#I'm posting it to post it so i can delete it from my ipad and redraw it in like. 2-4 business months

[cassiskurocorner]

[ablog]

Getting a life may be cool but have you ever experienced animating on toonboom harmony with lines you can easily edit after using krita for years????????

[pedge-stuff]

God I just thought about an idea for pedro and reader, reading your last post...

They are in a relationship and live together. The reader is also an actress. She asks pedro to practice her lines with her. In the play, she is having a really long line, breaking up with the person ans leaving them... pedro can't continue... at night in bed they are cuddling and pedro talks about how he hated the feeling or the thought of the reader ever leaving

(changed this slightly, hope that is OK...)

bad acting (pedro pascal x gn/m!reader)

a/n: same vague universe as “marked,“ per usual.

thanks, as always, for everything.

(also I did that thing where I didn't save this on drafts fast enough and the whole fucking thing deleted so you could say im LIVID sorry if this rewrite felt rushed.)

summary: things get a little... too real.

—————————————————————————

"You can't laugh."

"I'm not gonna laugh!"

Pedro hands you his iPad, script loaded on the screen. "I'm serious," you warn him, "you had to stop last time, the acting was so bad."

"Just read the sides, baby."

You know he isn't nervous about the audition— if he was, he sure as shit wouldn't be practicing with you. Those rehearsals are reserved for his coach, or someone who can actually talk him through the scene. This was just a formality, a quick read-through for some anthological TV show about people in failing marriages. Season 2 of Oscar's old Amazon thing. With the audition being on Zoom tomorrow, the whole process feels fairly relaxed.

"Should I read it in a lady voice? Will that set the scene?"

"Please don't."

"Scottish accent?"

"Babe."

"Hmm." You clear your throat loudly, for dramatic effect. Across the room, feet propped on the desk, Pedro rolls his eyes. He's got his cheaters on, but no script— the audition's supposed to be off-book. "From the first page?"

"You're stalling."

"Ugh. Ok. Here we go." Leaning forward, you scroll to the highlighted text on the iPad. "Stop, David. You don't know what you're talking about."

Pedro's posture straightens; ever the professional, it's like watching a switch flip. The humored lines beside his eyes, little crows feet that crinkle when he looks at you, disappear completely. His brow furrows, gaze darkens.

"Of course I do, dammit. I'm done with this, all of this. It's like living in a mausoleum, Emma. I'd rather. Do you remember what love even feels like? Because I look at you, and I just... don't, anymore."

"You don't mean that."

"I do! I'm so tired of this. Life with you is joyless. Every day, I come home from work and just sit in the goddamn driveway because I don't want to come in the house. It's hard to be in the same room as you. I can't bring her back, Emma, and I miss her and I'm sorry she's dead. But it isn't my fucking fault and I wish you'd stop pretending it was."

His voice cracks, just a little. You frown as he grabs the glass of water beside him, pausing to wait, but he motions for you to continue.

"That's cruel," you read, "and you know it. That's not fair."

"None of this is fair!" Pedro exclaims. "That's the whole point. It's not fair that our daughter is dead while the girl who was driving got to walk away clean. Life isn't fucking fair. But it's life. And you've sucked all the light out of mine. I can't stand you, anymore, I'm sorry. I just can't. It's not that we can't make it work, it's that I don't want to make it work. If I never see you again, it'll be too soon. Jesus christ, I hate every part of this."

"Are you done? Have you gotten it all off your chest?"

"Don't placate me! This isn't one of your stupid therapy sessions, Emma, you can't fix this with a breathing worksheet and a roleplaying exercise. Be fucking serious. Every day I wake up and I wish I'd never met you. At least then, she wouldn't be dead, because she'd never have existed. And maybe I'd known some goddamn peace."

The page ends there, and you glance up. Pedro has his head in his hands, eyes closed.

"That was good," you offer tentatively, searching for some kind of sign as to what his next move is. He's gracious about work stuff, but you're always a little afraid of mucking up his process.

When he looks up, his eyes are glossy. "Yeah," Pedro says, croakily, clearing his throat quietly before rising from the chair. He takes the iPad back, wordlessly, shuttering the case over the screen.

"Wanna do it again? You were spot-on, Pedge, but we can go over it again if you want to."

"No," he says quickly. "No, I'm good. I'm fine. It's on Zoom, it'll be easy. I'm fine."

Weird. Just a little. Before you can dwell on his sudden cageyness, he's up, headed for the door.

"I'm gonna walk the dogs. We can catch up on Bake-Off, when I get back?"

Pedro leaves before you can answer.

— — — 

No sooner have the leashes been hung back by the door, than Pedro is beside you on the couch, all hands and light touches. It's as if he can't bear to lost contact. You allow him to reposition you, reaching a hand around your waist as you reach for the remote.

"Good walk?"

He hums, tugging you against him. Settles, finally, once you're half-reclined, back against his chest, arm around your middle. You fiddle with the edge of his sleeve as the bakers fumble their way through the signature challenge.

It's not that the clinginess bothers you— he's like this sometimes, when he's just returned home, or you've arrived in LA, or met somewhere in the middle. Every separation leaves him want for touch. It's the one thing you can't give him, while you're apart.

But he's been home a couple weeks now, in between reshoots for a new project. Been home all day, in fact, in an orbit around you while you attempted to work from home. (A little too close, frankly, but you can't really complain.)

"You okay?" You whisper, as the timer runs down on the technical bake.

No answer. Just a tightened grip on your waist, and a firm kiss to the top of your head.

— — — 

It isn't until later, in bed and half-asleep, that you pinpoint the source of the tension.

You'd have thought he was already asleep, save for the soft carding of his fingers through the baby hairs at the nape of your neck. Deep, even breaths tickle your forehead; he's curled around you, arm draped over your back. Had positioned himself this way silently, looking a little silly brooding in his Muppet-patterned pj pants.

"We're never reading lines again," Pedro whispers into the darkness.

"Was the acting that bad?"

Your attempt for levity falls flat. He is quiet, long enough for you roll backwards slightly, to get a better look at his face. A deep-set frown has taken root.

"No, it..." He tugs you closer again, tucking your head beneath his chin. If he weren't so sad, you'd call uncle for claustrophobia; your nose is squished into his jugular. But you lay still, waiting for him to continue.

"It felt too real," Pedro concedes. He inhales sharply, and you can feel it against your own chest.

