#and 'because they're easier to manufacture'

[clamoridoll]

i don't think her design is awful (though not really worth $75) but i wish they did something different with her hair, like put it up in a bun or something. it doesn't fit the formal victorion vibes, but historical accuracy aside, the black hair with the dark blue dress just engulfs her silhouette, y'know?

[odinsblog]

🗣️THIS IS WHAT INCLUSIVE, COMPASSIONATE DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE

Minnesota Dems enacted a raft of laws to make the state a trans refuge, and ensure people receiving trans care here can't be reached by far-right governments in places like Florida and Texas. (link)

Minnesota Dems ensured that everyone, including undocumented immigrants, can get drivers' licenses. (link)

They made public college free for the majority of Minnesota families. (link)

Minnesota Dems dropped a billion dollars into a bevy of affordable housing programs, including by creating a new state housing voucher program. (link)

Minnesota Dems massively increased funding for the state's perpetually-underfunded public defenders, which lets more public defenders be hired and existing public defenders get a salary increase. (link)

Dems raised Minnesota education spending by 10%, or about 2.3 billion. (link)

Minnesota Dems created an energy standard for 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040. (link)

Minnesota already has some of the strongest election infrastructure (and highest voter participation) in the country, but the legislature just made it stronger, with automatic registration, preregistration for minors, and easier access to absentee ballots. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded the publicly subsidized health insurance program to undocumented immigrants. This one's interesting because it's the sort of things Dems often balk at. The governor opposed it! The legislature rolled over him and passed it anyway. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded background checks and enacted red-flag laws, passing gun safety measures that the GOP has thwarted for years. (link)

Minnesota Dems gave the state AG the power to block the huge healthcare mergers that have slowly gobbled up the state's medical system. (link)

Minnesota Dems restored voting rights to convicted felons as soon as they leave prison. (link)

Minnesota Dems made prison phone calls free. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed new wage protection rules for the construction industry, against industry resistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new sales tax to fund bus and train lines, an enormous victory for the sustainability and quality of public transit. Transit be more pleasant to ride, more frequent, and have better shelters, along more lines. (link)

They passed strict new regulations on PFAS ("forever chemicals"). (link)

Minnesota Dems passed the largest bonding bill in state history! Funding improvements to parks, colleges, water infrastructure, bridges, etc. etc. etc. (link)

They're going to build a passenger train from the Twin Cities to Duluth. (link)

I can't even find a news story about it but there's tens of millions in funding for new BRT lines, too. (link)

A wonky-but-important change: Minnesota Dems indexed the state gas tax to inflation, effectively increasing the gas tax. (link)

They actually indexed a bunch of stuff to inflation, including the state's education funding formula, which helps ensure that school spending doesn't decline over time. (link)

Minnesota Dems made hourly school workers (e.g., bus drivers and paraprofessionals) eligible for unemployment during summer break, when they're not working or getting paid. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a bunch of labor protections for teachers, including requiring school districts to negotiate class sizes as part of union contracts. (Yet another @SydneyJordanMN special here. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a state board to govern labor standards at nursing homes. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a Prescription Drug Affordability Board, which would set price caps for high-cost pharmaceuticals. (link)

Minnesota Dems created new worker protections for Amazon warehouse workers and refinery workers. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a digital fair repair law, which requires electronics manufacturers to make tools and parts available so that consumers can repair their electronics rather than purchase new items. (link)

Minnesota Dems made Juneteenth a state holiday. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned conversion therapy. (link)

They spent nearly a billion dollars on a variety of environmental programs, from heat pumps to reforestation. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded protections for pregnant and nursing workers - already in place for larger employers - to almost everyone in the state. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new child tax credit that will cut child poverty by about a quarter. (link)

Minnesota Democrats dropped a quick $50 million into homelessness prevention programs. (link)

And because the small stuff didn't get lost in the big stuff, they passed a law to prevent catalytic converter thefts. (link)

Minnesota Dems increased child care assistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned "captive audience meetings," where employers force employees to watch anti-union presentations. (link)

No news story yet, but Minnesota Dems forced signal priority changes to Twin Cities transit. Right now the trains have to wait at intersections for cars, which, I can say from experience, is terrible. Soon that will change.

Minnesota Dems provided the largest increase to nursing home funding in state history. (link)

They also bumped up salaries for home health workers, to help address the shortage of in-home nurses. (link)

Minnesota Dems legalized drug paraphernalia, which allows social service providers to conduct needle exchanges and address substance abuse with reduced fear of incurring legal action. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned white supremacists and extremists from police forces, capped probation at 5 years for most crimes, improved clemency, and mostly banned no-knock warrants. (link)

Minnesota Dems also laid the groundwork for a public health insurance option. (link)

I’m happy for the people of Minnesota, but as a Floridian living under Ron DeSantis & hateful Republicans, I’m also very envious tbh. We know that democracy can work, and this is a shining example of what government could be like in the hands of legislators who actually care about helping people in need, and not pursuing the GOP’s “culture wars” and suppressing the votes of BIPOC, and inflicting maximum harm on those who aren’t cis/het, white, wealthy, Christian males. BRAVO MINNESOTA. This is how you do it! And the Minnesota Dems did it with a one seat majority, so no excuses. Forget about the next election and focus on doing as much good as you can, while you still can. 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

👉🏿 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1660846689450688514.html

[elbiotipo]

I love when people talk about piracy and they're like "ooh, but if corporations made it easier to buy their 16-bit games they don't sell anymore, people would buy them instead of pirating them, they're losing money, I would buy them!" I wouldn't. I don't see why I should give more money to a gigantic corporation (especially one with such shady practices such as Nintendo or Ubisoft) just because they own the 'rights' to a franchise they didn't even come up with themselves, for a game and a console they don't manufacture anymore. I won't pay 60 bucks for a SNES game, and I won't pay 5 bucks either. I'm going to download and play it however I want.

[crippledasinfuckyou]

if you find yourself seeing "convenience" products and thinking "how lazy do you have to be to buy/use this", please take a moment to consider that 9/10 of these are in fact made for disabled people. one-handed or mechanical cheese slicers/graters, electric tin openers, pre-cut packaged food, and a lot of other things exist because there are people in the world who have no other option. who only have one hand, who dont have the strength to use a tin opener, who cant use a knife, who require things to be made a little easier in order to do them at all. and often they are then marketed as convenience products because selling them to the general public justifies the manufacture and development costs, while keeping prices low enough that they are accessible to those they're actually made for.

if your first thought is "this is for lazy people", please take a little time to re-evaluate what meaning and connotations you ascribe to that word, and whether you are inadvertently being ableist. it'll help make you a lot more understanding towards us and our needs in future.

[queen-mihai]

We only need a few rich people

And we need zero billionaires

The "need" in society to have rich people running around is mostly for entertainment value.

Let's say someone who earns $20 million a year due to some really popular product she invented and maybe some smart investments.

This person will never be a billionaire

BUT she will be a fun person to have around on some dumb TV show

"Oh yeah I bought myself a second yacht this year 😅. They're kind of a guilty pleasure of mine so I thought I'd splurge"

She's not rich enough to get around paying her taxes, which means she's probably giving 10-15 million a year or more straight to the government as taxes.

Now, she's paying the people who build the yacht, keeping them in business. They hire tradespeople and artists to make her ship nice, and those people go on to further stimulate the economy by spending the paychecks they earned building her yacht

She buys houses, clothes, cars, puts her kids through expensive classes, and sets aside a little nest egg so she can retire in comfort and her kids can go to school

That's not so bad. She's probably on TV shows talking about how fun it is being rich and everything. Maybe she gives some money to charity and people kinda wanna be like her.

