#Time is borked severely is the point

[miraphoenix]

I'm still not okay with kids born in 2000 being not only able to drink in the USA, but also applying to graduate schools.

But it just hit me like a hammer to the gut that in 2 years, 1 month, kids born in 2010 will start being able to drive in the USA.

[laprimera]

League points are just a government stable crypto!

" Well larry did put in 500k into the system, can't waste that can we? "

[saltygilmores]

Thoughts While Watching Gilmore Girls, Season 2, Episode 21- Lorelai’s Graduation Day, Aka Lovesick Stepcousins In The Big City, Part 4

In my previous post, I stated this was the first time Rory and Jess had ever touched each other, but my friend @kimberly-stocks pointed out that was technically not true.

However, in the two previous instances, Rory shoved him out the door in There's The Rub, and then dragged him home by his sleeve in Dead Uncles and Vegetables, so I stand by this being the first display of real affectionate touch shared between our stepcousins. We know why Rory isn't in school, but the same can't be said for Jess. Look, it's something of a tossup between him flat out skipping school like Rory did (coincidentally, on the same day she decided to surprise him) or Liz just flat out didn't re-enroll him and so he's wandering the streets like a feral cat, poaching hot dogs and records and wandering stepcousins.

I was expecting an Okuh but I'll take a Whatever.

I really wanted to know if this shirt was based on a real band or musical tour. So I googled "Hardkore Kidd" and found this amazing bit of trivia.

Thank you Women in Revolt for that bit of interest. I googled it a bit further and indeed, Hardcore Kidd was the stage name of a wrestler. I thought it was the name of a band, and I'm sure 98% of you reading this thought the same... As far as him wearing something other than a band tshirt being "out of character" for Jess, we must agree to disagree. The "he actually watches wrestling sometimes" and "he only wore it ironically" are both plausible angles in my opinion. But he's also our thrift store king, and he probably just thought it looked rad. And it is. It's a rad shirt.

"From (someplace) to (Sudan?) to (someplace) to Baltimore"

Mmm, good tofu dogs. Rory is weirdly over the top delighted by the taste of this street wiener like she's never eaten a hot dog before in her gosh dang life. I will not sully this wholesome thing they've got going on here with tasteless wiener jokes. I will not make wiener jokes...I will not make wiener jokes.. Ladies and gentleman of the Jury, I will now present my findings as to whether or not Milo Ventimiglia Actually Ate A Wiener. In Exhibit A, It looks as if Mr. Ventimiglia actually partially consumed the wiener, as you can observe there is some definite mouth-to-wiener contact. In Exhibit B, Mr. Ventimiglia's wiener appears to have at least one nibble mark; while on the other hand , Ms. Bledel only pretended to be eating the wiener Mr. Ventimiglia had so generously procured for her, and there is no chunk missing from her wiener until several moments later.

Damn it, I'm weak.

Milo's wiener still only has one bite taken out of it, but he's been chewing for about a solid minute. If I didn't already know Rory was going to respond "do they allow hot dogs on the subway", I'd have scripted her to respond "But I already have a hot dog, I don't want a sandwich" when Jess said he was going to Subway. Come on, admit Rory would say something like that and that I'm hella funny. ADMIT IT. (Subway is the name of a chain of sandwich restaurants). He is adorably patient with her cluelessness, god bless him.

(The above is supposed to be a video; I apologize, since it's likely that by the time you read this, Tumblr will have borked it and made it unwatchable. If you can see it, be sure to click to watch it. You’ve been blessed).

There's my Okuh! A high pitched one, so you know he's happy. It was perfect. Sigh. Bless. If this episode were a human person, I'd marry it. I'm freaky like that.

[sibyl-of-space]

Troubleshooting & repair of a DIFFERENT old camcorder - audio & power issues - part 1

If there is one thing about me it is that I love old camcorders.

Device: JVC GR-250U MiniDV Camcorder

Symptoms: Issues charging, "Unit in Safeguard Mode" warning, unable to rewind, audio playback cuts in & out on inner speakers/AV out (FireWire transfer fine)

Service Manual: https://elektrotanya.com/jvc_gr_d250.rar/download.html#dl

TL;DR: Power stuff mostly handled, audio stuff not handled, I hate soldering tiny micro components

Well this camcorder actually started borking it about 2 years ago and I only now could be bothered to open it up and try and figure out what's up. First things first, I focused on the power issues, because I realized there's a chance the audio issue is a result of the power issues. Power issues do all sorts of stuff. You never know.

Now that I have a multimeter the first steps I took were:

Confirmed A/C adapter is outputting the voltage it's supposed to (confirmed)

Opened it up - this was a nightmare, I might make a teardown video at some point to walk people through it because it was SO annoying even WITH the schematics PDF

Tried to confirm voltages on various parts of the board (this was difficult because the circuits are really complicated and the schematic diagrams are A Lot, but it looked to me like for the most part everything was getting the expected voltages when powered on)

At this point I kinda got stuck so I did the tried and true method of "watch some videos of people who know what the fuck they're doing troubleshooting a similar piece of technology" and found this -

First off, I am jealous about how much easier that camcorder is to tear down than mine was, but anyway. In this case, the issue was a blown fuse. I realized I hadn't even thought to check or look for fuses on my camcorder, so I did that.

And sure enough: the first fuse I saw in big yellow letters labeled on the circuit board, F6001, when I tested across it there was no continuity. Looking at the schematics sheet this fuse is like the first point of failure right off the main power before it goes to just about every other part of the device, including and especially the battery, so that would explain most of the issues I've had with powering it. It also explains why the software stuff worked fine but it would fail when it had to do something mechanically taxing like rewinding a tape - bigger power draw, I imagine.

ANYWAY, just like the guy in the video, I decided I should just try to jumper across it to make it work. I was very idealistic at this time and thought if it worked I could order a replacement fuse and then properly install that.