The kiss you press to the hollow of his throat, doesn't feel good enough. You wiggle, tilting your head to press one against his toothpaste-tasting lips. Whiskers tickle the corner of your mouth.

"Baby, I know you were... pretending." A thin line between placating him and treading on his professionalism. "If our pretend daughter died in a car crash, I know you wouldn't divorce me for being too sad."

"It's not funny." With a groan, he kisses you again, resting his forehead against yours. "I hated saying that stuff to you. Felt too real."

The bone-crushing spooning is making a little more sense, now.

"I love you, but you're a sap."

"Hmph."

You smile into the next kiss. "A very sweet sap, though."

[sparkanonymous]

Let's get one thing out of the way; I messed up.

If you want to go more in-depth, read this post. If you don't want to, here's the jist of the situation: For the last year - I think - I have been coloring Raj's skin tone lighter. This is completely and utterly my fault.

I'm not going to make any excuses, in fear that it will give others an excuse for their own deplorable actions. Though I don't see myself as a racist person, this is still an example of colorism, and I can't stand by it.

Total Drama is something I hold dear in my heart, and Raj is one of my favorite characters in the entire series. The fact I did him this dirty makes me never want to draw him again.

I'm so sorry. All I can do is apologize, and that's definitely not good enough. I will do better in the future. I don't want anything like this to happen again, and I won't let it happen again.

There is nothing I can say that'll fix this situation. I have disappointed myself and hurt an entire community of people. I hope I can eventually make up for my mistakes, but I know that isn't possible in a short amount of time.

I don't expect this to be taken lightly; it shouldn't be. If this is the last I see of some of you, I hope you take care.

The rest of this post directly responds to parts of thesicklycowboy's post.

○■○■○

For this portion, I have also edited Raj's hair to be the correct color. (I didn't know where else to put this part, sorry.)

I won't be responding to everything, as I do think the post was well-spoken and something that certainly needs to be said, just parts that I felt I should respond to.

Blue is for them, and red is for me.

"So when you were addressing this and saying "it's color theory" excuse why did you not show your earlier pieces of Raj as well? The ones with far darker hair and deeper skin tones? You only referenced all the ones after after the lightening had begun."

As mentioned before, I don't know when the lightening began. The pieces I grabbed for comparisons were the ones that I could actively get the flats for. A lot of my previous pieces have been deleted from my iPad after being moved to my laptop for storage reasons. While you can tell that Raj is darker in my oldest TDI posts, I wouldn't have been able to color grab the original skin color to compare it to the others, which is why I added ones that I could find the flats of directly off of my page. I do wish I had gotten the flats for the oldest ones, but I can't really do anything about that now.

"The beginning of your ask responses is blatantly false and you contradict yourself at the end? So why keep that whole schpiel at all?"

Here is the part that they are referring to: "I didn't? I think he just looks lighter because of the filters I used on top of it."

I left this in for transparency because I genuinely thought that that was actually the case. But it wasn't. This is why I added, "Looking into the color issue..." I wanted to double check the claim because it very well could have been an issue. And it was.

... "And not yet another piece that is still super light."

Okay. I think I might know what the problem is here in particular. I add texture overlays (the layers with the filter of 'Sl' - Soft Light) to give my pieces... y'know, texture. The layer color I use is usually an off-white. I do this in all of my pieces because I thought it might help with keeping my work safe from AI, and because I like the paper-like look that it gives my art. I didn't put it over the entire piece because the background already has a ton of texture.

The one above is at 50%, and the one below it is at 30% for both Raj and Bowie.

Here is the same piece with the texture overlays turned off:

(Left is w/o the overlays, Right is w/ the overlays)

I don't want this argument to seem like I'm lessening my actions. This is the only thing that I think I have the right to stand up for. Texture is something I most likely won't take out of my work, though I may replace the texture overlays with something that is more full proof against AI, like those AI-disturbance layers that Ibis Paint has.

None of my actions were excusable, but I felt this needed to be explained.

Other than that, though, I don't know what else I could possibly do to fix the piece, considering I have fixed Raj's skin tone in this piece.

○■○■○

The rest of the post is not something I feel the need to respond directly to. I do think you should go and read the original post criticizing me and decide what you want to do in this matter.

This was not a "silly mistake." What I have done is genuinely messed up. I'm not going to run from this situation and say that I was ever justified in my actions. Because I never was.

I can only hope to be given the chance to amend this situation with future works, whenever that might be. I will most likely not continue to talk about this unless asked to. Idk what else I could possibly say that wouldn't make this situation worse. I am the guilty party, and the only thing I can do is learn from this and do better in the future, which I will.

Again, I am so sorry. I have fucked up, and I am prepared to take the consquences of my actions.

[reginalusus]

Retro tutorial?

Disclaimer: Tumblr, for some reason, likes to dullen the colour of the screenshots, just know that they're actually a bit more saturated and brighter than how they appear here.

So, after posting my recent retro drawings on Reddit, and getting some comments that genuinely made me cry (/pos), I noticed I also got quite a few comments asking me how I actually do these drawings.

Er, I'm not the best teacher, really, and honestly, there's probably an easier, faster way to do it. But, this is my way of doing it, lmao. I work on a Gen 2 iPad Pro with a Gen 1 Apple Pencil, just in case you're wondering.

Firstly, here are the four apps I use for this kind of drawing:

From left to right: Sketchbook Pro, Pixlr, Photoleap and CapCut. Sketchbook Pro is what I use to draw everything. You could honestly use any drawing app though. We will talk about the other three when we get to them.

Step 1: draw whatever it is you want to draw.

I'm going to use the first drawing I did in this style to help me explain: my simpy Spamton drawing! Firstly, basically draw whatever your little heart wants. Get your sketch layer down. Here's what my sketch layer looked like:

Looks bad, no? Lol, it always starts that way. Just get your drawing down first. I rely heavy on references for clothing. I found this particular pose on Pinterest. Pinterest is great for finding references.

Notice that I have some spaces filled in with the word 'black'. This is literally just to remind me that the particular space will just be filled with a solid black.

This particular pose and setting is tricky, I'm just using it as an example and because I still have the original files for it. I recommend maybe starting with a portrait or a face first.

Step 2: fill in and clean your lines. This is important, especially for the anime look.

When I do linework, I tend to make the lines thicker wherever they meet one another. For this style, it doesn't really work, and I had to train myself to stop doing that.

