchestrated the Triarchy smashing through and trying to destroy the same fleet.

"Westeros" can be used to refer to the continent and a portion of the continent designated as the "Seven Kingdoms", btw. "The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros" = "the territories of this continent" nearly similar to the purpose of "The United States of America" being a part fo the Americas but also sometimes referred to as just "America". Thought this random nugget was appropriate here rather than another non-ask post.

[prismatoxic]

little known tox facts, because some of them were on my mind and it turned into a 10 item list

i have never personally played a fnaf game but have been closely following the lore for years, i love watching gameplay breakdowns, lore theories (not from fucking matthew patthew, i like notrealname notatall mostly), and longass video essays about what went wrong with the series. i will not give it money because of scott's politics but like i wasn't playing the games to begin with

in general i'm insane about video game tech and will gleefully watch anything talking about game design, channels/series like design delve, illusory wall, boundary break, tech rules, and game maker's toolkit are my SHIT

every single skill i have that i'm any good at is mostly or entirely self-taught. this isn't a humblebrag however, i frequently lag behind other people, don't perform these skills efficiently, and straight up am useless in imparting wisdom about them. writing is my best skill overall and at least some of that must be from my school years but i didn't understand how paragraph breaks worked until i got really into fanfic, so.

i'm so easy to please with media. i will walk out of most movies, shows, games, and works of literature feeling like i had a pretty good time. frequently i don't fully recognize what about it disappointed me until i've taken time to reflect on it, and this can alter my entire view of a work. if i intentionally bail on something before it's over, it fucking sucks and the likelihood of me giving it another chance is low. i do however just forget to go back to things a lot.

i'm a furry because of sly cooper. every other furry media i've gotten into is just a bonus. balto might also be slightly to blame but that's more of a general love for cartoon animals. speaking of furry video games i think star fox adventures was really good actually

i've moderated and/or been a part of so many profic spaces now that i have repeatedly had people spot me somewhere and go "oh my god of COURSE you're here" and it delights me every time

i was closer to the forefront of the cipherhunt back in 2016 than i've ever actually discussed in public. the at-the-time owner of r/gravityfalls was frustrated that the discord i became staff for had a larger userbase than his ~official~ gravity falls discord, as i recall. the reason i don't discuss any of this is because it's mired in bad memories, but it was fun to be a part of such a big community when shit wasn't going sideways. i owned that discord a while after the hunt ended, eventually passed it off to someone else, and have since either been kicked or the discord was deleted. i have no idea, lmao.

i met one of my best friends and my partner in the phineas and ferb fandom. i still have a scattered handful of other friends from those days too. my partner and i ran an "ask phinferb" blog, and yes i do mean the ship. it had such lore...! sadly it's been lost to time (was deleted). i do have all the old art but he'd kill me if i shared it.

i was already a fallout fan when new vegas came out (3 was my first, and i poured over every existing page of the wiki), but new vegas was extra special to me because i actually lived in nevada for several years--in the area new vegas takes place in, even! which isn't just the strip but a lot of the westernmost part of the state. i was so giddy recognizing places i'd been to, like bonnie springs, which... is a bombed husk of nothing in new vegas, but hey, i know that name!

i'm obsessed with canids (wolves and domestic dogs especially), but i've owned far more cats than i have dogs, so my knowledge of the two is comparable even though i'm only obsessed with one of them. (don't get me wrong, though, i fucking love cats.)

[shelandsorcery]

Astronomics Game Art : Designing Mining Equipment!

Gonna talk this week about designing mining equipment for the sci-fi game Astronomics - demo on steam right now! - And I thought I'd start with a little conversation about research and process (...that doesn't really have on a much art in it but just stay with me) and maybe get to tap in a little bit into how someone like me who doesn't do a lot of technical design learned a lot about how to get excited about that whole field through the research stage of this game.