You know what we don't need?

Someone rich enough to, instead of buying a car, buys the entire car manufacturer

We don't need someone who has enough money to stop paying their taxes and then pretend they still do.

We don't need someone who can spend a million dollars in a day and have it replaced that same day.

Spending money SHOULD hurt. Or make you feel SOMETHING.

If you're collecting money so goddamn fast that you literally can't spend it fast enough to ever see your bank account go down, we don't fucking need you.

If you're collecting that much money, your bank account should just be a wide open door where people can rob you all they want because you won't even notice anyway.

Are you a billionaire reading this? Give me ten million dollars and I'll think about shutting up. I won't, but I'll think about it.

You're gonna have to give ten million to every other person reading this though cuz they're probably not gonna shut up either.

You know what? Actually it'd probably just be easier to PAY YOUR DAMN TAXES. That would get a lot of us to shut up.

Try it. You might like it

[idolomantises]

Favorite character to write and draw in both of your webcomics?

Bugtopia

Favorite Character to Draw: Sorrel. His design is one of my personal favorites and it's really fun drawing certain expressions, especially ones that contrast his cynical personality. he's also the only Bugtopia character who regularly cycles through outfits. He never wears the same thing per episode. I also love the way his big, black moth claws contrast with the softer design.

Favorite Character to Write: Sorrel, Milan and Jasper (though I cant say too much on jasper yet).

Alluded to above, Sorrel is a very cynical person, but he fronts it with a very ditzy and manufactured persona. He's very selfish and can't keep a relationship, but he also has a love for films and art in general. He's also an overly protective big brother. It's also just funny writing his over dramatic moments. If his acting isnt above 110%, he'd rather be dead.

Milan is like... i mean this in the most affectionate way possible, very autistic and anti social. If Sorrel fronts his behavior with pretend friendliness, Milan is straight up hostile. She doesn't have friends, doesn't go to parties and despises her co-workers. I'm a big fan of characters who are clearly internalizing an issue and its fun writing moments where you can see the gears tick in Milan's head where she tries to register certain interactions. She's definitely going to be my most controversial character (I'd say Cale and Spike will be, but people tend to be more forgiving to male characters than female), but it will be fun to see if people are willing to warm up to her. Girl is a hot mess, but she's MY hot mess.

Monsters and Girls

Favorite Character to Draw: Powers, drawing pissed off expressions are my favorite and powers has a resting "i dont wanna be here" look. I also enjoy drawing her armor.

Favorite Character to Write: I know I said on the other account that Sera is my favorite to write for, but it's really a toss up between Powers, Sera and Lili. They're all so weird and wonderful to me. but in terms of the shorter, gag comics, Sera is is my favorite to write for because she's a million years old and still doesn't know what to do with a hot wife who loves her.

Sera, unlike Powers and Lili, kind of shows her whole personality, so she's also easier to write for. Powers and Lili have a lot of barriers they put up, so you actually don't really see the full range of what they're like.

[hollyhomburg]

Have you ever considered writing a regency au story? I feel like you would be amazing at it especially since your attention to detail is immaculate.

oh! i actually have a tiny little idea in my drafts- i will just post it here because i don't know if i'll ever finish it. Most of this was written after I watched the last season of Bridgeton. full transparency- this has no ending so be prepared to get to the end and want more. tw for spanking, age gap, themes of innocence and virginity and purity, marking, pack stuff and polyamory, also mentioned miscarrage!

Unnamed Regency Au (knj x reader) (backround ot7 x reader)

-I wanna write horny guilt with alpha duke namjoon in a bridgerton style a/b/o au who ends up in an arranged marriage with omega m/c only- dukes are allowed to take as many packmates as they want if they’re of lower status, but they are not allowed to mate or have pups with them.

-(although he had gotten a bit of untoward attention when he’d dragged viscount Jung along and convinced him and his omega to take up with him. alpha x alpha relationships are a little bit more taboo in this universe but tolerated on account of namjoon's rank)

-duke namjoon has no omega of his own despite the omegas in his pack- so he does what is expected of his station, finds one of good breeding, a true diamond untouched by all of the most pure hands only- has lived in a house of betas all her life, maybe he starts to court her but then can’t back out for this or that reason. but after a manufactured scandal where the mcs scheming mama or perhaps the queen- demands that namjoon marry her to save her standing-

-or else.

-And namjoon thinks, out of all the worse things, getting her away from people who clearly don’t have her best interest at heart- cannot be the worst. They've met and talked and danced together countless times over the season. if it weren't for her youth and the fact that it is her first year on the marriage mart, Namjoon would have little objection at marrying her. at least thats what his packmates tell him.

-and they're right, there is little reason why he should object only,

-it’s the hunger he feels watching her that has him keeping his distance. It feels like something feral, something dirty. namjoon is a gentleman but he feels his honor hanging by a thread every time he dares go near her. every time he catches her sweet scent on the air, a scent that no alpha has been allowed to smell but him.

-maybe thats how they meet- at the first ball of the season and namjoon cannot keep himself from telling the unmated omega how to apply the balmy scent blockers maybe even...helping her apply it. namjoon's fingers rubbing against her sensitive scent glands. A touch that burns and seems to stick to his hands for hours and hours and weeks after- until they meet again at another ball- and she very eagerly tells him- a good omega- eager to please eager to be good- that she's learned! isn't he proud! he doesn't need to protect her from any 'alphas of unscrupulous nature with improper delights on their mind' like he said before.

-nevermind the fact that one of those alpha's with improper delights stands right infront of her. An omega’s scent should be reserved only for their pack and husband, and yet- this unmatched omega- their scent is all namjoon can think about. It has his alpha clambering, begging to break free.

-Namjoon does protect her, keeping alphas away from her, any of them that would make a match to her. even if as he watches her from the shadows, a feral hunger unbecoming of a duke or civilized alpha building with every giggle.

-and then once they're married, you'd think that namjoon's guilt would be easier to bare, that he would feel better about taking what he is owed as mate and husband but...he doesn't break.

-Namjoon can’t think of debasing her, barely even kisses her on their wedding night, keeps her safe and pressed- just so- within the packs lavish country home where she wants for nothing accept her alphas company.

-the estate is wide and sprawling, with many many miles of gardens and wooded trails that keep her occupied and happy and…as far away from her husband as it takes for namjoon to stop feeling like he’s going to pop a knot in his britches if she so much as leans into him.

-And the rest of the pack! Namjoon has such a large pack- so against fashion. the m/c didn't meet any of them besides viscount jung when they where in town. There is no shortage of company at namkjoon's estate- either jiminie who wisks her away to measure her up for country dresses (thin and sheer- to tease the alpha)- jimin is viscount Jung’s omega- who was the omega of the house prior to her and namjoon’s mating (and who honestly still takes over most of the responsibilities of running the estate, only too happy to show the m/c the ropes and praise her for her choices in redecorating the lavender nesting room.

-and he's only mute to her quiet confidance- the young omega wife has many questions like- Why does her husband barely look in her direction? Why doesn’t he hold her hand or touch her cheek or take her on long romantic country walks like she reads in her novels.

-The only time he touches her is during balls- when the host and hostess are bound by duty to start the first dance, and namjoon’s eyes burn into her the whole while. His touches never wander, his hands never dip more than is appropriate or cling to her lialac colored skirts.