As you can see, I made some changes along the way, such as making Spamton's expression softer and making him grin instead of smirking. How do I know when to make something solid black? This is mostly for clothes. If you are following a reference, and you notice that some of the shadows are darker than others on the reference, make those darkest shadows your solid-blacks.

So, here we have the finished lines! Remember: no making the lines thicker where they meet! Keep the lines thin all around. If you're wondering what brush I use in Sketchbook for the finished lines, it's this one:

This is the ONLY brush I use for the retro drawings, besides a pencil for the sketch layer. It provides a nice, solid, thin line.

Step 3: Filling Flat Colours.

The easiest step IMO. Choose your colours, fill those babies in.

Unfortunately, I think I deleted my flats layer (I have no idea why, but I cannot find it, lmao), so I don't have an image to show for this step. But, it's self-explanatory. Just colour it in with your flats.

You can choose saturated colours if you wish, but we'll be editing that sort of stuff later.

Step 4: Shading.

Ooh, the tricky stuff. But this is what will make or break the look of the drawing. Besides lines, shading is important as fuck for this style. I recommend pulling up some screenshots from actual 80s/90s anime. For this Spamton drawing, here's some of the ones I used as a reference:

Remember to make your shading on separate layers! You may want to change their tone and opacity later, as I did.

The shading in old anime is usually done with one colour, which is cooler-toned than the flat it is based off. Remember to keep the shading as simple as you can if you want to actually make it look like a screenshot from an anime or cartoon.

For shadows, I used the multiply tool or the overlay tool. You can mess around with these to see which one suits your drawing best. It mostly depends on the colour.

For 'lights', I used either the soft glow tool or the overlay tool. However, I don't recommend spending too much time 'lighting' your colours. Retro anime tends to focus more on shadows rather than lighting (obviously there are exceptions).

As you can see, the only 'lighting' I used on Spamton was a small section of his hair, and a shine on his suit. The rest is either shadows or flats:

For clothing, follow a reference or follow where your light is coming from. For this, I followed the reference.

Step 5 (Optional): Adding Gradients.

You don't need to do this, but to help with the 'mood' of the drawing, I added a gradient over the top of the layer. I chose a dark purple/blue to give that city vibe, then I used the darken tool and turned the opacity down. So, it looks like this:

The difference isn't much, but it will add a lot to the vibe!

Step 6 (Optional): Backgrounds. *Shudders.*

I'll be real, I can't do backgrounds for shit. Well, I can sort of do them, but I definitely don't enjoy it. If you can do your own backgrounds, this will probably come easier. I have a sneaky, maybe cheaty method, however, to make it look good.

Firstly, make sure any 'windows' or areas in your drawing that you want to add a background to are empty. The windows in Spamton's car here are transparent. You'll want to put your background layer at the very bottom, behind everything else.

Firstly, I choose a solid colour and fill the entire layer. I chose a navy/purple for this one, since it's always dark in Cyber City.

Then, and here's the cheat part, I find a stock image of a city skyline. I deliberately picked one that had sort of 'basic' buildings. Put this on top of your solid colour and use the hard light tool.

The hard light tool tends to focus on the lights and basic outline of the image. I did do some smudging and added some lights to give it that 'retro' feel. The lower quality it looks, the better. So then it looks like this:

But the car needs windows! Easy. I chose a blue colour with the soft glow tool and added them like so (on top of all the background layers):

Step 7: Editing in Pixlr.

Now, this is my favourite part: the editing to really make the image pop! Firstly, we are going to use Pixlr, so save your image and open it up in Pixlr.

So, in Pixlr I only do two things: choose some overlay editors and up the saturation. Firstly, the overlay editors. The ones I choose for the retro look are:

Antonio - this blurs the lines somewhat, and makes it overall darker/softer. I obviously do not use it to its full capacity (there's a slider you can mess around with under each tool to find your desired effect, though I recommend using Antonio only a little.)

Hagrid - this will make it look slightly more saturated and sharper. It also adds a sort of 'burn' effect on each outline of the colours. Again, I use this one only slightly.

Ivan - One of my favourites for Big Shot Spamton. Again, I only use it slightly. This one will add an orange effect and 'fix' some of your shading. Though, it only works to its full potential if you have your shading as best as it can be.

Sara - Another really good one for retro anime. It's sort of like Hagrid, but softer. Depending on your colours, it will also add a soft 'glow' effect. Because of this, I only use it a little, as older anime does not have the intense glow you see in more recent anime, in general.

There are lots of other options. You can play around to see which one will suit the vibe you're going for best!

Then, we go into the general menu and up the saturation if needed!

Step 8: Editing in Photoleap - then back to Sketchbook!

Why the fuck do you use two editors? Simple - Photoleap has some cool options that Pixlr does not, and vice versa. We won't be spending as much time in Photoleap compared to Pixlr.

Now, Photoleap does NOT allow screenshots within the app, so I just have to explain it without any images.

In Photoleap, we're only going to be doing two things, and one of those things are optional. Firstly, using the grain tool. This will really add to that 'old' look. Don't go too hard on it!

The optional thing you can do is add a red chromatic abberation. It's under the 'effects' tab in Photoleap. However, sometimes this will take away from the retro look, so use it carefully. I only used the tiniest amount for this drawing to make the lines look 'cleaner'.

Once I'm done in Photoleap, I save the image and export it back into Sketchbook. This is where I'll add/fix some things, such as adding a shine in Spamton's eyes, a shine on the car window and the smoke coming from his cigarette. I also bring the gradient layer back up and mess with the colour a bit (optional).

Have you noticed the large, black border to the right of the drawing? Yeah, that'll be cropped. I decided to make the overall image smaller and, unfortunately, Sketchbook Pro does not allow you to change the canvas size once you've started a drawing (please add this option, Autodesk!)

Step 9: CapCut Editing.

This will seriously be the cherry-on-top to actually make this thing look like a screenshot. Save your image and open it up in CapCut.

Firstly, you'll want to add an 'effect' to the photo. Under 'retro', I personally choose 'frosted quality', because it adds a moving grain and gives an 'old cartoon' feel, which is what I'm after. There are lots you can choose from, it's up to you to play around with it! You can also adjust the effect as you wish. I tend to turn the blur completely off.

Then, the last step in CapCut: adding a caption, if you want. I make the text yellow and add an italic effect to make it seem like an actual subtitle.