So when I say research I really do mean fairly old-school research — and this is probably gonna be a theme with a lot of the posts about this game in particular, because I don't think you can build sci-fi without some understanding of engineering systems and current scientific realities to then play with, you know?

As you may gather from the trailer, Astronomics is a game about asteroid mining, among other things. Which meant that we had a lot of need for legit industrial feeling props and tools for the player to use, things that felt functional and believable without feeling complicated or delicate. I really enjoy the challenge of adding appeal to something that maybe people don't always think about being appealing or fun or cute (this is never an absolute statement — there's always somebody already able to see more appeal in any given subject and I could ever imagine) so part of the research stage is going and looking for that appeal. So above you can see a sheet of loose rough sketches I did in clip studio paint from reference that I gathered with the rest of the team and by myself that seemed relevant to some of the designs we were pursuing.

If you've had the chance to play the demo, you'll know that it's not just surface mining but we are going to be letting you mind gases and liquids and underground mineral veins as well — these are all things that people do in the real world of course, so process one was taking a quick look at those actual industries and then figuring out how I could condense that activity down into a pretty simple and easy to understand machine.

So turned out what we needed was something that drilled and dug, something that pumped liquids, something that sucked air, and all of these things needed to then produce some sort of container to hold what they had collected.

In a videogame you really need to communicate to the player why each act they do is significant and different from the others, and as the art director it was my job to figure how to do that through visual design of the tools they're going to be using. So that meant that even though you could certainly store liquid and gas and solid resources in the same kind of box, I wanted to try and find ways to keep each thing feeling different. Best case scenario is that you're able to look at a prop we've designed and know in a split second which of these three states of matter it will be containing; in the research stage one of the things I'm looking for is any existing visual language that we have (in this Western English-speaking North American videogame audience culture) that already solves this problem.

The great thing about industrial design is that they indeed have very intentionally tackled this problem. Part of it is purely physics optimization that the field of engineering has been working towards for human history. For example, when you're storing liquid and you want to remove all of it from a container you probably don't want something with corners — that's how you end up with cylindrical liquid storage. When you're storing a gas you're likely keeping it under pressure, which means you need a shape that will withstand pressure evenly, which means you're looking for something with literally no corners or edges ideally — and that's how you end up with bubble-shaped gas storage like a propane canister. And then when you're storing something solid and you want to use the space most efficiently and be able to stack whatever it is that you have packed it into, you have a box.

Real good news is, a box and a cylinder and a sphere are all wonderfully visually distinct shapes in a fantastically strong place to start when it comes to solving the question of storage. So then we get into the challenge of the machines themselves — what distinguishes a drill from a pump from a vacuum?

So that's the beginning of some of the questions that you have to answer when you're designing props for a game — in the research stage is only one of bunch of different ways you start figuring out these answers. But I want to talk for just a second a little bit about how I personally wrangle my research, because I am definitely not telling you this is the only way to do it. It seems like it may be worth explaining what I get out of this process and see if anything here make sense for you!

One of the reasons that I have this huge page of sketches, big and detailed or tiny and loose, all laid out in one place for me to look at, is because I personally learn and remember things more strongly by taking notes. With my hand holding a pencil ideally. And when they're abstract concepts or verbal or numerical then I'll use writing and I won't have a problem with it, but my job at this stage was not to figure out abstract concepts or to find themes — my job was to solve visual problems. So my first order of business was visual research specifically. Now for me, that involves lots of things — I have a Pinterest board for any sort of subcategory of stuff I'm researching to just do enormous broad research with; then I probably bring most of those images into a huge working .PSD file and move them around to create groupings. And then I start drawing.

I really think that drawing is integral for me at this stage. I don't think I could do this without drawing as part of my research. There's so much that I just don't bother noticing if I'm not going to be drawing the thing that I'm looking at; even the worst, fastest, sketchy as drawing makes me pay infinitely more attention to something then I do when I am simply collecting information mentally. I'm phrasing this in a somewhat exaggerated, self-deprecating way, but I really can't exaggerate how much more I get out of things when I sit down and draw them. They talk about drawing is a way of seeing, and for me that's a practice I've intentionally pushed and explored in my life.