I had not yet learned how much of a fucking nightmare soldering this stupid thing was going to be.

After 3 hours of my life that I will never get back, I have the ugliest solder job known to man, and have melted several adjacent components, but luckily not damaged them:

Perhaps you don't have a good sense for just how infuriatingly tiny this stupid thing is. Here is my thumb for scale.

I know the picture is blurry as hell. My phone didn't want to zoom in this much because of how freaking tiny this stupid shit is. Anyway. It's fine. I did it. Somehow. Eventually. Very, very eventually.

Verifying the jump was also a pain because there are absolutely no obvious connection points immediately after the fuse on this side of the board, and I cannot emphasize enough how annoying it is to take this circuit board out and access the backside, but whatever, it's fine, I found a capacitor on the backside that worked as a point to test the connection and was able to verify on like my 3rd fucking attempt that I actually soldered across the dumb thing.

I am absolutely not replacing this with another fuse. If it gets overloaded and explodes at some point that's just the will of the gods.

ANYWAY, once that was done I put it mostly back together to test it out. And I am actually pleased to report the power issues are much better. If it's plugged into the A/C directly there are no issues, and even on battery power it seems to charge more, hold a charge better, and give me the "UNIT IN SAFEGUARD MODE" error way less frequently. I have still gotten the error, but I wonder if that will go away if I get a new battery or just do a full battery charge + drain to 0 cycle a couple times. It's much more usable now which is good.

Unfortunately this did not solve the audio issue. I am going to have to learn a lot more about reading schematic sheets to figure out the audio issue. One hint I have is that looking at the outputs from the audio chip, the outputs for the speaker and the A/V out ARE COMPLETELY SEPARATE PINS AND CIRCUITS. Which means since I am getting the same symptom on both, the issue lies somewhere between reading from the tape and getting to that audio chip, in all likelihood.

I will further troubleshoot the audio issue another day. For today I have had enough with this stupid tiny circuit board and its dumb small components.

[devoursjohnlock]

What do you think of Mrs. Hudson’s role in Sherlock tho? Like since Una Stubbs has (sadly) passed away, can her role be replaced by another character through mirror characters? Or would they need to have another person play that role?

Hi anon,

Of course it's devastating to lose Una Stubbs as Mrs Hudson, and it's much harder for those involved in the show, who knew her personally, than it is for us.

In the Sherlock universe, I think the most obvious way to deal with the loss of Mrs Hudson as a character would be to cast a new actress as Mrs Turner, and have her appear as the 221B landlady without explanation. This would mirror Doyle's occasional use of Mrs Turner instead of Mrs Hudson.

The 221B landlady is unnamed when she first appears in A Study in Scarlet (1887), and then named Mrs Hudson in the next novel, The Sign of Four (1890). Despite this, she is named Mrs Turner throughout the first short story, A Scandal in Bohemia (1891). Much later, Mrs Turner is lined out in an early draft of The Empty House (1903), and replaced by Mrs Hudson:

Interestingly, there are varied theories about how long Mrs Hudson remained at 221B. Many Sherlockians believe that the old woman named Martha in His Last Bow (1917), described by Sherlock Holmes as "the only servant I have left", is actually Mrs Hudson, even though her last name is not given, and bringing Mrs Hudson along for undercover work at the German spy Von Bork's house seems a bit presumptuous. In Sherlock, this story is largely incorporated into His Last Vow (hardly surprising, given the title), and several of Von Bork's traits are incorporated into Magnussen's character. In the ACD Sherlock Holmes universe, this would place Mrs Hudson at the latest point in the timeline, dated at 1914 (it will be the last story in Letters From Watson).

However, the mention of a "new cook" in the Case-Book story Thor Bridge (1922), which Sherlock also borrows from in His Last Vow, as well as in S4, has led some Sherlockians to speculate that Mrs Hudson is no longer at 221B by that point.

"There is little to share, but we may discuss it when you have consumed the two hard-boiled eggs with which our new cook has favoured us. Their condition may not be unconnected with the copy of the Family Herald which I observed yesterday upon the hall-table. Even so trivial a matter as cooking an egg demands an attention which is conscious of the passage of time, and incompatible with the love romance in that excellent periodical." (Holmes to Watson in Thor Bridge)

In Sherlock, the role of Jane, the inattentive maid in The Abominable Bride, appears to be borrowed partly from Watson's maid Mary Jane, who cuts his boots while scraping mud off them in A Scandal in Bohemia, and the new cook who can't boil an egg in Thor Bridge.

The thing is, in the ACD Sherlock Holmes universe, Mrs Hudson is the cook; this is not in dispute. So, the reference to a "new cook" suggests to some that Mrs Hudson may have passed away sometime before Thor Bridge, which would mean that Martha cannot be Mrs Hudson if you take the dates seriously.

None of this directly answers your question, but my point is, the Great Game presents some interesting considerations for addressing the appearance of a new landlady for 221B. They may choose not to address it at all, swapping in a Mrs Turner for Mrs Hudson without comment, as Doyle did, or they may choose to mention the death of the character directly, or they may choose something else. Their method is pretty flexible, and they have options because of the way that Doyle wrote and the way that his stories have been interpreted over time. There is some ambiguity around Mrs Hudson as a character in the later stories; I assume they will lean into that, though I could easily be wrong.

[pagerunner-j]

So I've been reading -- finally, this damn thing came out in 2008 and was expanded in 2010 -- The Writer's Tale, which is basically an extremely long-form interview in the form of an ongoing email correspondence between Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook. It's about Doctor Who, of course, and the writing and production process thereof. It's a hell of a read. Really interesting insights into his approach to writing and how season 4 in particular came about. You can see how dramatically some things change along the way, partially due to evolving ideas and partially due to the roughly 97 million moving pieces involved in making a TV show. I still have no idea how anyone gets anything to the finish line in this business. It's absurd. Anyway, I'm going to be haunted by Penny (early companion concept for S4, before they had any notion that they could get Catherine Tate back) for a while. If she shows up in a fic of mine later, don't be surprised.