Step 10 (Final): Exporting.

That's us basically finished! I'll export it as a video from CapCut, crop it using my iPad's default editing software in the gallery, then export it as a GIF. Exporting it as a GIF lowers the quality a tad further, which is a bonus for this type of drawing. Viola! You now have a retro-anime-inspired piece!

Final Notes

Again, I'm not a good teacher and this is kind of all over the place, lmao. But, I hope it can guide those who wish to try this style!

If you do try it, maybe tag me and let me see if my tutorial worked for you? Or maybe you were just curious, lmao. There's a LOT of steps here, lol, and I'm not a professional artist by any means, so...

Anyway, that's all from me for now!

[kurt-the-crow]

alright. so. textpost

I don't normally do this but I do have a few things to say regarding this blog. by which I mean literally just one thing. that is, i have to delete all posts with my sketchbook(s) in them for safety reasons. which, is basically all my MMU posts - I can only apologise. This includes an ask from @fossilisedd-tree-resin (hope you don't mind me mentioning you, sorry). I do feel a bit bad about this, and I plan to redraw the ask digitally, so let me know if you' d like to be tagged when I finally have the means to do so (I don't actually have any digital art setup other than my laptop and my best friend's iPad, so until I save enough for a decent drawing tablet, I can't draw much digitally I'm afraid. Shouldn't be too long though! I'm nearly there, just need to order :D) My apologies once again, especially for putting this crap on your feed, it just didn't sit right with me taking down multiple posts from the same fandom all at once without warning or explanation. Have a good day!!

[neptunes-blue]

CORPSMAN’S PRAYER - VINCENT KRAWCZYK - THE PACIFIC

short summary: Vincent Krawczyk graduates from Illinois’s Naval Hospital Corps School after first enlisting on the 8th of December, 1941

warnings: implied child neglect (sort of?), sailors get drunk and slip off chairs

(Main) characters: Vincent Krawczyk (oc), Terence Flynn (oc)

word count: 1.8k words

notes: this is like. The only time ever I will post my writing… if it disappears tomorrow I have succumbed to my shame and deleted this 😔. I had to format this on my iPad with no idea how any of this works…. Also if you see spelling/grammar mistakes no you didn’t I was too scared to share this to a friend to proofread ☹️ (looks at the ‘art blog’ in my bio hmmmm)

🚢

Grant me, oh Lord, for the coming events;

Enough knowledge to cope and some plain common sense. Be at our side on those nightly patrols; And be merciful judging our vulnerable souls. Make my hands steady and as sure as a rock; when the others go down with a wound or in shock. Let me be close, when they bleed in the mud; With a tourniquet handy to save precious blood. Here in the jungle, the enemy near; Even the corpsman can't offer much lightness and cheer. Just help me, oh Lord, to save lives when I can; Because even out there is merit in man.

If it's Your will, make casualties light; And don't let any die in the murderous night. These are my friends I'm trying to save; They are frightened at times, but You know they are brave. Let me not fail when they need so much; But to help me serve with a compassionate touch. Lord, I'm no hero—my job is to heal; And I want You to know Just how helpless I feel. Bring us back safely to camp with dawn; For too many of us are already gone.

Lord bless my friends If that's part of your plan; And go with us tonight, when we go out again.

— Navy Hospital Corpsman’s prayer 

When Vincent was 5, he woke up in his home to nothing.

When he tried to focus on where he imagined the hallway, there was nothing but black. And from the kitchen he heard a faint drip and nothing more. 

It’s hard to recall a memory in the muffling black dark. It’s more of a feeling really, cold icy dread that travels down your spine and keeps you at a standstill. 

Vincent still remembers how his body— much smaller in his youth, chattering with fear on the dusty couch. Too scared to call out for his parents.

10 years later, he’d brought up the memory at the dining table and was flattened by his father’s admittance to a fuzzy memory where he forgets to take him off the couch and into bed.

Currently, Vinny is 19 and fumbling with the neckerchief of his dress blues. His brow knotted while Terence Flynn shined his shoes.

“Vinny, how in hell are you gon’ take care of your wife? 20 and you can’t tie your own kerchief?”

Krawczyk swivels to face Flynn like you would in drill. His face in a crooked smile.

“20 in a week actually. I thought I told you yesterday that I was 20 next week.” He says in a voice dripping with a very matter-of-fact tone, a crooked grin plastered on his face.

“I’m gonna start praying for your future wife.” Flynn half-snorts, rolling his eyes. 

Vincent listens to Terence’s back click as he stretches, taking a ‘well deserved’ break from his shoe-shining; it was a lousy attempt to seem presentable and handsome for graduation. Terence Flynn, mousey-faced and dark-haired tucking away at least some of his antics for today.

Vincent had complimented how nicely Flynn’s chevrons were stitched once. Terence had flushed red and muttered ashamed that his mother had sewn them on for him.

Within each stitch a gentle kiss of a mothers love tucked under the dark fabric of the Navy’s pride— that’s what Vincent imagined anyways. He had responded with a quiet ‘oh’ and looked at his own chevrons that still had stitches leaking from the edges of blue fabric. 

Krawczyk tried to stare back into the mirror and ignore the eruptions of jealousy that burst across his face.

Men dressed neatly in their Navy dress blues begin to leave barracks, putting away shaving kits and slicking their hair back with their caps in hand.

“Bu-ddy?” 

Terence whistles and clicks his tongue, already standing at the door out of barracks. 

“Christ!” 

Vincent glanced at Terence and then back at himself in the mirror before quickly scampering after his friend. Finally figuring out the intricacies of his neckerchief while his shoes hit the plywood floor.

Vincent's rowing team had been best in Missouri, he was the best batter in baseball, captain of the swimming team, and one of the top boxers in school. 

It didn't count for much, all his trophies and awards were in a box underneath his bed. 

Krawczyk wouldn't know until after his enlistment had ended that his parents had pawned his gold medals off when he'd left for the Navy. Vincent would understand when he came back. Forgiving, sweet, war-torn Vincent who would believe his family was going through tough times.

His photos remained in the box however– the same crooked grin even as his face matured. Collecting an inch of dust.

The winter wind had calmed to a soft breeze (thank the lord) and Chief took to the stand saying speeches Krawczyk seemed to block out with his anticipation.