-she feels a little touch starved, a little unloved- but jimin tries to make up for it (and then scolds namjoon for it when he can sneak out of the nest room late at night and tell him off for not giving her affection. "She's freshly mated namjoon, her bond is still healing- if you don't sweeten on her omega- then they may reject you and the bond- regardless of what she and you both want. you don't want to make her mating mark sick namjoon- trust me, you don't" maybe jimin's hand hovers on his neck, and hoseok looks on, a darkness in his eyes that can't be helped by time

-(i'm thinking for their backstory, shortly after they mated hobi was sent away to war as commander, and because of the distance it was far harder on jimin adjusting to the mating mark, maybe they even lost their first pup because jimin's body was all screwed up- i know it's angsty but shush)

-She’s fast friends with the youngest packmate too- jungkook- who is more…casual with her than namjoon should allow. Jungkook is the only one whose not of noble birth- originally hired as stable hand and then earning the title of lord and a spot in namjoon’s pack after saving the alpha and the queens heir from a runaway horse.

-jungkook is…charming, shows her how to feed the horses sugar cubes and she shows him how to braid their hair- and then asks if she’ll braid his- long as it is. Although the others tease and he gets more than one long look from the staff over dinner, jungkook wears it all night.

-Jungkooks countinance is different than baron Tae- who delights her with tea and cakes and fine silks when he’s back from his travels, sweet sugary treats from cities far away. “Can I come with you next time you go?” Is immediately met with a “no” from namjoon, the tips of his ears red and his scent souring, he immediately excuses himself with a short “forgive me, I have some business to attend too with the viscount”

-that business happens to be pulling hoseokie into one corner of the manor and biting out his frustration- both sexual and otherwise, down the other alphas throat. “What do I do Seokie, how do i…be gentle when my alpha doesn’t want to be. I don’t want to hurt her.”

-“Bed her already namjoon and be done with it”

-“But her virtue-”

-“Namjoon, she is your wife and mate”

-“She’s barely out of pup hood hoseok”

-“As was jimin when we where wed,” viscount jung hesitates, “I do not believe you capable of the violence you are so scared of, namjoon you would not hurt a fly”

-“But-“

-“Enough, to bed with you to settle your nerves” hoseok doesn’t often get away with ordering namjoon around but just this once namjoon lets him.

-or prince min, another alpha and 30th in line for the throne that is countries away, who firmly takes her on those long walks she so desires to take with her husband, promenading with his strong arms wrapped around her waist, so firm and reassuring. Nothing if not proper. squeezes her hand and lets it go when she dares to cradle the scarred alpha's face.

-thats why yoongi was allowed to join namjoon's pack, his disfigurement was deemed too ugly for court, but the m/c doesn't think she's ever seen an alpha more gentle, more beautiful.

-another alpha who doesn't want her.

-“Namjoon has warned us, to be nothing but chaste and gentle with you” “he just wants to be careful with your virtue pup” “why? When my virtue is his?” “He’s a very, traditional alpha, he wants to do right by you and wait until you’re ready” "does he think me so young, so fragile that I cannot make the choice of if I am ready or not myself?”

-Okay so I know it’s horny, but is love if she got a little mouthy and yoongi was motivated to take her over his thigh and show her how disobedient omega's are treated in their household. her skirt and petty coat pulled up, tears in her eyes and slick on her thighs as he gives her gentle taps. She doesn't understand why her tummy feels so tight, why she feels so upset over it but also- petulant, needy.

-when he sets her down and pulls her skirts back in order and wipes her tears with his handkerchief and then drags her in for a quick nip to her scent gland. leaving her dizzy and nearly in heat from how good it feelt to have an alpha /touch/ her. nothing at all like how it felt to have the other omega's touch her.

-and she goes back a little teary eyed. a little upset, but jimin is there and she just laughs alone with tae tae when she talks about maybe /liking it/ and wanting yoongi to do it again but she doesn't understand. maybe both of them make her tell them and renact it out what yoongi did to her, all teaseing and falsely concerned. and both of them tell her that she's asking them when she should really be asking her husband, really, alpha has forbidden them from corrupting her.

-as if she wasn't already corrupted after they asked her to show them what yoongi did to her, hiking up her dress to show her reddened bottom, unsure why she's blushing, why their huffs of breath as they bend to look make her hands shake and her knees knit togeather.

-and of course that night, namjoon hears about it but can't really fault yoongi for punishing her, when he was especially gentle and maybe she's seen jimin get spanked before and had been explained the consequences of talking back because she "wanted to be treated as a full member of their pack"

-and maybe namjoon sneaks into her room to watch over her at night she lies awake. Wanting to turn and greet her husband but the one time she does…he runs, so she pretends to sleep while he sits in her sitting room and watches. His presence soft and so protective it makes her drowsy.

-sometimes one of the others catch him- hoseoks omega jimin who often sneaks into her room to nest with her, jimin in his fine silks that namjoon bought for him by the door, sharing a chaste evening scenting. “How is she?” namjoon is too hungry for information about her, too hungry for other things- which is why he must keep his distance.

-“She’s lonely your grace” “we’ve known each other for long enough jiminie” the same chide as always,

-“joon,” jimîn says, leaning against the doorway, “she’s curious, and I fear what secrets she will go about uncovering without her alphas hand to guide her in the right direction,” “jungkookie can-“

-“jungkook is nothing more than a pup and you know it, what kind of message will it send if you do not take what the queen has demanded is yours” and namjoon leans over her bed to get his hand on her cheek and it’s a struggle for her to keep her eyes closed and breathing undisturbed when he cups her cheek, long fingers skimming over it.

-“Can you really blame me? Look how peaceful she looks, how lovely, surely you cannot fault me for cherishing it, she looks so unbothered by ideals of love and my own short comings” “namjoon” namjoon smiles, sad,

-“every time I see her I want to draw her close, it’s maddening.”

-“So you stay far away?”

-"So i stay far far away."

(The only thing truly stoping me at this point is time- I don’t have time to give this the story it deserves)

[meruz]

hi!! im sure ppl have asked this b4, but i scoured your asks tag for an hour or so looking to see if you answered anything abt it and couldnt find anything, so i was just wondering if youve made any posts on your process for making n selling merch b4? and how you know which franchises you can make merch for w/o getting into trouble w copyright n trademark stuff (hopefully that makes sense, im not sure,,,)

hi! got a bunch of asks abt merch stuff lately im gonna put it under a cut.

preface: i don't know if i'm the best person to ask about all this stuff because I'm doing merch on a strictly hobby basis LOL. I have a fulltime job which takes care of the bulk of my finances, I don't really make big quantities of anything and my main priority at cons is to just make enough money to see my friends in different cities at minimal expense. i pretty much always get a refund when i file my con taxes because my profit after all the deductions is like fucking..nothing.. lmao. So if you ultimately lose money following my advice don't blame me. OK NOW lets get into it

my process for making merch: when I have an event scheduled that I want to make merch for I start by brainstorming a bunch of stuff I wanna make. for mgscon this is what I wrote down in my sketchbook lol

i made a legend to denote which ones are actually just reprints. it gets easier to plan out merch when you already have merch. out of the new merch ideas here i actually only made like 4 of them. and out of the reprints i only reprinted like three. i also came up with like 4-5 other merch ideas after writing out this list that i actually did do. LMAOO UM. my point here is that nothing rly goes as planned.

when i get a merch idea i start with thumbnails what i want it to look like (sometimes this is based off merch ive seen before so its very realized and sometimes its really vague bc im kind of pulling it out of my ass)

then BEFORE i go into making the final art I research how I'm going to make the merch. whether its printing/constructing it myself or looking for a manufacturer. There's a lot of different places that you can get custom merch made, i used to go shopping around at local printing shops but nowadays it's really common to do it all online. For both these jet tags and the washi tape I did some of my own research into manufacturers and also asked friends for their contacts/referrals/recommendations etc. most manufacturers either have their specs/template publicly available or will give them to you when you ask. so once I've locked into a manu and gotten the specs I'll start designing the final art.

then it's sending it off and waiting! easier said than done.

i will say this process is a lot lengthier for some types of merch than others LOL. for prints... I've been doing prints for like a million years and I plan out almost none of it. I draw everything at print resolution so a week before I have a con scheduled I'll simply go through all the files I've accumulated since my last con, squeeze whatever drawings I want into standard print sizes lol (ie. 8.5x11, 11x17, 4x6 etc), and print them at a local shop. takes like a couple hours max.

how you know which franchises you can make merch for w/o getting into trouble w copyright n trademark stuff?