I do have to take a moment to get one brief rant off my chest: there are a few emails included here from Steven Moffat, since the showrunner transition was in the works at the time. That's all interesting to see. But he also went and poked right at several of my pet peeves, go figure. In one email, Steven dropped a metaphor about measuring for new curtains and then said he had to come up with more macho metaphors, and then two, three messages on, he's onto saying he's wittering on like a little girl, and I just groaned. You can feel the "ew, I can't act girly, I can't say girly things, ewwwww" wafting off of things. Dude, I have actively been trying to grin and bear it with you, but the toxic masculinity, it burns.

Meanwhile, off on the other end of "oh my god, men," Russell is blatantly, but at least in good humor, thirsting over every hot guy he casts. Part of me is sitting here like, "Honey, get a hold of yourself," and the rest of me is just laughing helplessly that he's still casting Russell Tovey in things to this day and I guess I fucking well know why, now.

ANYWAY.

Apart from all that: like I said, good read so far, insightful, sympathetic, etc. I read a chunk of this last night and then sat down and banged out a thousand words of something I'd been neglecting, because his struggles with procrastination were both relatable and weirdly motivating in an "oh, god, stop doing the same thing to yourself" sort of way. Also, I think I'd once known but had forgotten that RTD's really a very good cartoonist, and there's several drawings from him in here, which is charming. So: it's worth a spin. You can get it as an ebook at this point, of course, which helps. I suspect at the time it first came out, my only option would have been importing, and I didn't even really know to look for it then. Much easier now.

(If you get the Kindle edition, note that the periodic "see more" links are completely borked, but at least the footnotes work.)

[10blue10]

History of Berk

Before the country was unified in 872 AD, Norway was broken into several petty kingdoms. One of these, Hålogaland, lay along the northwestern coast.

At some point, a Viking tribe known as the Hairy Hooligans rebelled against the King of Hålogaland because of raised taxes (legend says it was because he was a cruel and unjust monarch, but it was probably because of taxes.)

They were soundly defeated and their leader killed in battle, but his son managed to persuade the king to not have the survivors executed. Instead he told his tribe that they could be independent if they left the mainland, without a king to rule over them. For this he was named Chief Hiccup Haddock the First.

They sailed forth, and in the year 714 AD came across an island in the middle of nowhere. When they arrived, the island was uninhabited by humans or dragons, since by then the local dragons had come under the sway of the Red Death. This made it seem ideal for settling, compared to the barren or dragon-infested islands they’d encountered elsewhere in the archipelago.

Hiccup I wanted to name the island after his friend and mentor, Bork, who was the first to actually spot it. However, the older man decided that saying he was “Bork from the isle of Bork” sounded stupid, so they changed it to Berk.

Not long after they settled on Berk, the dragons began to raid their flocks. At first the raids were infrequent, but attempts were made to find the nest. When these ended in disaster and nearly wiped out the tribe, Hiccup I forbade more searches for the nest. Instead he suggested they try and find a better home.

In response to this, his brother Hamish killed him and took over the tribe on the grounds that they needed a strong chief, not a ‘hiccup’. He was Hamish I. He married Hiccup I’s widow, Hilda, on the grounds of ‘supporting her in her grief’.

They had a son. Hamish II took after his uncle. Hamish I refused to name his son ‘Hiccup Haddock the Second’ but Hamish II was still nicknamed Hiccup.

Bork, who had particularly bad luck with dragon raids, began to write down what he’d observed about dragons, in the hopes of giving them an edge. As the raids became more frequent, his Book of Dragons became invaluable. He was the mentor of Hamish II, the way Gobber is the mentor of Hiccup III.

The dragon raids continued to worsen, but the tribe refused to leave. Not just because of stubbornness, but because the other nearby inhabitable islands were already taken, and because they didn’t want to go back to the mainland (even if they were un-banished) and live under the rule of distant king again.

At some point, Bork fell into a berserk rage whilst fighting dragons and got killed. Around this time, Hamish II realised that another ‘hiccup’ would be born sooner or later, and set up the hunt for his father’s treasure (as well as the portrait of him as he really looked). He said that he was establishing a legacy for himself and his father, the way Bork’s legacy was the Book of Dragons.

History repeats itself, alas, and Hamish II also knew that his brother was coveting the throne. Rather than wait for his brother to follow in their father’s footsteps and start a coup, he left Berk to find the dragons nest and never returned, allowing his brother to take over. To this day, the portrait of Hamish I and II is succeeded by the portrait of Hamish II’s brother and nephew.

Hamish II had a daughter, Hilda II, who was Valka’s great-grandmother. This is why he knew another ‘Hiccup’ would eventually be born, even if they weren’t named so. Four generations later, his great-great-great-grandson, Hiccup Haddock the Third, was the first Hiccup to become and remain chief of Berk.

[lunar-insanity]

I swear I fix one thing, another thing breaks.

I recently replaced my motherboard in my PC because it got borked at some point in the past few years and thus started running too hot in two places, burned out one of the ram ports, and thus would not render any video more than a minute long, if that.

So it's working again, I managed to render an hour long video I've had for months.

BUT NOW

The UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) finally gave out after one final sudden power interruption, and ever since I replaced the motherboard, my headphones Keep. Cutting. OUT.

Several times the sound just cuts out in them, the mic stops working, and I have to replug them back in to get them to work.

Tech hates me Istg

[lixenn]

Fuck um....

Dan

Chief has several scars on his hands because of gardening, cleaning, repairing stuff etc. They aren't really prominent and people don't ask about them because that's just a natural consequence of the work he does.