Rows of navy men with their chests puffed out with the boyish pride that never left them even as men. Preparing to leave for war with the promise to serve and a prayer for survival. 

Thomas Murray, a tall, gawky man with blue eyes and blonde hair had been a surgeon before all of this; Chance Henderson always wanted to be a doctor who and thought this was the quickest a cheapest way to get there; shy Samuel Davis who blushed easily and hated using the communal showers was plain kind-hearted and liked the idea of helping wounded; Dayton Bishop was smart and steady-handed, he was suited to the role of a corpsman with square eyes and a handsome jaw.

Terence had smirked at Vincent when he told him he joined up because he thought it’d make him popular with the ladies. 

Vinny had roared with laughter, telling him that he’d, ‘never even get a nice girl to look his way’.  

Flynn had tried to counter him, reminding Vinny that he had a girl— ‘A girl that left him’, he had responded with. Flynn wanted to argue but Vincent turned the topic too quick.

‘Colours, present arms!’

Vincent was beaming. 

The whole thing felt like his High School graduation but fancier. And if it wasn’t an important ceremony he wouldn’t have stopped himself from laughing but, he’d be lying through bared, grinning teeth that he wasn’t pouring over with pride. 

He (rather excitedly) stepped onto the stage, shaking hands with the CPO and then to the SCPO who passed him his graduation paper. Vincent was only able to glance at his name ‘Vincent Phillip Krawczyk’ scrawled in the middle of the paper before he had to ‘calmly and mild-manneredly’ walk across the stage.

"I solemnly pledge myself.”

"I solemnly pledge myself…” The bright faced men echoed. 

“Before God and these witnesses.”

“Before God and these witnesses.”

“To practice faithfully all of my duties.”

“To practice faithfully all of my duties.”

“As a member of the Hospital Corps.”

“As a member of the Hospital Corps…”

The band marched out soon after the Corpsman Pledge, Anchors Aweigh cutting through the dewy morning air and sending out that good ol’ Navy pride. Vincent could’ve sworn he saw Terence’s eyes water as he muttered the lyrics under his breath.

“STAND NAVY TO SEA, FIGHT OUR BATTLE CRRYY!”

Flynn roared, hopping from bar stool to bar stool— hand on heart while the other swung a bottle of beer. 

Davis was bright red, with 7 drinks too many he had joined Terence in his performance. Vincent clapped, repeating Terence and Davis’ “So vicious foe steer shy-y-y-y!”, despite not having even one drop of alcohol that evening. The rowdy sailors had scared off most of the other bar patrons. Dayton sat smartly as ever, Murray was playing craps with the increasingly drunker Chance and the other boys— Mark, Jones, Sutton, Kidd, Freeman, West, Patrick… were either pink-faced and whooping or challenging the other to another game, drink, or bet.

“Y’know, back in my home-place, Missouri I used to drink like there wasn’t a God!” 

“Anchors aweigh my boys! ANCHORS AWEIGHH!”

Dayton didn’t seem to be really paying attention to Krawczyk’s yammering.

“My pal, Nate, he drank beer like it wasn’t a Wednesday afternoon. Never trust a usual mild-mannered Missouri man, we might all seem pleasant but as soon as he gets a drink too many he’ll sock you right in the face if you even mention his favourite sport team’s rival team— I nearly got socked in the face for it once, can you believe it?” 

Vinny bursts into laughter, not really taking note that Dayton didn’t join in.

"Farewell to foreign shores, we sail at break of day-ay-AY-AY!”

“You’re not drinking.”

Vincent perks up when Dayton speaks.

“Yeah— yeah, no, I'm not a drinker," Vinny shrugs. "Christian, I keep it to special occasions." He finishes, grinning.

“Uhuh. Isn’t this a special occasion?”

“Someone has to be sober enough to hold caps when you all retch whiskey in the bathroom.”

Dayton shrugs, swirling his brandy on the rocks.

“Drink to the foam, until we meet once more! Here's wishing you a happy voyage HOME!”

And with the end of the second verse, Flynn missed the barstool he was jumping to by a foot and cracked his head on the side of the counter.

The sand was soft at Nunn beach.  

Vinny liked beaches, he liked the waves, how the seawater dried on his arms and left white salt stains on his skin. He even liked nursing his good friend after slamming his own face into a bench, who now had a rapidly growing lump above his right brow.

The sun had sunk halfway under the ocean, sending out stretching wands of orange light that sparked crashing waves yellow. It turned his and Flynn’s faces amber and made his bruise just slightly more obvious. 

“Finally put those corpsman skills to good use.”

Vincent was grinning— Terence was not. 

He reached into his wrinkled blues, pulling a silver rosary over his head, careful to not bump his tender lump. Terence cleared his throat, trying to clear the shame in his voice. 

“My gal got it for me but you know uh. We broke up”

“She left you.”

“We broke up!” He insisted, with a huff. Flynn turned from Vincent and admired the carving of Christ. Hanging by his hands on the silver cross, intricate swirls that seemed to grow from his hollow body and border the cross he was strung across. It seemed to glimmer white in the setting sun.

“Take it. A parting gift. Or an apology— I don't care. Or really believe in that crap anymore anyways”

“Don't call it crap.”

“Sorry.”

Vincent tenderly accepted the gift from his friend, thumbing the cross.

“Tell me a story, Vince.” Terence’s voice was flat, eyes glued onto the horizon instead of his friend.

“Well. Once me and my pal Nate thought it'd be funny to throw rocks at the school greenhouse.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

[turbles]

deleting twitter until I can find out what I want from it

I didn't post about it bc if I did I know my brain would be wanting to log back in to see if anyone replied to it. I think I just need to clear a space to have room to relearn art? like, what's worth doing, and how to do that again. not that I think cutting out social media is a catch all problem solver. twitter is valuable to me in multiple ways. but realizing I need to put more effort into filtering and curating my experience was too daunting so away it goes for now.

idk what I'm gonna do with tumblr cause I do genuinely like most of the stuff I see on here. I think I will need to be better at unfollowing when I grow weary of certain types of posting tho (GOD I wish this site had a temporary mute button like twitter does, seriously good feature cause it's so awkward to unfollow and then refollow a mutual uuuugh.)

my main worry is that I work a full time retail job that has sizeable downtime and I get mind meltingly bored. so while i want to go on a journey of reconnecting to art, work is not the stage for that... I can't bring my ipad to work and whip it out on the sales floor to draw whenever I want. it's hard to avoid the need for frivolous distraction like ao3 and social media in a situation where I have to be prepared to drop what I'm doing and help customers at a moment's notice. which is why I feel dropping all social media entirely won't be the ultimate solution for me and that more aggressive curation is probably better.

yeah idk there's just a lot of things I miss. the feeling of drawing something and liking it so much that I'm excited to see it through to the end.

hurdles: my skills having atrophied/plateaued/never been developed in the areas I now want to explore. having to go back to square one and remember how to learn effectively, and how to care enough to learn effectively. hmm. the physical hurdles as well, how I've come to associate sitting at my computer and drawing with stupor, dehydration, headaches and back pain, that physical fear response I feel when I consider sitting down to draw.