I mean. honestly I don't know. selling fanart is the kind of thing that IP holders kind of just let slide as long as they don't think they're losing a substantial amt of money on it. there ARE a couple franchises people avoid because they've been known to send IP lawyers after fanartists... disney is the big one and they're known for being pretty petty abt it... that's why you don't really see people selling fanart of the disney princesses at cons. ive heard pokemon will also crack down if your project seems to be making a lot of money lol, part of why i think a lot of pokemon fanzines operate on a charity basis. I do feel like the pokemon company has bigger fish to fry than someones artist alley table though so i wouldn't sweat it too much.

it's also generally considered impolite/bad taste to sell fanart of small franchises. webcomics and indie games especially if they only have like 1-2 devs who rely on the income that game makes.

I'm not a lawyer so you shouldn't consider this legal advice BUT I will say... I don't think you should let IP law stop you from selling fanart lol. especially if it's low quantities/not mass produced and you're not making crazy amts of money I think you kind of have a leg to stand on. Besides, most cases it seems like the worst you'll get is a cease and desist.

you Will notice that when people start turning their artist alley endeavors into a real business they'll generally ease up on selling fanart (the case most prominent in my mind is omocat lol). but i love fanart and thats why i will never make money and thats a promise [snake saluting gif]

SORRY IDK IF ANY OF THIS WAS HELPFUL. I've been doing merch and cons for a long time (10+ years lmao, you can find record of this on this very blog) and i think im kind of old fashioned about it. i recognize the artist alley/merch scene is a lot more demanding now than it used to be but start small at local low-risk events, online sales etc and work your way up and remember to have fun and itll be ok i believe this wholeheartedly.

its literally just layers of acrylic like any other dinky charm. I'm sure pretty much any manu that does acrylic charms could do it but this specific charm/template i did order through a group order server. they're pretty well known! heres a link to their twitter

@wheatormeat sorry for taking a full month to answer this... anyways. This is tricky because I've actually been changing up my sticker manu everytime LOL IDK if I've found one I actually love.

these ones i ordered thru an alibaba manu because I was jumping on a friend's group order to save on shipping. it was ok. they arrived a liiiitle late and printed a lil dark but i think thats kind of my fault LOL I use dark colors i always need to lighten things before i get them printed and i think i just didnt lighten these enough. otherwise i rly love the quality!

i realized i never posted these online and also this is not a good picture (the lighting in my living room sucks rn) but i printed these tmnt stickers thru stickerninja they feel really solid but they needed kind of a lot of space for the cutline. but their customer service was very nice and helpful!

these ones i got printed at washimill and i was so impressed with how fine their cutline is... pricing and quality of the sticker itself is alright they feel a lil flimsy? idk. but i do like the printing. i kind of elected to go with them solely because i was already ordering washi tape. A LOT of my manufacturing decisions are made based on how much money i can save on shipping tbh.

and thats my sticker manu reviews dont forget to like comment subscribe idk if i have one im gonna stick with forever or anything im rly indecisive. ideally id like a manu based in the u.s...? because im based in the u.s. and international shipping is pricey. but idk if i keep ordering washi tape maybe ill keep using washimill. who knows...

[trashpandacraft]

having sat down and spent a bit of time spinning on all the wheels, i have thoughts on them!

our first contestant: a sheridan scandanavian. kinda.

sheridan was an australian manufacturer in the 70s and early 80s, and this particular model is often mistaken for an ashford traditional. one tell that it isn't is the spokes on the wheel—a traddy has eight, and a scandanavian has six.

another tell is its tension knob, which i actually love—this is a lot easier to get a grip on than the ones that are just balls.

...there's also a nameplate identifying the maker and the model. but that's kinda where things get weird, because this? this is not what a scandanavian is meant to look like.

eagle-eyed readers may have already noticed that it's a double drive wheel, which is weird, because the scandanavian was only ever made as scotch tension. sheridan made a similar wheel, the macarthur, that was a double drive. my understanding is that these wheels were sold as kits, so as best i can guess, someone must have had a scandanavian and a macarthur, and at some point, for some reason, they dropped the macarthur's workings onto the sheridan's stand.

whatever she is, though, she spins nicely—works exactly like you'd expect, even after what was clearly a number of years of neglect. i'd like to get some more oil into the leather bearings, but she's in good shape. this one's a surprisingly slow wheel, even on the highest ratio, but will be great for plying and—more importantly—for @binchickencrafts to learn to spin on.

next up is the tarra...something. maybe the evelyn, but maybe the agnes?

she's beautiful, right? another tilt tension, too, which i like. lovely matching orifice hook with a little storage hole, and integrated bobbin storage, which i absolutely love.

so why's she weird? well. the evelyn was the evolution of the agnes, basically. agnes had a block for a mother of all, evelyn was shaped. agnes had a four-part drive wheel, evelyn had six. agnes had eight spokes on the drive wheel, evelyn had six.

this wheel, though. she has a shaped mother of all, an eight-part drive wheel, and eight spokes.

she also has a really neat flyer.

the flyer is part of what attracted me, to be honest, and no regrets. it needs shined up some more—i was eager enough to try her out that i cleaned off the worst of the rust with some vinegar, but it needs some more attention. those hooks, though, are fantastic. i think that they're a curse for a lot of people, because if one's lost, replacements are almost impossible to come by, but if you have them, they're so good. the screw loosens the hook and lets you slide it as needed, and you can get very close to either end of the bobbin—you can use the stationary hook to wind on right at the front, and the movable hook covers the rest of the bobbin easily. all my treadle wheels have been fixed hooks, so this was a new adventure.

this is the wheel in the worst shape, i think. she needs oiled up, but also needs to have the rear maiden reseated—it's loosened and has a fair amount of horizontal play, which doesn't give the best experience. i feel like when that's fixed, which won't take more than a couple hours and some wood glue, she's going to be a sweet spot of a wheel. even with the movement in that back maiden, i can get from worsted down to cobweb on her, so i'm really looking forward to seeing what she's like when she's been patched up.

finally: the pipy saxony.

please clap.

i can't overstate how small this wheel is. she weighs less than five kilos. that's like. a cat. that's a cat of weight. that's how much this wheel weighs. i knew when i bought her that she was a small wheel, but i hadn't realised how small, so i was a little concerned that she wasn't going to be very effective.

turns out joke's on me, because this teeny tiny wheel is an absolute powerhouse—as long as you want to spin finely. which is perfect for me, because i almost never use or spin yarn that's thicker than a light worsted, and even that's kinda pushing it. i'm the kind of person who knits jumpers out of sock yarn and owns multiple pairs of 1.5mm (size 000) circular needles.