Bel also left some marks on him (because he's a little shit with a stabbing problem), so he has some knife scars on his arms and one on his stomach from when his Royal Highness was feeling especially grumpy. Dan mostly wears long sleeves before awakening his flames so most people don't see thoses scars but after he goes active and bundles up less (because his flames warm him up) the only comment they get is: "Belphegor?" which Chief always answers with a confirming sigh: "Belphegor."

However there's one more scar on his back, which he refuses to talk about. He brushes it off, gets defensive about it. What's the story behind it? Well... spoilers~ hehehe

Dave

Dave is riddled with scars. His skin paints a story of pain and abuse but everytime someone dares to ask about it he will spin a fantastical tale, grinning the entire time, about how he borke his leg while snowboarding or how his back looks like this because he challenged a feral goose to a duel.

He ups the ridculousness each time he is questioned, which naturally started a betting pool on Dave scar origins.

He doesn't hide them, since covering them up with clothes would limit his wardrobe coniderably and he can't be bothered to do full body make up. So, he lies and lies and lies. He turns it a joke because if people laugh at his crazy stories and speculate about what's true and what isn't they are distracted from the fact that he's been broken way too many times.

Valerie

Val is a fighter, so similar to Dave her skin is a network of scars. But unlike Dave this is expected because she was an active combatent and still spars regularly, not only with Housekeeping and Support members but also with Assassins. So, people aren't surprised to see her scars and don't really ask about them, but if someone does get curious she answers honestly and to the point. She got her eyebrow scar early in her career when she was starting out in the Assassin division. It was one of her first missions and her target had a hidden ace (or more like a knife) up her sleeve. Her nose is a bit crooked from being broken to many times and her hands are also calloused and nicked to hell and back.

Not scars but she also has strechmarks on her stomach from her pregnancy and wrinkles on the corner of her eyes and mouth.

If your OC has a prominent scar or scars, how did they get them? How many people know this story? How do people react to it?

[shesgabrielle]

How to break a PC: step by step

'The object invoked has disconnected from its clients' This was an error message I just got on my ancient, mostly used for music and sometimes sculpting pc when it failed to load a song on windows media player. Sounds very mystical. Bring back weird error messages.

I should note I had (emphasis on had) a second, slightly less ancient pc which unfortunately I couldn't switch windows updates off from, so it was just sitting there downloading every update, once a week for years. Pretty much no files or programs on it, it worked like a snail as of a couple weeks ago, so I did a virus scan, bot scan, updated browsers, disk cleanup. There was nothing, no issues, it used to be able to livestream drawing online, edit huge video files, play retro games. (Not a gaming pc, but fast enough for normal content making use) At this point of trying to fix it, it took several minutes to load a single webpage. I also copied files to its empty harddrive after this, thinking I could use it as a video player, anyway some combination of the above meant the next time it booted there were basically heiroglyphics on the screen, like it couldn't even display the error/boot text correctly, the words were deep fried and disjointed. in summary I borked it. So if I ever get a 'new' pc or laptop, it will definitely still be an ancient one with updates switched off. After w10 you literally can't switch them off, nor restore to a point prior to 10 days ago, and my spare, empty pc pretty much proved that the updates alone are enough to destroy a fast computer.

[yoiku]

Nope. the pc is too fucking borked to stream. I can get some work done but for some reason streaming seems to be what it hates the most when it comes to the boots, gaming close second. I'm gonna keep asking tech supports and see what the consensus of all the opinions will be. I'll give it a bit of time. If people think it could still be the power intake at my end despite there being no proof of that, I guess I'll have to ask my landlord if having a power tech come over to take a look at the sockets or something. (which is a thing I definitely dont have the funds for yeeehaaaw) and if it leans more into the machine itself, I guess the next step there is to start inquiring about possible return/exchange for another similar machine... but that is going to be really difficult because the other half of the payment was done by the grant. I'm at the point of frustration that I have cried several times just today.

Nothing works. There's not a single thread to follow to figure out what is actually the cause at this point. My soul is withering and my depression spiking up real good because of not being able to do the tasks I need to do.

[tehuti88-art]

3/1/24: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is a twofer: Sgt. Thomas "Harrier" Harricks, and Flight Lt. Donovan Bradford, in a garrison cap (top drawing) and in a peaked cap (bottom drawing). These are two poorly developed British characters from the previous reboot. Donovan (he prefers going by his first name) is a laid-back pilot but now stays on the ground, whereas Harrier is short tempered and unpleasant. There'll be more about them later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding their design, Harrier underwent a last-minute drastic design change based on my mistaken memory that HE had been the pilot; I suddenly decided to change him from a rat into a bat, making him only the second non-rat character in the rodent half of the story (Papillon is the other). He's passing as a rat, which is why the pointy tips of his ears are clipped off, plus he wears gloves and avoids shaking hands because of how bat hands are constructed. (This is something I only JUST realized about Papillon recently, his fingers are his wings! He effectively has no hands! I came up with the idea of him having prosthetic hands operated by his thumbs, and this led to more plot development. Harrier of course deals with a similar complication.) Also, I just noticed I really borked up the British garrison cap in my original design--it has earflaps buttoned in front like a German field cap--so my older Liam Morgan portrait will need to be tweaked.

TUMBLR EDIT: Harrier and Donovan both date to the first attempted reboot, and both severely lack character development (similar to characters like Evans and Beaudry); here to be thorough I'm looking to dust them off and flesh them out sometime. This section will be divided among the characters to avoid repetition.