[datzyuk]

2024 ao3 wrapped under the cut!!!!

here's my 2023 ao3 wrapped for comparison

had SO much fun tracking my fanfic habits again. if you like excel and fanfic, i would highly suggest starting your own tracker today!!

about a third of the way through the year i started running out of fics for my main ship and it changed the way i read. i consciously chose to read incomplete fics for the first time. yeah, sometimes it's frustrating and disappointing but i found so many gems!! i also got to experience the joy of getting an update email from ao3 for the first time

spoiler alert? but i'm absolutely shocked that i came within 7,000 words of 2023's total word count. i kind of assumed that 1. finishing up grad school and 2. actively choosing to read longer fics would mean that i'd read way more. instead, i watched more movies than i did in 2023 and got out of the house more.

i tracked the tropes of fics for the first time and while it was super helpful for reminding me what fics were about w/o opening the link, it's kind of a mess to organize/present. also it's embarrassing

all fics were read on ao3 (or PDFs of deleted ao3 fics)

the basics

words: 4,050,636 (+6,470 words from 2023)

fics: 327 (-124 from 2023)

fandoms: 3 (star wars, hockey rpf, check please)

# of ships: 30 (-10 from 2023)

fun stuff

shortest fic: 698 words

longest fic: 126,112 words

average words per fic: 12,387

median words per fic: 7,855

average words per day: 11,067

most words read in one day: 150,142 (saturday, september 14th)

longest reading streak: 32 days (1/18 - 2/18)

longest streak w/o reading: 48 days (3/18 - 5/4)

% re-reads: 4.09%

% incomplete: 10.7%

top 10 ships

#1, #2, and #5 are redacted bc you guys don't need to know that much about me

by month

i love that you can see how much my last semester of grad school was kicking my ass in march and april.

the big spike in november was from my trip to korea. i bought an ipad mini for traveling and got plenty of use out of it on the long flights and train + bus rides.

dates

word count

almost 50% of the fics i read in 2023 were under 5k words, got it down to under 30% in 2024. but if i'm ever gonna make a dent in my (1,948) bookmarks, i'm gonna have to read a bunchhhh of short fics.

audience

published dates

i didn't track this in 2023. i started tracking it in 2024 after reading those two fics written in 1999 and thought it'd be interesting to see what trends i could spot in the pub dates!!

the big spike in 2016 is from the resurgence of star wars but also bennguin fic lmao

i would love to know how my habits compare to overall usage/posting trends on ao3 but i haven't found that info yet

[scknight05]

20 Questions for fic writers

I was tagged by @racerchix21 and @tizniz (retroactively lol) quite a while ago but I'm just now getting around to doing this.. This is the first time in forever I've been on a device that hasn't been my phone or ipad.

Tagging: @warpedpuppeteer @heroofshield @neverevan @daffi-990 uuhhh... and I guess anyone else who either hasn't done this or wants to do this. No pressure to the tagged people either.. just didn't know who to tag.

1-How many works do you have on ao3?

Currently.. 2.. 😅😅 I had 3 and one point but I deleted one thing that in the end I didn't like. HOWEVER I currently have about 4 or 5 WiPs that I'm hoping to maybe start posting some more stuff soonish if life stops getting in the way.

2-What’s your total ao3 word count?

7,803

3-What fandoms do you write for?

Currently: 9-1-1 (during my ff.net days I've also done some Stargate stuff as well).

4-Top 5 fics by kudos?

1-SIMPLE MISUNDERSTANDINGS 2-All is Lost Again (But I'm Not Giving In). 3-5: TBD lol

5-Do you respond to comments?

I try if I don't forget

6-What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Haven't gotten around to one yet...

7-What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

It's probably gonna be one of my current WiPs lol

8-Do you get hate on your fics?

Haven't yet but I'm sure it'll happen with some of my ideas I've got planned.

9-Do you write smut?

Negative. Just don't think I can do it any kind of justice to be honest.

10-Craziest crossover?

Published or unpublished? 🤣 If we're going with PUBLISHED, then I had (guess it's still there) a Stargate Atlantis/Torchwood crossover over on ff.net. UNPUBLISHED.. well then we'll probably have to go with my Legends of Tomorrow/Power Rangers Dino Charge (It's a multiverse story that didn't feature the characters/crew in the show other than a mention here or there... that has now bled a bit into 911 territory as well) that may or may not ever see the light of day... Depends on my mood.

11-Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Don't think so. Nothing has probably ever been good enough to warrant theft haha

12-Have you ever had a fic translated?

No

13-Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Contributed some ideas but nothing more than that.

14-All time favorite ship?

Probably gonna get some hate here but... oh well.. -Chiley (Chase/Riley), Buddie (Buck/Eddie), Tevan (Buck/Tommy), Stackhouse/Markham (this was from Stargate Atlantis and let me tell you.. for two extremely minor characters, those two launched an impressive ship!! Hell they didn't even have first names!! And yes, I jumped in on that ship as well! Obviously since I'm mentioning it!)

15-What’s a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Probably the Stargate Atlantis/Torchwood one... Or my "Silver Saber" story (Power Rangers Lost Galaxy.. My mind does drift back to that idea every so often but I doubt I'll ever redo anything with it.)

16-What are your writing strengths?

Creating the general idea/premise probably.

17-What are your writing weaknesses?

Actually putting thoughts into words that sound good.

18-Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

If it works/fits then I'm all for it I guess but... thats about it.

19-First fandom you wrote in?

Power Rangers.. I've always been the creative kid and I was writing fanfic BEFORE I even knew that was a thing.. I was just "writing stories" at that point lol

20-Favorite fic you’ve written?