The other thing, though, is that visual problem that I need to solve. Sometimes solutions to the problem aren't obvious until they are visualized — it can be very easy to get distracted by things like surface details and miss the silhouette language, or vice versa, but when you are doing the drawing you have to wrestle with the silhouette and the details and make decisions about them. Visual trends appear way more clear when you are drawing something for the 10th time as opposed to simply seeing it for the 10th time. And all of the layers of cultural meaning and context that clutter up a photograph can be simply ignored as you transfer only what you need to a drawing, where you might discover something that everything else hid until then. Beyond that, one of the things you may notice about the sketches is that they are somewhat cartoony — I'm certainly trying to capture important details and be representational to a degree, but much like gesture drawing the human figure, researching this way lets me start finding out what the gestures are of these different sorts of subject matter. This is something that I knew about creature design, and about flora design, and one of the real joys of this game in particular was proving to myself that this gesture approach applied to industrial machines and technology as well.

I mean, I knew that there were cute trucks out there, but gosh.

I think if you are in need of something to reinvigorate a particular piece of subject matter for you — if you're designing something that you are just not that excited about, or if you don't feel challenged by the work in front of you — I really think sitting and sketching from reference can open up the complexities and help push you and your work farther. It certainly works for me and I know that the learning I did on this game is something I carry with me to future projects as well.

That seems like a pretty strong place to leave this post in particular, but I'll be back later this week with more breakdowns and screen caps of the actual design process of all of our adorable mining equipment!

I would really love to hear from folks if you also engage in similar research processes before going into full design mode — or if you have a completely different way to get your mind revved up and ready to go, I would really enjoy reading about it!

In the meantime, if you're curious about mining asteroids but it's cute please feel free to check out the Astronomics demo on steam, I made an awful lot of visdev art for this and handed it off to some incredible game creators who have done some really impressive stuff taking their ideas and my ideas and running to honestly some pretty new and exciting places with them.

[askbensolo]

Journal Entry #51: Weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me in a Spacebucks

Ever since Poe and Beebee-Ate moved in, I’ve been buying caf in the morning more often, instead of making it at home. RIP my bank account.

See, Beebee is kind of hyper in the morning. When my alarm goes off, he rolls off his charging port and starts following me around. Even into the bathroom—like, bro. Personal space?? So, I’m kinda eager to just get out the door as soon as possible.

But, maybe Beebee-Ate is just my poor excuse. Because...coffeeshops in autumn? Vibes. I already admitted to you that I’m a sucker for seasonal beverages.

I'd had it in my mind to try to meditate before work. I had told Fannie I would. (This was before...stuff happened.) And over my morning caf seemed like a good time to do it. But…I never really ended up doing it. I guess I’m afraid of what I’ll see and hear, if I quiet my mind like that. I’m scared I’ll see whatever’s inside me that my mom seems so afraid of... Or, I’m scared I’ll see nothing at all.

Because...that’s how I’ve felt, lately. Like a husk. Holding my head above water, but just barely. Making it through. Texting my mom every day to keep her happy, and saying “Yes I love you I’ll tell my parents about you soon” to my sorta-girlfriend to keep her happy (guess I won't have to worry about that anymore at least), and showing up to work on time and generating five-hundred pieces of content to keep them happy, and lying to my uncle about my connection to the Force to keep him happy (won't have to worry about that anymore either I guess), and suppressing my urge to kick Beebee-Ate across the room like a football to keep my roommate happy (still have to deal with that unfortunately), and, well, I guess I kind of thought if I had my dream life in the city and a decently-paying job and a girl telling me every day that she loves me and I mean something to her and I’m not just a waste of space that I’d be happy, too, but—

…Frick. No. I can’t. See what I mean? I’m much better off keeping my introspection at bay.