Here is Flight Lt. Donovan Bradford's original description from the old character list (2002):

DONOVAN BRADFORD: 1st lt.; the Trench Rats' contact among the British fighting in Germany. Indispensible in assisting them with contacting the Americans and the outside world. Very affable and easygoing, slow to anger; witty and charming, very gentlemanly. Tolerates Harrier's constant griping with ease. Reports to Ellroy and sometimes to the French forces as well as the Americans. A flying ace, but now spends most of his time on the ground. Prefers to be called by his first name. Current storyline

Donovan's rank has since changed; he's in the RAF, which apparently has a rank called "flight lieutenant" (which seems more the equivalent of captain in other branches, but I wanted something with "lieutenant" in it). Ranks are kind of over my head, so I try not to overthink it much; he's now a flight lieutenant. I'm also not so sure he's an "ace" anymore, as I believe he's a bomber pilot rather than a fighter pilot like von Staden, though again, such things are a bit beyond my understanding. In any case, those are the corrections. (The "Ellroy" referred to is Major Titus Ellroy. This part here is super awkward, I just typed up how he's the American contact of the European forces and not Donovan's CO, when I then looked at the character list and...he's British and he literally IS Donovan's CO! Turns out I was mixing him up with Major Dupries (the actual American character). Oops. 😅 Guess I'll have to get around to him sometime soon.)

I don't know as much about Donovan yet as about his good friend Sgt. Harricks, AKA Harrier. I do know he befriends Harrier early on, and gives him his nickname after seeing him fly, though Harrier goes to great lengths to disguise his identity as a bat--even the tips of his ears have been clipped--so Donovan honors his secret, and even pulls strings getting him in the British army and obtaining him a desk job, as Harrier's wings make combat difficult. I suspect Harrier may have been some sort of petty street criminal or laborer who helped Donovan out at some point, possibly by flying. Donovan is a bomber pilot whose aircraft is downed; he parachutes out in time, though I think the parachute malfunctions, and again, Harrier swoops in to help out; he's long admired Donovan and his job, seeing as, passing himself off as a rat, he has to refrain from flying, himself. Donovan is injured, yet survives. For some reason, however, he's declared unfit to return to duty as a pilot, and so settles for a liasion role to the American forces, mainly the Trench Rats. (Perhaps he introduces them to Lyndsey Skye?) Harrier takes this harder than he does; Donovan is like, "Eh, what can you do," although he does try to encourage Harrier to seek a more active role utilizing his own ability to fly. He's Harrier's biggest cheerleader, although Harrier is too full of doubt to oblige at first.

Donovan may have had a previous relationship with LC Lyndsey Skye before she joined the Trench Rats. If so, the two appear to have parted on amicable terms, as they get along well, and Donovan never expresses any jealousy when Skye later gets involved with Burgundy Rat. He and Harrier are familiar, at least in passing, with Sgt. Liam Morgan; like the Trench Rats, they never even realize Morgan's been turned by the Waffen-SS, nor American corporal Anna Julian's role in things. They're as stunned by this information as the Trench Rats are when it finally comes out.

Aside from this, I'm afraid I haven't much more info available on him; unlike Harrier, he doesn't have a sudden new plot development to flesh him out. Perhaps some more will come to light at a future point; until then, check out Harrier's entry for a bit more.

[Donovan Bradford 2024 [‎Friday, ‎March ‎1, ‎2024, ‏‎12:00:15 AM]]

[Donovan Bradford 2024 2 [‎Friday, ‎March ‎1, ‎2024, ‏‎12:00:26 AM]]

[TUMBLR NOTE: Again, I have to edit the entry time from 12:00 to 12:01, despite posting my entries in order, for them to display in the proper order. God do I wish Tumblr would fix their posting order problems.]

[themultiverseinmymind]

My Drawing Process

So, finally getting around to sharing my process. I feel so bad that this took so long to finally do, but better late than never? Also, please bear in mind that I am mostly self-taught, so if I'm doing things funkily, that's probably why.

This is gonna be a long post, so I'm putting it under the cut.

First step is gathering references. This takes… So. Much. Time. Because it never feels like I can find the ideal one for what I'm picturing in my head? (Also, because I end up distracted and gathering ones I don't need, but the ADHD is strong in this one.) I usually end up using multiple references for various aspects and kind of Frankenstein-ing them together (like, one might involve the initial placement of two figures hugging, but then I'll find another to place an arm differently, or to help depict a different body type than the first reference. Oftentimes this involves using the "perspective" feature of "transform a layer or selection" on Krita for positioning a reference.)

I tend to keep different linework in various bright colors to help myself differentiate between them, keeping several separate layers, and later merging (and ideally labelling) them. For example, I'll have several hair layers as I add details and whatnot, and will only combine them into one layer once I'm satisfied with how everything looks. Linework involves a bunch of redrawing for me as I play around with things to get them to look the way I want, so I make a bunch of copies as I tweak different lines in case I bork something up and need to revert to an old copy (I'll periodically go through and delete old copies as I improve said lines.)

This is the point where I'll color my lines black, though if it's difficult to differentiate between certain lines, I might leave certain lines colored until the flat colors are done.

Next is getting my flat colors done, usually taking from the original color-scheme if it's fan-art of a non-original character. I usually keep a little labelled swatch like the one in the upper right.

Then we get to the fun part that I hate and love in equal measure: shading and highlights!

I'll usually start with adding pink-ish tones to the areas that have the concentration of blood-flow- cheeks, tip of the nose, etc. (Though, I don't think I did with this one, so I don't have an example to show, oops.) Then I'll move onto shading, following a reference typically for a basic idea of where the contours need to be, but a lot of this ends up being intuitive. I like to use a combination of the wet paint brush, the soft airbrush, and the basic blender- often setting it to a lower opacity as I blend/soften edges and switching the eraser setting on and off. I try to move my brush strokes in directions that follow the shape of the contours themselves - as if it were a 3d model (does the way I'm describing that make sense? I hope so.)

I like to play with different filters on the layer setting to get the color/concentration I want for this - "Shade - IFS Illusions" gets used a lot, though typically set to less than 50% transparency and often in combination with another lower transparency layer or two, I play with layers to get the looks I want.