Don't have one yet.. I like some of my ideas but I don't really have a favorite story YET to be honest.

Not part of the questionnaire thing but I'm thinking about starting a side blog just for writing stuff, the kinda give updates and share ideas even if I'm not able to get any actual writing or posting done... haven't decided fully yet.

[rmlarson]

Blog Hiatus

As of 9/13/2024, this blog will be going on an extended hiatus for an unknown length of time. I will not be posting anymore artwork.

A lot of things have been going on in my personal life regarding work, personal finances, and the dumpy place that I mistakenly moved to just because I was so eager to take my first adult steps by myself far away from my family. Since my move, I haven't exactly been in the right headspace like I was before when I posted my art to this blog. It feels...heavy. Boring. I genuinely don't like posting what I do, because it feels like I have to. Which is why a lot of my stuff is now privatized (and probably going to be deleted down the road, if I'm being honest). And I genuinely despise the downgrade in how my art looks with the shift to Procreate on the iPad. I think it all looks awful. FireAlpaca had a much higher quality to it on my old laptop.

I've put so many projects on my plate that I'm just disgusted with myself. With how I can't sit down and focus on one thing and enjoy doing it, like I used to be able to do when I was a kid. I'm disgusted because I hate working on them. They bring me no more joy. And I hate that other people like what I've done but have to wait for meager scraps. I feel like I'm letting them down, letting my followers down.

So, I leave you with this.

I will be stepping away for a while. I don't know for how long. I need to focus on trying to save my money back up so I can move back home. Maybe then will I start to feel like my normal self again.

Asks will remain closed.

Every story concept I've talked about is cancelled for now.

I'll probably check in every now and then just to see what pops up on my home page and like a couple pieces here and there.

[jayflrt]

ADHD style rant (kinda) bc no one is giving me a minute of their time 😒😒

i just no shit sherlock-ed myself bc i just realized that kpop stans are a whole other type of dumb when it comes to the boycott. the nct starbucks situation DEFINITELY woke some people up from their delusions as i just saw on twitter something about armys demanding hybe to divest from zi*nism, and some stays agreeing to boycott skz' comeback bc ch*rlie p*th is featured

but unfortunately, other than that, they're still babying their fav idols and it's disappointing :/

yunjin and somi were cases where i was really disappointed tho i quickly moved on...but one has to know that both women are as chronically online as my 9 year old ipad kid cousin. and their apologies got me like 😬 i know they're rich and can afford overpriced coffee that's just a dump of sugar and milk but the bare minimum is go to a local cafe

i mean now boycotting starbucks is the bare minimum but still. idols know about the boycott, other than nct there's BLACKSWAN's fatou saying on live "we don’t like starbuck. starbucks is canceled" and 8TURN's jaehyun saying that he had bought a coffee from a place that's not dodgy!! and i want to specify that jaehyun is known to quote a lot of memes and being as chronically online as the other "relatable" idols

i know that they might not be free to talk about world issues bc their careers are at risk. but don't action speak louder than words? idk i'm rambling at this point 🫤

btw!! besides not streaming new songs and not buying merch, i want to ask if there's anything else i can do in order not to support zi*nism in the kpop industry?

no i agree with you!! i don't have a lot to say on this because i think you put most of it perfectly but while i agree western artists have much more freedom in their careers whereas kpop idols are silenced by their companies a lot (ex: taeyong and renjun posting about boycotting starbucks and deleting their stories right after), we do glorify celebrity's careers a LOT. like the rest of us "normal people" have as much power and influence and money, but we still speak out and do our part. there was a young google employee (probably early stage of career) who disrupted a tech conference to say that he refused to build technology that powered a genocide, and he kept saying it even as they dragged him out!!!

also to be honest there's not much that can be done other than posting to hope the message gets across to companies and boycotting. these companies have a record of not caring about international fans :// but one action can go a long way so i'd say just keep at it and be hopeful!! :') and don't feel bad if there's not much we can do in that area because we're still targeting companies on the BDS list !!

[penguinly]

*emerges from deep hyperfixation*

So I just spent the last 6 hours working on a little art thing and my spine and eyes are suddenly dying but I think I've finally learned my lesson.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE ATTEMPT TO DRAW ON THE PHOTOS APP!!!!!

I had it randomly delete my entire thing THREE TIMES and even after that it just REFUSED to save the edits another 20+ times. There is also NO fill function so I had to color the entire thing BY HAND instead of just by clicking inside the lines. Then the thing kept crashing so I had to take screenshots of screenshots of screenshots to keep going. I think I've drawn every pixel in it twice at least now T_T

I'm going to be posting the actual thing on Monday for a very, very special occasion but I just wanted to log in and scream into the void because my back was not designed to be hunched over like that for so long and now I am paying for it. To all the artists out there, what's a free and easy to use app I can get on an iPad instead of the Photos app lol?

[casket-of-imps]

it's not even a screen addiction it's a screen dependency everything and everyone is designed to keep you laying in bed longer and keep you miserable longer and keep you scared and placid and brainless and it never ends. it's called your feed because it's the same thing you give to pigs to fatten them up before you slaughter them, but they don't give a shit that you're doing it because it's a hell of a lot more convenient than thinking for themselves and so much easier than having to risk a moment of discomfort in an open grassy field where the sun shines and the birds chirp. and the worst part is that you think it's in your control, you think you choose your slop and you think you choose which company owns you and you think you get to choose what ads are forced down your throat but there are billboards blocking the sky on the highway that you don't even have time to read and all the radio stations have a ratio of one minute of music to ten minutes of ads and all your tv shows have three sponsorships per episodes and cuts where they can put ads because God Forbid you have a single moment of freedom from the concept of buying something. and i want to delete all my apps and leave my phone at home but if you want your art to go anywhere you need a platform to post from and an algorithm to pray and sacrifice to so you can have a chance of paying your bills and getting out of your miserable dead end job and if you miss a text or a call or an email then you lose your friends or your job. its your life or your phone but your phone is your life and every 30 minutes my hands start shaking and my head gets foggy and i start patting my pockets like im looking for my box of cigarettes but i don't smoke. i don't smoke i don't smoke i don't fucking smoke but here i am with tight lungs breathing out a shallow sigh of relief when i feel the smooth cold streamlined unfeeling aesthetic prosthetic in my hand and it doesn't feel good anymore and i'm losing hours of my life i'm losing days and years because one christmas when i was 5 my nana thought i should have my own ipad. how do you get clean of something you need to survive? how do you detox from something you can never get away from if you want to live a normal life? how do i get out? how do i get out of here? which side of the screen am i pounding with my fists, screaming to be let go? am i the one consuming or the one being consumed?

i have a fear of being eaten alive, and here i am, sleeping in the maw.

keeping the tooth under my pillow.