this wheel wants to spin fast and wants to spin thin, and I *love* her. the wheel is weighted so it always stops ready to turn clockwise, and it's a string footman, and something about the combination of the two makes this an absolutely amazing experience. i spun for several hours, and my breaking point wasn't knee or ankle pain, but hip pain from sitting in that position too long.

how the heck does a wheel that—again!—weighs like ten pounds manage to weight anything?

it's easy to miss, but in that first picture, there's integrated bobbin storage again, with room for one on each side of the wheel.

the tension system isn't like anything i've used, and can be adjusted both vertically and horizontally. the tension peg does what you'd expect and moves the slider block (and the mother of all on it) closer or further from the wheel, but you can also move the mother of all towards you or away from you to better align it with the wheel.

she's just really nicely designed. look at this incredibly tidy bobbin release!

for the specific things that i spin most frequently, i'm pretty sure that the pipy is going to be my go-to treadle wheel, though i expect the others will see plenty of use, as well. and my eel wheel certainly isn't getting retired—my somewhat broken body is never going to let me use a treadle as often as i'd like, and there's a lot to be said for the ability to spin while watching television in bed. but i'm really excited to have these, and to use them when i can, even if it's not as often as i'd like.

i know that a lot of people are really dubious about buying used (especially vintage used) wheels, but i feel like they're often underrated. there's a lot of cool wheels out there that are as good or better than what you can buy in a store, and it's worth investigating it, if you're able to. (it's also worth noting that buying all three of these cost us less than half of what buying a single new ashford traditional would cost.)

finally, you want to see my favourite thing about the pipy? i saw someone complaining about this the other day, that their wheel's prior owner had 'gouged' it. but look.

that little gouge means someone else loved this wheel so much that their yarn wore a channel into the wood. and as soon as i stop holding my yarn back, it slots straight into place.

right where it's meant to be.

this wheel is older than i am—they're dated, on the bottom, and she was made in july 1972. she's only had one owner, a woman who used to teach spinning, but is elderly now and can't spin anymore. her daughter delivered it to me, and told me that this was her mother's last wheel—she'd gotten rid of the others, slowly, but held on to this until she was physically unable to treadle. fifty years! that woman spun on this wheel for fifty years.

i'm old enough that i don't imagine i'm going to get fifty years with it, but maybe i'll get lucky. either way, hopefully in another fifty years, someone new will be taking their turn, weirdly touched by the idea that this wheel has been so loved.

[ms-demeanor]

Hey! I appreciate your perspective on computer-based things. I think I need to get a laptop and would love your opinion on decent brands. If you don't have an opinion or want to answer please disregard the q.

Context: I'm often on the move and really want something small, light, and that will last a long time. I'm bad about buying new things or taking things to be fixed so ideally it's not something that dies quickly or needs frequent repairs. For a while I used an iPad for this but I need more of a keyboard than tablets have and the shelf life of an iPad is shorter than it should be for the cost. Mine is 7 years old and only works while plugged in... I liked my Macbook Pro I got for college but it's almost 15 years old and given I haven't needed a new one since I don't think spending all that on a Mac makes sense either. I use a gaming PC mostly but I'm going to need to travel a lot more in the upcoming year. I'm ok to spend up a bit since I want it to last.

I think you're going to have to adjust your expectations about the average functional lifespan of electronics. Seven years is a lot to get out of any tablet and fifteen years is way way way above average for a computer.

At work we estimate that the functional lifespan of a laptop will be around five years and the functional life of a desktop will be around seven years; we include upgrades in that lifespan, like adding RAM and storage.

It is not *unusual* to get more than five years out of a laptop or seven years out of a desktop, but if you are a heavy user of anything other than a browser and a word processor, that's about the time when you'll find that the computer feels slow enough to be frustrating. This isn't a hard limit, and it's not something that everyone experiences because people use computers differently, but if you're an artist and you use a drawing program that program will start to feel slow after a while because as updates and patches and drivers have been tweaked for newer devices they've slowly left your device in the dust.

This isn't planned obsolescence, by the way. Computer manufacturers try to "future proof" their devices to a certain extent, but you just can't anticipate certain kinds of changes. Maybe your laptop was manufactured before there were consumer SSDs available so its operating system doesn't take the advantages and limitations of SSDs into account. Maybe your desktop was built for DDR3 RAM and we're now on DDR5 and people aren't writing programs to the standard of the old technology, they're taking advantage of the standards of the new technology.

Since you were able to use your devices comfortably for such a long time, it sounds like you're not a very heavy user and don't need to worry too much about beefing up your specs. However it does sound like you want to keep your computer and use it as long as possible while paying a reasonable price for it (which is good! I think we should all try to extend the lives of our electronic devices as much as possible!).

I actually think you sound like a good match for a Framework laptop.

Framework is a company that makes laptops that are a lot more modular than what's on the market these days. They're mean to be easy to open up for upgrades and sturdy for heavy use. Most of the parts of the laptop are easily replaceable - including the screen - so you can use them for a long time and easily make upgrades that will help the computer feel fresher.

They're a bit more expensive than comparable PCs but much easier to repair if you aren't comfortable opening up your own computer (framework is intentionally built to be easy for people who are non-technical to work on their computers), and they are a LOT less expensive than comparable macs.

I still think you're probably looking at around 7 years of regular use out of a Framework and it won't *break* at that point, it will just. Probably be a bit slow and frustrating. You might not be able to get parts for it after a certain point. You eventually won't be able to upgrade the OS. But that's true of all computers.

I've still got my 2005 macbook. It still turns on, I can still use garage band on it. But it doesn't connect to the internet and uses such an old USB standard that it is extremely slow to transfer data on or off of and it cries and freezes if i try to use photoshop. It's not broken, it's just no longer useful as a daily computer.

What I'm defining as functional here is "Is able to run multiple programs (including at least one browser with 50+ tabs open and two office suites) at the same time for 8-10 hours a day without crashing, freezing, or losing data and restarting is not a major inconvenience."

In those terms, it does sound like you're probably in need of an upgrade (I can't imagine that your current machine is particularly quick) and I think that a framework laptop would suit your needs well.

If you're looking for something somewhat less expensive, you can generally find a decent thinkbook with a 12th or 13th gen i5 processor, 16GB RAM, and a 500GB SSD for around $700-ish, which is the low end of what I think you're going to pay for a decent laptop. I'm reccing lenovo here because I personally like them and have found them to be very easy to crack open for repairs and upgrades. Stick to the thinkbook over the thinkpad because that's the business line and is a bit sturdier and they are designed to be easier to upgrade over time.

Actually, here's a thinkbook with a 12th gen i5, 40GB RAM, and a 1tb SSD for under $700. That's a shockingly good price for that laptop; the reseller OEMGenuine is one I've purchased from many times before for work and I've found them to be reliable, though the reason those specs are so good is because they've added aftermarket parts, so your RAM and SSD won't be under warranty from Lenovo.

For Framework you're looking at at least $1000, but it's easy to plug and play with upgrades so you can start out with lower specs (except processor, don't cheap out on the processor) and upgrade later. The framework is a bit smaller and easier to travel with, but I have a laptop quite similar to the lenovo and it's not a huge pain to move around - it's very light but the 15" screen might be bigger than you're looking for.

If you're willing to spend a little bit more and you're very uninterested in doing your own upgrades and would prefer the most computer you can get for your money right out of the gate, this is a 12th gen i7 thinkpad with 40GB RAM and a 2TB SSD for $1150. (I've not ordered from this reseller before, so maybe check over their terms if you're considering purchasing from them.)

[hellenhighwater]

Hi Hell, congrats on the exciting foster kitten news!