Post-blending:

Then adding extra details- in this case, slight creases and stubble, etc.

Then highlights- I love using the "Luminosity/Shine SAI" layer filter for this- gives it a nice glow. Same as before, I might have several layers for highlights, at various transparencies to achieve a certain look.

Then I'll add more details, usually focusing on things like clothes.

Then the background. I do not love doing background stuff, but I am very grateful for finding FizzyFlower's Essential Brushes- it has sooo many helpful brushes.

Annnd that's about it. I hope it was helpful and not too rambly.

[teenageread]

Review: His Last Bow

Synopsis:

‘His Last Bow’, the title story of this collection, tells how Sherlock Holmes is brought out of retirement to help the Government fight the German threat at the approach of the First World War. The Prime Minister himself requests Holmes's services to hunt down the remarkable German agent, Von Bork. Several of the detective's earlier cases complete the volume, including 'Wisteria Lodge', 'The Bruce-Partington Plans', and 'The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax'. In 'The Dying Detective', Dr Watson is horrified to discover Holmes at death's door from a mysterious tropical disease as his friend lays a trap for a murderer.

Plot:

His Last Bow: Coming out of retirement, Sherlock Holmes and his trusted partner, John Watson, are faced with a puzzle that involves hunting down a German agent during the beginning of World War One. With a time limit on this mission, Holmes and Watson must gather evidence and find the German before the time runs out.  

Along with His Last Bow there are seven other short stories within this collection.

Thoughts:

Arthur Doyle does it again, releasing a Sherlock Holmes novel with a little twist on it. From detective to spy, Doyle writes this short story more of a spy narrative than Sherlock’s usual detectiveness. Where it is a bit late in the game to change up genres, it was a fun change of pace, and let you see Sherlock in a new light while he is still the brilliant detective he has always claimed to be. Along with this story, there are seven other short stories included in this collection. They were all good, some were better than others, with the Last Bow being my favorite. At this point you get what you get with Sherlock, Doyle does not try to develop the story more, but gives us the classic Sherlock solving a case and then moving on. As a reader it was funny to see Doyle making Sherlock retire, but they immediately brought him out of retirement. As one of the later collections of Sherlock Holmes stories you can tell Doyle is quite comfortable with the character. With Doyle’s usual writing, it's a fun collection of stories to read if you are into classic English literature or are down for some more Sherlock Holmes stories.

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

[genalesnumberonefan]

All of ask Gentlae so far.

AUTHORS NOTES

So I went on the wiki here's all the info about this AU I'll refrence heavily from these events but I want you guy's to know this now cause I don't really have any faith in my writing skills

Gentale is an Undertale AU made by Youtuber . After being driven Underground, Sans and Papyrus lived on the streets for several years, scrounging for scrap and spare change just to survive. It wasn't until Sans met Asgore, who was friends with his mother, the Captain of the Royal Guard Arial, and his father, Doctor W.D. Gaster, that things began to look up.

In addition to being taken in by his father and finally having a home and a steady supply of food to live on, Sans and Papyrus also spent a lot of time with the royal family, becoming close friends with both Asriel and Chara and being considered surrogate children by the King and Queen.

Things would not stay this way forever, and much like the events of many other versions of them, Chara and Asriel enacted a plan to free the monsters, which failed. From that point onward, events began to spiral down a dark path. Asgore declared war on humanity and began to kill the children who would fall into the Underground, believing it to be the only option and slowly self-destructing as he fell further and further into despair. Toriel left Asgore and sealed herself away in the Ruins, abandoning the kingdom for years to come.

When Sans saw how Asgore was falling apart, he agreed to allow his father to perform a procedure on him to enhance his abilities to turn him into what could be considered a living anti-human weapon, as he took on the burden of killing both the Patience and the Justice souls to spare his surrogate father the pain of doing so himself. As the years passed, Sans spiraled further and further into his own depression, which was only exacerbated when Gaster attempted to kill him, forcing Sans to push him into the Core in self-defense.

It was a fateful day when Sans decided to pay a visit to the grave of Asriel and Chara, as it had been several years since the last time that he had visited, as full of shame and grief as he was. Nobody could have expected what had happened during that visit, but when Sans left, he was accompanied by the Phantom of Chara, who through unknown means had awakened and found their spirit bound to Sans.

Sans's personality and abilities have drastically changed due to Chara's presence, and more things will continue to change as time passes and the story continues onward. And Gentale was created by Gemtem and Undertale was created by Toby Fox.

I hope you enjoy this story I'm un-posting my other two stories cause to much effort so I hope you all enjoy Ask Gentale and company :3

And If y'all comment some ask i'll take those ask and put them in I have an Idea for how the story will play out on a google document so enjoy

Ps:I know I just started but I hope if this get's popular someone could make a cover on deviant art and comment it that'll be awesome and I will also be taking two elements from different ask blogs that I like such as Ask Swap Papyrus and Ask Frisk and Company so I hope you all enjoy and We must remember to stay determined.

1# who the bork are you.

Ask Gentale.

Sans was laying down in his room arguing with Chara about which food was better Chocolate Ketchup or both, and for them, it has become a daily conversation but what happens when they suddenly hear a voice in their heads asking? Hi Sans and Chara... Hello Sans said They search around the room until they see a portal open up. Sans quickly gets ready to fight summoning a knife and a gaster blaster as outcomes.

Hello Sans and then she looks at Chara and says hello to you as well Chara I am responsible for the voice in you'r heads. Or skeleton and spectral head he. The people in your head are called askers their beings from across the void and I give them the ability to talk to you think of these guys as a gift. So after this, you'll be getting a lot of questions so enjoy. I'll pop in from time to time and also here are two bracelets for you guys to put on now goodbye.