And my little daily overpriced latte helps. Because it’s not just coffee. I am purchasing my sanity.

Somehow.

Even if it does cause me financial ruin in my thirties. But, hey—the way the New Republic is going, I don’t got a lotta hope for the decade ahead anyway!

And—well—I just made a little deal that'll set me up for life.

You’ll see.

So, anyway. Since I’m not meditating, I end up people-watching a lot. And, I end up watching Armitage a lot, because he is by far the most entertaining character of the ensemble. At first I thought he was the store manager, but then I saw him getting yelled at by the manager, so, I think he's just a shift leader or something.

But he wants to be the manager. I can see it in his eyes.

And I can tell this guy is a real psych case—someone clinging onto whatever little power he can grasp between his bony little service-gloved fingers—because he runs the place like a freaking military operation. Like, homie?? You do know you’re working minimum wage for a food service galacticorp, right?

I would soooo hate to work with him—but to give him credit, it’s the most efficient Spacebucks I’ve ever been to. Even at peak business hours. Armie runs a tight ship.

(I call him “Armie” in my head. One day it’s gonna come out of my mouth by accident, and dude’s gonna vault himself over the counter and try to murder me.)

(Well, try to murder me again, I mean. No, wait—I'm getting ahead of myself here—you'll see.)

So, last week, they got my order wrong. I brought it to the counter, and Armitage muttered “absolutely unacceptable” under his breath, and dragged over this poor zit-covered, sleep-deprived, college-kid barista by the scruff of his collar and publicly berated him in front of me and forced him to apologize to me and let me keep the first drink but upsized my new drink for free and remade it himself and forced the poor barista kid to watch him do it, and I’m pretty sure someone should report that as a workplace harassment incident—but it was also funny as hell, and sure made my day.

What I actually ordered was the korranut sweetgourd cold brew. But, I ended up kind of liking the first thing, too, so I came back to the counter to ask what it was. The traumatized barista kid ducked into the back when he saw me coming, so I flagged down Armitage.

“Yo, Armitage. What was in that first order?” I asked.

He blanched—as if he could get any paler. His eyes shifted around, like he was afraid who might hear. “What?” he whispered hoarsely.

I blinked a couple times. Was I insane? “Uhh…what was…in the first order…?”

He seemed to regain some composure, and squinted at me. “How do you know about the first order?” he hissed.

Now I was getting a little freaked out. “I…I tasted it?” I stuttered.

Then things got really weird.

He grabbed me by the wrist and took me behind the counter and pulled me into the back room. It happened so fast—my brain froze up. He was skinny as heck, but his grip was like iron. I could’ve beaten him up if I’d tried, but I was scared stiff. I threw terrified looks at the other baristas. Tried to say “help” with my eyes, but they just ignored me. The manager was nowhere to be seen. Either this was a normal occurrence to them, or they were too scared of Armitage to do anything.

Maybe both.

He pulled me into a storage closet and slammed the door behind us and shoved me back against the wall.

“Dude, what—”

“Who are you?” Armitage hissed. “I knew there was something I didn’t like about you from the start, Ben Quadinaros—if that even is your real name. Who sent you? How long have you been watching me?”

“I—I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I stuttered. I was bigger than him, but I don’t like when grown-ups yell at me—it doesn’t matter that I’m a grown-up now—I still don’t like it.

Armitage wrinkled his nose at me. As if I were literally garbage. (For reference, I am only figuratively garbage.) “What’s your real name, Ben Quadinaros?”

Was there a reason why I shouldn’t give him my real name? I didn’t know. Maybe? I couldn’t really think.

“Ben, uh...Calrissian?” I posed weakly.

He looked me over with a snarling grimace, seeming to feel I had insulted his intelligence. “No…no, I don’t believe that one bit. What is it really?”

The Solo snark won out. “Would you take Jabba the Hutt?” I asked.