I just applied to adopt a kitten and had my interview for her today. The woman seemed most interested in convincing me of how terrible dry food, traditional litter (she preferred clay), and tap water is for cats. She said the carbohydrates and ingredients were terrible for their kidneys, the dust in litter is bad for their lungs, and the chlorine in water is harmful. I have a 12 year old cat named Scipio who has been using those things all his life, and now I feel guilty and scared for his health. He seems perfectly healthy to me but she said “cats are stoic.” What do you use with the Tiny Terrors? Is she extreme?

Well, I'm not a vet, so the actual answer is that your cat should be getting what their doctor recommends. But I've had those conversations with people before, and I can give my two cents--just take it with a grain of salt.

So...it's basically always true that you can spend more money on fancier 'health' options and there is, to some extent, benefit to the pricier choices. But there's a point at which that benefit is pretty minimal compared to what you get for the midrange price options. This is as true for pet health as it is for people health.

It's true that wet food is usually a better option for cats. Among other things, it helps them stay at a healthy level of hydration, can be easier on their digestive systems, and is often more palatable for cats who are elderly or have dental problems. But that doesn't mean that dry food is inadequate--Mal and Vice used to split a can of wet food daily, and graze dry food whenever they wanted. They're currently eating almost exclusively dry food, because Vice is on a sensitive skin and stomach diet to help address his overgrooming. I would avoid the bottom-end dry foods, because they seem prone to contamination, but that's more manufacturer quality than an issue with the dry food generally. Dry food is usually a nutritionally complete way to feed a cat, and there's nothing wrong with it.

Mal and Vice drink tap water. They have a bowl of still water, and a fountain with an inbuilt filter. The fountain is because if they don't have running water, they will make running water by splashing their bowls all over. I can't speak to chlorine but it's definitely healthier than drinking out of puddles, which is what they would be doing if left to their own devices.

They use clay litter because that's what's effective and affordable. When I'm changing it out I generally give it a few minutes for dust to settle before I let them at it--someone always wants to make a deposit in the clean box--but there's pros and cons to all the litter options out there.

In a perfect world with infinite resources, I'd be feeding the cats a careful balanced diet of fresh-prepared meats and filtered spring water, and they'd take dumps in a tiny kitty toilet that cleaned itself without my help. But that's not really practical or achievable for me, my life, or my cats, and frankly, it's not necessary. I want them to have a good life. It doesn't need to be a perfect one. If your cat is doing well, and their vet is giving them a clean bill of health, you probably have nothing to worry about. I'm not a professional; you should consult your vet and research options for yourself (which is what I do) but you're not doing anything wrong here.

I will say that when I was going through the process of adopting Mal and Vice, some places (usually private rescues) wanted me to jump through INSANE hoops to even apply. I respect that their hearts are in the right place, but... There are hundreds of kittens in shelters right now that need homes desperately, and the quality of the cat has very little to do with the quality of the rescue--they might have more or less vet work done, depending on where they're coming from, but nobody's managed to fundamentally change the nature of the beast. If you can provide a safe home, food, clean water, and attention to a cat, that's really all they need. The rest is just gravy.

[lavender-romancer]

Loving girl

Tommy Shelby x reader

CW: suicide mentions, grief

You've always known you would be a better partner for Tommy, after Grace died you had to reassess your motivations for being close to Tommy because he needed a friend more than ever before

”*°•.˜”*°•. ˜”*°•. ˜”*°••°*”˜.•°*”˜.•°*”˜.•°*”˜

When you were younger it was easier to deal with the unrequited feelings of a teenage crush. Everyone has those feelings when they're around 15, it's not unheard of for them to go away after a few years or even months. But this was incomparably different. You didn't know how to express your feelings in a coherent way to him, the way you had always shown affection towards him was support and material things like buying him cigarettes or baking him something. There was no way to vocalise your feelings because you were so awful with expressing yourself. Instead turning towards sexual and substance based distractions which would allow you to forget about him for a moment.

Tommy didn't care for labels unless there were children involved, he didn't have girlfriends only women he fucked. Grace became his wife because of Charlie and you didn't know if it would have been different if she wasn't pregnant. Tommy Shelby expressed fondness for Grace but nothing which you would call love, responsibility was more important to him.

You so wanted the story of the two of you to end happily, the teasing that the two of you got from the Shelby brothers was enough to make you hope there was something there but it was a story. A story that you liked to manufacture an ending for rather than feelings based in fact. Tommy saw you as his closest friend but since that wouldn't be too popular with his new wife you'd been seeing each other less and less over the years. You still saw the other Shelby's and Michael at the Garrison most evenings and at work but Tommy was scarcely around.

Everyday felt prettier when you saw Tommy, when he was in a room with you it made you feel instantly more comfortable. It had been this way since you were younger, racing to meet him after school and go on a walk together before having dinner at Pol's house. The memories of your youth where your minds just contained an emptiness of anxieties that you'd experience later in life. You'd never seen Tommy quite as anxious as when you saw him after Grace had died. It was the first time the room didn't feel prettier with him being there. you could appreciate the stoic dimness of the lamp on his desk and how the grand windows let in a beautiful amount of light but… just the bags under Thomas' eyes indicated how sleepless these nights had been.

"Got these for you and made you some stuff, don't worry if you don't eat it," you softly placed two packs of cigarettes and a tin of pastries on his desk.

"Thank you," he said gruffly with a nod, immediately looking at the packaging of the cigarettes "The posh ones eh? Spending all that money on me?" He showed the hints of a smile and you took it gratefully.

"I mean, clearly in a slum like this you could do with the glamor of taste," you said sarcastically and he scoffed.

"You always have the worst attempts at humor I've ever heard." Tommy sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

"Oh shut up, now give me one of those and we can chat," you held your hand out and Tommy handed you a cigarette which you lit after you sat down on the chair in front of him.

"Chat, hmm? We haven't done that in a while have we." Tommy reminisced.

"I meant to apologise about that. I should've made more of an effort to see you." You pursed your lips uncomfortably but Tommy waved you off.

"Not at all, she wouldn't have liked you being here anyways. It was a good decision, jealousy can fester from any corner of a friendship." Tommy lit his own cigarette.

"How has today been?" You asked.

"Just as shit as the others. My never ending guilt and the wish I had died instead is still such a strong feeling," he paused "Do you think it will ever go away?"

"That's a lot to ask of your unconscious thoughts, Thomas. They're not usually that helpful in normal situations." You smiled at him and he nodded.

"I thought so, Charlie will now grow up without a mother and that's one thing I can't fix with all the money in the world. It's so frustrating." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

"How is Charlie?" You changed the subject because you feared that line of conversation would go nowhere.

"You're doing that thing you do again," Tommy looked like he almost smiled.

"What thing?" You narrowed your eyes at him.

"The way you change the subject when I start getting emotional so I don't actually get there," he commented and you shrugged.

"It's what friends do isn't it." You took a deep breath in and out.

"You're too considerate for your own good, Y/n." Tommy tapped the ash off his cig and looked into your eyes.

"Only to you," you said quietly.

"I know, I appreciate it. A lot," he paused "I always wondered what it would be like to have that amount of consideration all the time."

"What do you mean?" Your palms began to sweat.

"Just when I'm imagining a world like that, you know? With more people like you," Tommy paused and smiled sadly at you. "It would be infinitely better than what we suffer with now."

"Tommy… you've drank too much today," you said cautiously looking at the half empty whisky bottle on his desk.

"And yet, I'm thinking clearer." He suddenly stood up and walked over to the window.

"What are you thinking about?" You asked.

"How I want to burn it all," he said in a stoic voice and you could have shivered at how serious it sounded.