Chans: What the F-

Hope you people enjoy the first chapter of ask Gentale the first question was what I put in here and I don't have a lot of asks so until I do this will be pretty short so enjoy and stay determined everyone. So it's an hour later I checked my story to use Grammarly to help me and I got a common thanks gemtem0fan1 so I'll be publishing it right now still it's super short 

This is all so confusing?!?!?!

Sans:...Papyrus have you heard any voices at all...

Papyrus: No brother I have not found any of these voices you speak of but if they do they'll face I the great Papyrus member of the royal guard Nyehehehehe!

Chara: So when are these "askers" gonna pop up

Sans: (thinking)*I don't know Chara but Papyrus hasn't heard anything *

Action: As sans is talking to Chara he grabs some ketchup and a MTT bran chocolate bar.

Papyrus: Sans is that one of the chocolates Mettaton gave me?

Sans: Yes but tibia honest bro it's fine cause this chocolate's an impasta

Papyrus: oh my lord sans you told this pun a few days ago. But it's fine I'm going over there tomorrow.

Sans: I'd bet a Mettaton that'd you'll have fun bro.

Papyrus: Okay Sans that one was good but now I'm off to do a skeleton of training with undyne too so I'll be back at nightfall so goodbye NYEHEHEHEHE.

Sans: So Chara I 'v drunk my ketchup you can take over for your chocolate

Chara: Yes let's go partner and Metta has the tastiest chocolate.

*Chara possesses Sans*

S̸̡̹̈́̿̈́̑̊̈a̴͎̿̓̽̽ň̸̳̠͈̘̥͇͓̈́̌̍̂̏͠s̷̺̳̤͒͐̋͆͒̀͝_:Chocolate yes *num num num*. This is so good.

S̸̡̹̈́̿̈́̑̊̈a̴͎̿̓̽̽ň̸̳̠͈̘̥͇͓̈́̌̍̂̏͠s̷̺̳̤͒͐̋͆͒̀͝:: So how long until these "askers" arrive who knows.

*Chara has stopped possessing sans*

*Suddenly a voice appears shouting in their heads*

AgnieszkaKrekora4 question for Sans: who do you like more, Chara or Alphys, maybe ketchup? (OMG reminded me of the Sans x ketchup joke.) question for Chara: what do you like and hate about Sans, and if you were a real human alive, would you date him?

Sans: I like Chara more but yeah Alphys and I go way back she helped me out when I was younger... actually we use to date now we're just friends pretty sure she got a thing for Undyne now but uhh I go over and watch some anime with them every once and a while.

Chara: I like that he lets me possess him. I hate that he doesn't love chocolate and he says too many puns sometimes and if I was a real human then Absolutely not (maybe a bit we've known each other for long enough so I don't know)

*In this story Chara is a tsundere*(A tsundere is someone who has a crush on someone but will never admit it)

Gentem0fan1So I have a few questions for you guys to answer How did you guys meet? Do you guys switch on eating papyrus's spaghetti? Do You know who !@#$%^ is And that's it?

Chans:... How we met I think we both remember it like it was yesterday. It happened a month or so after Chara's death and we moved to Snowdin then I went to visit Chara's/my grave and I/he found my ghost and once he went to my body I woke up cause our souls are bonded. So once that happened he could see me and we've been partners ever sense.

Chara: Sans why do you go to Toriel we both know it's her and we both know that she remembered you.

Sans: yeah I was planning on it I kinda just forgot.

Chara: sure partner anyways Sans let's go to Metta's and get some chocolate who knows maybe these voices will annoy 'em to.

Me: hi my favorite/only commenter akakrekora now we can annoy Mettaton remember drink water comment lot's of questions and such and I will be getting some plot around the fifth chapter so I saw 19 people read my last chapter currently so all of you guys start commenting questions to the characters. I write this on a google document so I can save all of you'r questions for different characters like if you have a good question for Toriel or Undyne comment it and i'll copy it down in my document so once we meet 'em I can give them the question or just go and comment questions ask them if they did this before make me caesar out Gaster or you can summon items for different characters they might not instantly happen but they'll appear eventually I promise (Disclaimer Of this book actually gets popular (which it probably wont I wont have every ask cause there'd just be to many) etc, etc Now that my rant is over guys girls non binary pals hope you enjoyed please comment IDRC about you guys voting I only care about you guys commenting it's important for these type of stories. So enjoy and good night/day and bye 

Meltdown

question for Sans: if you and Chara are soul bonded, can you Tease her soul half by touching. licking and biting to see if Chara is sensitive to such actions? However, knowing life, you too will probably feel the same as Chara, and do you, like classic Sans, consider Chara a demon.

Chans: You... want us to try soul touching

Sans:IwouldneverwanttotrysoultouchingwithCharaunlesstheywantedtobutIwould'ntImeanwer'ejustfriendsImean.

Chara:NO I don't want to think of Sans touching my soul (but what if *Lewd thoughts* )

Author/A:After Chara ahd these thoughts she was a ??????%

Chara had this blush and was curled into a ball

They sit at a chair

They try to gain there mental sanity back

Narrator... 10 minutes later

Chans: The other question

Sans: A Demon... no I'd never think of Chara as a demon they did some bad things in their psat or why they fell down here but there not bad hell they know more about me then Papyrus.

Chara:*crying* thank you Sans you are the most important person in the world partner I don't know where i'd be without you.

Narrator 10 minutes later.

Sans:... Chara we need to make a plan for once Frisk comes back...

Narrator:... wait why are we changing P.O.V's this is important... oaky To ohh Papyrus's and Undynes traning.

Undyne:Papyrus you go tthis cut those things down

Narrator...Tomatos

Papyrus: Yes after this I sha'll be able to serve my brother the most magnificent of spaghetti for his birthday and Alyphys sha'll bring the cake correct.

Undyne: Yeah Alyphs Metta and I made it

ASkers: Papyrus challenge: confess your love to Mettaton.