[cutelint]

Me and my case

couldn’t think of a cute or clever title sorry

Updates (chronological)

Day 1

So far so good for the keyboard! My iPad is also not draining battery super fast which is something i was afraid of.

I like to set up my iPad while I do my nighttime routine… i fear this case is too clunky/I’m afraid of it getting water damage (because i usually put my iPad on the sink) so I haven’t brought it with me. I might attempt bringing it with me tonight but I’m unsure.

Still kinda upset about the Apple Pencil thing.

I like how sturdy it is!!! I can set it up at basically any angle on any surface and it won't flop around (like a laptop duhhhh)

ITS SO HEAVY. The case + the iPad is literally heavier than my laptop. I have a MacBook Air so I guess it makes sense but I'm just not used to my devices being this heavyyyyyyyy. I feel like I'm picking up a brick when I pick up my iPad.

I'm not sure if I'm going crazy but I feel like this iPad is definitely making my typing on my laptop worse. Like I think my hands have to adjust to using both the iPad keyboard and readjust to using my laptop keyboard. Who knows.

Day ??? (I haven’t been keeping track)

I seem to have grown more fond of how the case looks and functions since I’ve last updated this post. I was doing a lot of chores/errands today and it was nice to be able to set up my iPad to do stuff. (I like using my laptop but sometimes it’s just too big to for the occasion/to be hauling around everywhere)

I somehow managed to accidentally flip the keyboard switch off (I don’t think this keyboard is advanced enough to do that on its own when there’s low battery) and thought that it had ran out of batteries. I charged it for a considerable amount of time but it wouldn’t connect. It wasn’t until I checked the switch did I realize I had accidentally turned it off. Long story short, I still haven’t read the manual.

i did my nails today and the keyboard isn’t getting in the way! YAY! I’m not really sure about the difference between this and my laptop… maybe I’ll type an update on my laptop in a bit to see.

Still doing that thing where i reach for the trackpad. Idk how i feel about it but it kinda makes me miss my laptop.

Still fat fingering everything. Maybe it’s because my new nails, but I don’t think so.

Still very heavy case.

Getting over that fact that the Apple Pencil hangs from the side. I uses it has it’s charms but it’s still kinda annoying.

The keyboard itself might have a space bar problem, because there’s been a consistent flow of double spacing that’s been happening throughout this post. Maybe it’s on me tho…. I’m so sleepy right now I could barely type out this last bullet point for this post.

Day whatever

So yes, I was in fact so sleepy last night that I was unable to properly type out how I felt. But I’m still getting that double space thing where the autocorrect automatically assumes it’s a period and autocaps the next word so it’s extra annoying to delete. This is the first it’s happened so I don’t know if this is because of my new nails or if this is the keyboards fault.

Currently typing on my laptop and I know it's not my nails. Here's the thing... I like the sturdiness and the structure of the case and the keyboard is just a cool plus but then there's the way the Apple Pencil just hangs off the side that kinda bothers me a little. A lot....

Day next to the last

So I don’t know if it was just the way I wa typing for 2 days in a row or if the keyboard was tweaking for a little bit but it’s behaving pretty well today! I wonder if it just has off days where I have to turn the keyboard on and off again? Who knows but it’s feeling alright again. Perhaps I’ll have this case and then use the other case whenever I travel or do anything that requires a light, sleeker case that can better protect my Apple Pencil. Is that a selfish ask? Overconsumption?

Final update on separate post!

[furbland-channel]

Tutorial: How to use the Discord webapp in place of the mobile app

It has come to my attention in a rather rude awakening that the new mobile UI has finally crawled (or oozed, or sludged, or however disgusting things get about) onto tablets as well. It has also come to my attention, in a related matter, that I had never experienced true pain before. The app was deleted in under a minute. A third matter has also come to my attention: longer messages and cross-server emojis are no longer worth my time or money. Anyways, enough rambling. I have made the (understandable) decision to switch to the web app. "The web app? On mobile?" is what no one is probably asking right now, so let me clear things up here. Yes, the web app does work on mobile, surprisingly well in fact. "But how do you access it?" quoth the zero people reading this post. It’s pretty simple, just do it as you would on a desktop device; go to https://discord.com/app and use it there. But let's say you want to add it as a PWA. For those of you unfamiliar, a PWA (or Progressive Web App) is a webpage you can add to your Home Screen that behaves like an app instead of just opening in Safari when you click the icon. Unfortunately, Discord devs apparently despise happiness and easy solutions (oh wait, we figured that out already from the new UI) so you're going to have to do a bit of trickery to get it to behave the way you want it instead of just opening in Safari. First, let's get this out of the way: there's no easy way to go about this on Android, but thankfully you can just download an older version (version 205 is the last one before the UI update became forced) and sideload that (MAKE SURE YOU GET THE APK FROM A TRUSTWORTHY SITE, I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU ACCIDENTALLY INSTALLING A VIRUS). Now for how to do the PWA thing on iOS (iPhones, iPads, and iToasters¹). First, read through this guide and get + configure the Shortcut there. You'll also need a discord icon in your Photo Album to set as the app icon (you could also download one of the Nitro exclusive ones and use that, they'll never know *evil smirk*). Anydangway, what were we talking about? Oh right, PWAs. Now, when it asks you to type in the URL of the app you want to add, don't just type "https://discord.com" or "https://discord.com/app". No, you have to type a very specific URL: https://discord.com/channels/@me (TYPE IT EXACTLY LIKE THAT). Otherwise, it'll work just fine but you'll constantly have browser UI at the top and bottom of the screen. It's not fun. On the other hand, you can name the app anything you want (so you could have "Discord" and "The cooler Discord" side by side). Once that's all said and done and done and said and daid and sone, all you have to do is open the app, sign in, and enjoy! Sure, a couple of gestures don't work, but at least you don't have to endure this. Welp, that's our show. Tune in next time for "Top 10 Ways to Make a Pizza out of Entirely Cucumbers".

¹The iToaster may or may not exist.