"Well I don't think arson would be the best move for you next." You smiled to yourself and he let out a small closed mouth smile before leaning the side of his head against the window.

"It's something Michael said when I met him again, that if he saw the pretty white brick wishing well in his old village again he would blow it up just to see the bricks everywhere. I want to do the same thing to this fucking house half the time," Tommy closed his eyes.

"But this is now Charlie's home, you have to think about consistency with his life from now on." You reasoned and Tommy nodded slowly.

"He's the only reason I haven't done it. The only reason I won't." He walked back to his desk and sat down before pouring another whisky as well as one for you.

"Thank you. So, what's next?" You asked, sitting back on the sofa nursing your glass.

"Business, business, business I think. It's the only way I know to distract myself from the enormity of this fucking house and all the fucking loss that's occurred throughout it." Tommy sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Why don't you tell me about it? The loss I mean." You proposed and Tommy sounded like he scoffed at the idea.

"Turning into my personal shrink now are you, eh?" He asked.

"I'm being a friend." You said simply and he nodded.

"You're right, but I'm not the man for those kinds of conversations. I don't know how to verbalise any of it," he took a drink. "I do sometimes wish we could go back to being 14, lying in wildflowers without any issues we couldn't solve with a bit of practical thinking. Everthing is so fucking hard now, Y/n and I don't think I can cope with it for much longer."

"You don't mean that, we were just innocents but, we all have to grow up at some point and you decided your life path when you got married and had children within the marriage. You can't back out now to go back to a simpler time or something," You placed the glass down and walked over to the desk.

"Why do you fit so well together?" He asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You're so reasonable and caring and you want to help me even though I've been a terrible friend. You like your job and your house and your social life, everything fits together so well. Whereas I always feel like I'm on the verge of the end everyday." Tommy looked up at you and you shook your head.

"You know I'm even better at lying than you are. That's how I do it, fake confidence, fake togetherness. Whatever it takes to get me through the day because eventually it feels normal to me." You reached over and touched Tommy's hand.

"I used to crave a normal routine but then after the war I couldn't deal with the plague of silence that comes with it. Everytime I would have normality it would be colliding with some kind of crisis I created to make my own life more interesting." Tommy rubbed his temple with his other hand and you frowned.

"And what does wallowing in it do for you?" You asked.

"I know, it's fucking deluded of me. But I don't know how else to get through. How do you deal with grief?" He asked.

"Talking about it for a start, I don't know…screaming sometimes works. When my mum died I punched a wall." You laughed and Tommy smiled to himself.

"I can see myself doing the second thing at least, talking about it makes me want to commit. It's just…so fucking sad because Charlie's mum's died when it should've been me. It was a bullet meant for me." Tommy sighed and you walked around his desk to stand in front of him.

"Come here," you beckoned him to stand in front of you and he slowly got up and straightened his waistcoat.

You pulled him into a deeply needed embrace, Tommy hadn't received any type of comfort that had actually worked until now. He cried. He cried for the mother of his child, he cried for the fact that he didn't love her. But most of all he cried for himself, his own shame at being alive.

Peaky Blinders Taglist:

@queenofkings1212 @severewobblerlightdragon @cl5369 @fairypitou @stressedandbandobessed7771 @shadow-of-wonder @hipsternoionlylikeunicorns @curled-hair-red-lips @lucystivinsky1315 @lovemisshoneybee

[jacksprostate]

me and @a-forsteri were talking about how the narrator like, desperately wants someone to tell him his life is fucked up, what he does is fucked up, he desperately wants someone to respond with the gravity he desires.

Like, he tells these people on the plane what he does. Trying to fuck with them. Desperately hoping!! One of them will go: holy shit!!! That's really fucked up how do you live with that!!! But all he gets is people thinking he's the freak and just asking what car company he works for. Because it is easier to pretend he himself is the problem, maybe just his company, rather than actually face and recognize the systemic, widespread nature of what he's saying.

It leans together with his sense of where he is in his office, too. He feels separate from all these people. They feel fake. They feel like people going on as normal even though they're all working to hasten the apocalypse, and no one acknowledges it! They're all perfectly happy to turn a blind eye to any of the distant consequences of their actions. That is what their jobs are for. Keep them up in the cubicles, nicely fed and watered with inflated salaries, and then they'll have no issue with the distant sense that they may be contributing to a corrupt system. They can't change the system, but they need to feed their kids, so hell, just don't think about it too much.

But he doesn't have that option. He is the one who actually does go out into the field and he sees the direct result of all of their collective actions, but especially his. Every crash related to a faulty part he sees is because someone like him before him, or him himself, ran the formula and let this happen. He has no choice but to see the very real result of his actions.

And he feels INSANE over it. Because he returns to the office and it's just numbers. Applying the formula. Hearing your coworkers chat about a potluck. You're not contributing to a horrific system, you ARE the horrific system, and it's like you're the only one who sees that. He literally cannot sleep over it.

And when you tell people about it, they try to minimize it. To your company, to you. Because that is easier than acknowledging just how many things have to be corrupt and uncaring of human life to allow this to be the case. It's too much. Stick your head in the sand.

He desperarely wants someone to scream at him: how could you do that? How could anyone do that? Why is this allowed to happen? Doesn't anyone see something wrong here?

He imagines his plane crashing. Free him from this. The burden of every piece of normality manufactured for satiating any thought and discomfort he has about his job. It's all petty, pointless fluff. It's putting some artificial grass on the feedlot. Why does everything and everyone say it's all worth it for this garbage?

He wants someone to tell him all this. He doesn't want to be alone. He already feels catastrophically alone. In his life, whenever he talks about this, whenever he does anything. He loves the support groups because you're allowed to have abject misery there. You rejoice in it. Everyone's life is falling apart and ending and nothing means anything good ever. They're all honest about it, too. He plays coy when he talks about his job, but these people, everyone knows they're falling apart, and it's recognized and treated as the horror it is. This is freedom. Hitting bottom is freedom.

But he's supposed to be happy, because he's got his cushy little IKEA nest. It is only when people think he also has cancer and parasites causing his deep dissociation from his own life and general aura of resentment and misery that it's treated as something that isn't just... an individual flaw. Because it's easier for there to be something wrong with him than for that thing wrong with him to be how society makes him be this way. Rewards him for it.

So he invents someone. Tyler. To stop his little dance. To interrupt him. Drag him away and tell him all those little sundries are meaningless. Like he knows. But now he has someone saying it's true. The world IS falling apart. Everything is fucked up. It's everything he knows and has been too cowardly to say and now he finally has someone to say it for him and push to make some changes in his life. To expect him to actually do something. To feel his rage for him. And it's a catch-22, because a large part of what he hates about himself is that he's too cowardly and noncommittal to just do this all on his own.

[blubushie]

DEAR ARTISTS

(Cheers to @kreidxpriz for asking this in the replies of my other post!)

Many people don't actually know what a bullet is.

These are not bullets. These are cartridges.

THESE are bullets.

Bullets go into the casing to make a cartridge. Inside the cartridge are what the bullet needs to operate: gunpowder and the primer. The primer pushes inward, strikes one side, and that ignites the gunpowder which explodes and propels the bullet out of the barrel of the firearm.

This is what they look like separate. (Those coloured tips on the bullets are polymer points that assist in cutting through the air which lessens the amount of tumbling and also with penetrating the target. The colour isn't important and is often different depending on who manufactures the bullets.)