Undyne challenge: Kiss Alphys next to Sansa for 20 minutes, with breaks for gasps.

Papyrus:Who said that ahhthese mst be the voices Sans told me about this morning.

Askers:Papyrus challenge: confess your love to Mettaton.

Undyne challenge: Kiss Alphys next to Sans for 20 minutes, with breaks for gasps.

Undyne:(A twenty minute make out session with Alphys)... *Lewd thougts*

Undyne: To do all those we'd have to be dating hell mabey we'd be married

*Fantasy vision*

Undyne.exe has stopped working let's end the chapterhere guys sense evreyone's broken now...

So I google it Sanses Birthday andbefore it was july second and Chara's was July seventh and because of that I couold of had a good Toriel scene where Toriel and Sans eat Pie with eachother and just talk with Chara just watching but now what was said before disappeared and it's now stated that Classic sans birthday is on April 1 but i'm lazy so the chapter after Sans B-day it'll be Chara's B-day than Papyrus which i'll probably let y'all add stuff to it and so i'm just gonna make the fact that Sanses Birthday is july 2 Chara's is july 7 and Papyruses is july 10. So hope you enjoy

Y'all know the drill COMMENT I don't want to start making my own asks and I don't want to selfmake the story go forward I want you guys to ask genuine questions about literally anyone I save those questions

And here are the questions from my only commenter so far lol on the doc for once I introduce those characters

HUH

After last chapter

Sans: hey chara after this i'm just gonna take a shortcut

Alphys: OH MY ASGORE I- Sans dang it    

Sans: sorry Al so as you know if you hear-

4th wall: from AgnieszkaKrekora4 try not to stutter after kissing Undyne, you can cover your face with your hands if you're shy.

Alphys: voices right because Sans I just heard a voice in my head and it said Undyne was going to kiss me. 

Sans: yeah um I can't explain it well how about Miss.Messanger.

Messanger: Heya GTsans 

Sans: GTsans?

Messanger: It means Gentale

ANyways I'm kind of bored so i'm gonna be sending someone here enjoy and happy birthday sans.

Author note... Hey fellas so I got demotivated cause only one person was comentig like I have around 75 views some of you guys could comment it hurts but yes enjoy another ask series ask you'r choice 

You guys can choose an AU and i'll make a ask here can't just be one person it has to be a full AU so bye and I hope you enjoy and yeah i'm back 

The game begins

Anyways hope you guys enjoyed and I'm sorry about how long this is not rediculously long but yeah and heres the link to the wattpad port of my story i'll have another story on ao3 but don't have an acount there yet so.

[omocute-wobble]

Slice-of-Life Slapstick Omo

The omo with that clumsy-whumpsy flavour.

Whether applying an antibiotic cream to your infected toe, or preparing to clean your shower with stalwart grime-fighting chemicals, it's probably best to never do anything before evacuating your bladder. - I repeat: Never. Do. Anything.

On the other hand, when you write a character who has even the slightest need to pee, make them do everything. - Within reason, of course -- so no 3-hour drives or taming lions or whatever. Just those little innocuous things that could change their still-bearable discomfort into a writhing, clenching reason to cry. Simply because they have eyeballs.

Imagine the following:

💛 The infected toe. Doctor's advice: soak foot in soda solution, and apply antibiotic cream, three times a day. In practice this means you sit down with a (big/caffeinated) beverage, foot in a bucket of warm (but rapidly cooling down) liquid, for 20--30 minutes. Then you have to dry your foot, and apply the cream. Normally you'd get up to wash your hands at this point, and pee if you want to. - But... your character decides to call the doctor about their unimproving monster toe, and promptly is put on a three-callers-before-them hold. They play with the excess of cream on their toenail as they try to ignore the increasing fullness of their bladder. - After finally having made a new appointment, they are free to get up. They oof and urgh a bit, mutter some overdramatic "I'm getting old", and rub the itch in the corner of their eye -- touching their eyeball with the finger that still has some antibiotic cream on it...

AHHHHHHHH hurry to the nearest tap to rinse their eyeball with running water for omg no less than 20 minutes asdasfasdfasdf

💛 The bathroom cleaning. Your character decides it's high time to scrub their living space. After thoroughly cleaning the kitchen, they've been hearing enough running water to have been inspired to make some water of their own -- but since they're in the flow, they think they should first prepare a fresh bucket of chlorinated water, or a sturdy bleach solution. - As they run the water, they see all kinds of little things they can move beforehand to make cleaning easier, and oh, hang on, they have a special sponge for the faucets... - The bucket is full enough, so they close the tap, somewhat squirmy on one foot as they try to open the child-safety cap of their grime-fighting chemical bottle; they succeed! but not without losing balance and squeezing the bottle, which causes the substance to splash in their face, and, indeed, their eye---

AHHHHHHHH hurry turn back on the tap to rinse their eye with running water for OMG no less than 20 minutes asdasfasdfasdf

Of course, especially if your character lives alone, they could simply decide that being the owner of several changes of clothes and a mop means it'd not be the end of the world to let go. - So let's find a mundane thing to bork outside.

💛 Disinfectant hand gel. Your character is outside, perhaps travelling or shopping, and eagerly on their way to find a toilet. Whether for pandemic reasons, health concerns, germophobia, or simply because they just had a particularly sticky chocolate éclair, they use a generous glob of hygienic hand gel to clean their hands as they walk. - Just as they put the glob on their hand, the wind picks up and blows a pamphlet or someone's long hair in the direction of their face. They automatically shield their eyes with their hand, but someone bumps up against them from behind, and in a clumsy motion your character gets some of the gel in their eye---

AHHHHHHHH hurry into the nearest building and ask where they can rinse their eye with running water for OMFG no less than 20 minutes asdasfasdfasdf

...Okay, I'm done. <.<

Remember to Never Do Anything, peeps, and take care. 💛