He sneered. In an instant his hand flew to his hip, under his green apron, and I realized—OH, KRIFF ME—Armie was armed. It was Armitage Arkanis, in the broom closet, with the blaster. Ben Solo becomes a white outline on the floor. I got that horrible feeling all of a sudden like when you jump into hyperspace on a full stomach.

“Oh frick—geez—oh my Force—I’m—Ben—my name is—Ben Organa Solo!” I blurted, genuinely scared for my life. Because yeah, my life kinda sucks, but it doesn’t suck that bad—not bad enough to lose it to an unhinged ginger who’d smoke me in the back of a Spacebucks for, what—lying about my name?

“Solo,” Armitage said slowly, and his eyes flashed with recognition. “Yes. I knew it. The Alderaanian princess’s son. What do you want from me, then? Information?”

“I-I mean…yeah? I…I just wanted to know what was in the drink,” I choked out. “Please. Don’t kill me.”

Now his expression turned to one of bewilderment. “…The drink?” he repeated.

“Y-yeah," I said. "The order that got messed up. The…the first one.”

The longest thirty seconds of silence ever. My knees were shaking and my heart was pounding in my ears. I felt like I was either gonna throw up or piss myself. I wondered what it felt like to get shot.

And then Armitage blinked a few times and withdrew his hand from his hip and looked around for a second and became the shift leader again and seemed to realize how insane it was that he’d dragged a paying customer into a broom closet and threatened him. He took a clumsy step backward and cleared his throat.

“I…apologize for the misunderstanding,” he muttered weakly. I could sense his weakness.

Oh, I thought. He's not so scary. I could crush his windpipe with one hand. And then I stopped feeling so afraid.

I saw an opening. Stood up a little taller. Squared my shoulders a little.

“Uhh, yeah, you better,” I said. “‘Cause I’m reporting your ass. What the kriff, dude?”

He took another step back, and cast a worried glance behind him.

Oh! So he was scared of me now. I liked that. I liked that sooo much better.

“I mean...hello?" I shouted. "You’re kriffing insane! You can’t freaking do that to people! Who do you think you are? Who’d you think I was?”

“I misunderstood,” Armitage sniffed, but he couldn’t hide his discomfort. “I…I thought you were someone looking to get me in trouble.”

“Yeah, well, now I am,” I said. I took a little step forward, and he took a little step back. I found that really funny for some reason, and if I weren't so fired up I would've laughed at him. “Seriously! You were making threats on my life just because you thought I was like, what, an undercover workplace investigator? From Spacebucks corporate, or sentient resources, or something?”

“Yes,” Armitage agreed hurriedly. “Yes. That is—exactly—precisely—who I thought you were. Quite.”

“Well, you should damn well be investigated,” I huffed. “For Force’s sake! I’m filing a police report.”

“Don’t,” he begged.

“You were gonna pull a blaster on me!”

“I don’t have one. I don’t have one!” He pulled up the lap of his apron and showed me his pockets. And he was right. His legs were so skinny. Like toothpicks, or something. There was no way he had a blaster—not even one of those really little ones.

So, he’d been bluffing. That tracked. I was beginning to understand this guy real kriffin' well—he was scary as kark, until you had him in a corner, and then he just freaking melted.

“Okaaay,” I said. “Pretty sure you can still get in a lot of trouble for threatening me. You don’t want my mom to know about this, buddy. She practically freaks out when I get a hangnail.”

Armitage turned white. Again—as if he could get any whiter. “P-Princess Leia? I mean…the Senator Organa?”

“The one and only.”

Bro dropped to his knees on the dirty-ass closet floor. “Oh, my God. Please. No.” I once again suppressed the urge to laugh at him.

Wow! Wasn’t this amusing. I felt like I could kick him in the face right now, and he’d just sit there and take it.

Something stirred within me. Something toothy and mean and strong that rippled downward through my body and made my hands feel hot. Maybe it was that thing Mom and Uncle Luke were so afraid of. What Snoke had always tried to encourage, before I cut contact with him. What Snoke seemed to still want to stoke inside of me, now that his whispers had begun again to brush up against the perimeters of my mind. That power that had made me believe, for a second, that I could come at my uncle with a lightsaber...

Armie’s bottom lip trembled. Now he looked like he was going to throw up or piss himself. I kept him in suspense for a luxurious fifteen more seconds and wondered if he’d cry. I imagined what it’d feel like to bash this loser’s skull in for thinking he could threaten me.

How many homicidal fantasies is a guy allowed to have before he has to turn himself over to the psych ward? Is twice in one year okay? As a treat?

Asking for a friend.

Anyway. Now that I knew he wasn't armed, I wasn't scared of him anymore. Because if Armitage wasn't armed, then it was just up to whoever had bigger arms, and that was me—but luckily for Armie, we were kind of in an armistice.

Well, I was gonna call the police on him. But then I had the most legendary, freaking hilarious idea ever. A real stroke of genius.

“...Okay, Arkanis,” I said finally. “I’ve got a solution: buy me caf for the rest of my life, and I won’t tell your manager. Or the police. Or my mom.”

Armie’s eyes bugged out. “Buy your caf?” he spluttered. “For life?”

“Yep.” I gave him a little grin and a nod. “What can I say? I’m a college grad in a failing economy, who bought into the lie that my degree would mean something, and now I’m effectively an alcoholic—just with overpriced caf-based beverages instead of booze.”

Armitage blinked slowly, like an ugly little frog, and wet his thin, pale lips.

I shrugged. “I’m a simple man, Armitage. I’m giving you options here. Finance my addiction, and I’ll let this go.”

He slowly rose to his feet. “There is no way I could possibly afford that,” he spat. “You come in here almost every day.”

“Yeah, well. Can you afford me reporting you to the authorities?” I asked. “‘Cause I’ll throw in what an abusive little skrit-head you are to your employees, too. And the time I saw you accidentally sneeze into a drink but serve it anyway.”

If he was any paler, he’d be frickin’ transparent.

“...Fine,” he said. “But—there has to be a credit limit on this. Five credits a day.”

“Five credits doesn’t buy a single damn thing on your menu, and you know it."

“It buys a plain black coffee,” he disagreed haughtily.

“I don’t want a plain black caf, I can make that at home,” I snapped. “And what makes you think you’re in any position to negotiate? I don’t have to hold my tongue. I can call the police right now.”

Armitage opened his mouth and closed it again. Like an ugly little fish. (Basically you could describe him as an ugly little anything and it'd be accurate.)

Well, I already had all the leverage here. But I decided to throw him a bone anyway.

“Look, buddy,” I said softly. “I keep in shape, so I’m not gonna rack up a tab. And when I’m picking up orders for work, they let me do it on the company card. I'll go easy on ya. I swear. So…do we got a deal, or what?”

He was silent for several moments, his eyes kind of glassed over. Then he nodded dumbly.

Oh my Force. He actually went for it.

Ha! Baby’s first blackmail.

“Nice.” I grinned and punched him lightly in the shoulder. He flinched. “So, uh. You mind transferring me some credits for today? And then you can just, like, give me a gift card, or something.”

Again, he nodded, looking like I'd kicked his puppy—or, maybe just like a kicked puppy. For a second, I almost felt bad.

And then I remembered how he'd threatened my life—or tried to make me think that he could—and I thought of Snoke—and I thought of Luke—how my whole life I've always felt like everyone was always trying to control me—and how I'd sworn to never let anyone throw me around ever again—and suddenly, I didn't feel quite so bad anymore.

"Crabapple caramel crunch," Armitage muttered, all of a sudden.

I looked at him. "What?"

He raised his watery eyes to meet mine, the familiar scowl back in place.

"That was the first drink," he said quietly. "The...first order."