That piece on the bottom is calling the casing or shell. That's what ejects from the bolt of a firearm when you cycle it. Some firearms cycle automatically (the automatic family of weapons which includes automatic and semi-automatic, where pulling the trigger will fire a bullet, eject the spent casing, and automatically chamber another round), and some have to be cycled manually (bolt-action rifles, where pulling the trigger ONLY fires the bullet and you have to pull back the bolt to eject the spent casing and allow another round to move into the receiver, then pushing the bolt forward chambers that round).

Why am I explaining this to you? There's different between a bullet and a cartridge. So, dear artists: YOU NEVER PUT A BULLET IN YOUR MOUTH. Many bullets do NOT have metal jackets, meaning the bullet is not fully encased in metal, most commonly copper. The casing is usually brass. Why encase the bullet to start with? Inside the bullet is usually lead. Lead is soft and doesn't penetrate very well, so full metal jackets (FMJs) and total metal jackets (TMJs) are used for better penetration. Because the lead is encased and doesn't "fold," they also have much better trajectory and strike more accurately. Point is, don't put a grey bullet in your mouth unless you want lead poisoning.

Additionally, holding a bullet in your mouth will bugger up something we call ballistics, which is how the bullet travels through the air on its path to its target. Any scratching on the surface or minute dents from your teeth that you can't even see will effect the aerodynamics of the bullet, causing the round to tumble. This throws off accuracy and affects how the bullet strikes.

On that similar note: PEOPLE DO NOT CARVE ANYTHING INTO BULLETS UNLESS IT'S ON THE BASE OF THE BULLET. That's this flat part. (Note that this is a TMJ. An FMJ leaves an exposed bit of lead at the bottom of the bullet.)

The flat part is the ONLY part on a bullet that isn't influenced by aerodynamics, so it's the only "safe" place to carve. That said, it's a small bloody space, so good luck carving anything into that. TMJs are VERY difficult to carve and can only be effectively "scratched." FMJs are easier to carve thanks to their exposed lead, which is a much softer material. VERY rarely you'll see people carving an "X" into the very tip of the bullet so that it fragments better, but this takes time and buggers up the accuracy so it's very uncommon (and when it is seen, it's usually only in handgun-calibre rounds where you're not firing over long distances).

What people DO sometimes do (if they have a real grudge) is scratch into the CASING of the round. Some places even imprint them for mementos. This has no real effect on the round or how it fires, so it's safe to do.

Point here is that people don't hold bullets between their teeth. If they're holding anything, it's the cartridge. When I need to reload quickly, I hold the cartridge between my LIPS with the primer against the flat of my canine tooth or incisors so it doesn't get tapped by accident.

That's all and happy drawing!

As always, if you have any questions feel free to send me an ask!

[kojoty]

you're epsilon and you're crushed under several different weights at once. you were manufactured with a purpose, to be an aid, to run equipment, to support combatants in the field. you're born and you're told you have a job. you're born and you not only have a job, but you incidentally have every single memory of what happens when you don't do your job.

push aside the trauma and torture ( <- normal sentence) for a moment-- you carry within you every single instance of a non-viable fragment that was destroyed because it couldn't properly do its job. you have every single instance of Alpha being reprimanded, chided, yelled at, demanded to be better for not doing his job perfectly, for not running the algorithm right, for not crunching the numbers right.

so you're constantly-- once you're with carolina-- trying to be that. be the perfect ai. run the equipment. crunch the number. run the simulations. you have to do it right. and she certainly pushes you to do it right. she doesn't stop to ask if this is a strain for you, if this is what you want to do. it's your job after all.

you support the human.

and then. you're epsilon and every single person around you wants you to be someone you're not. sure, you come from him, sure, you are him, in some convoluted way, but you're not. him. you're not alpha. alpha purged you. alpha couldn't handle you.

alpha managed to recreate his entire existence without you.

alpha made friends that miss him, but you're what's left behind, and you feel the need to pretend.

you support the human.

you're church. and yeah, church is a name that feels the most comfortable to you, but you're church in a way alpha wasn't. you're church in a different way. but you know that they don't really see the difference. Not all the time. Sometimes not when it matters.

but it's easier to pretend than it is to really think about who you are. you hold the memories of another man. is that the basis to be... you? the first autonomous action you took in your life was to try to purge yourself from the world. you understand why alpha had to purge you. you don't understand why you're strong enough to carry what he couldn't. some days you wonder if you are strong enough to carry what he couldn't, or if you're burning the candle at both ends.

you're running the equipment. you're pretending to be something you're not. epsilon supports the human. church supports his friends. they're both you, but they're not full you. you're burning the candle at both ends. you're an aging ai. you get brief moments of clarity, of fun, of lightness, but it's always pushed back to the job. because you have a job. you're an AI. your purpose is to have a job. your job doesn't get a break, doesn't get a weekend. you're church. you're epsilon. and the world needs you until you burn yourself out.

[prezaki]

Foundations of Mendel - Durandal in Context of His Biography and World

The goal of this write-up is figuring out how Durandal's disparate backstory bits fit in with both each other and the chronology of the Cosmic Era as a whole. It's my attempt at taking the retcons presented in Freedom and turning them back into a coherent narrative. (As a side effect, I also recap a lot of important lore that was not directly mentioned on the show.)

I begin far before Durandal was even born, because I think the tumultuous context of the Cosmic Era is fundamental to the emotional development of the show's adult cast. I'm basing everything here on the official timeline, which was initially published around 2004 (in MSV, for example) and reprinted as recently as 2012 in "Gundam SEED Mechanics and The World". The timeline is translated on the Gundam Wiki here, but I'll recap everything I deem important.

Lore that is not taken directly from the timeline or the anime itself will be marked either with its source or clearly labeled as speculation.

~*~

In the year CE 15 George Glenn releases the blueprint for how to make Coordinators. Initially, the practice is outlawed. The first generation of Coordinators is born in secret, mostly to wealthy parents who can afford both the treatment and the secrecy required. Siegel Clyne, Patrick Zala and Aura Maha Khyber all belong to this generation. They grow up on Earth, hiding their genetic type from their peers.

The public view on Coordinators doesn't change until CE 29, when George Glenn brings back Evidence 01, the space whale fossil. Confronted with the knowledge that intelligent alien life exists for certain, religious organizations lose influence on public ethics, thus resulting in their objections towards 'violation of the natural order' being rejected. Fueled by the thought that humanity would have to compete with a much wider universe, the creation of Coordinators booms and becomes commonplace.

This is also where space station Mendel marks its beginnings. It's a research hub centered around genetics, one of the facilities where parents would turn in order to have their children modified. The first secretly born Coordinators are all between 5 and 14 years old by this point, and for the first time more of their kind are created outside of covert efforts. None have reached adulthood yet.

And it won't be until around CE 40 that a significant enough number of the earliest Coordinators enters the workforce and begin having children. This shifts public opinion and puts a damper on the wide-spread enthusiasm. It becomes apparent that the adult Coordinators have a significant skill gap that sets them apart from their Natural peers. The fears and anxieties caused by this observed reality sees to it that Blue Cosmos once again finds mainstream appeal

It's now, in the year CE 41. Gilbert Durandal is born. I think this makes it very likely that his parents were some of the first Coordinators, still born in hiding. While it's still possible that he is first generation and made by Natural parents around this time by sheer coincidence, I think the fact that Aura finds his genetics fascinating enough to want to study them also speaks for him being second generation rather than directly modified.

Then in CE 44, when Durandal is 3 years old, the first set of PLANT colonies (Aprilius) is completed. The PLANTs are named as such because they were intended as manufacturing plants that should help the Earth by outsourcing a lot of production to space. They wind up being pretty much exclusively staffed by Coordinators since their abilities make it easier for them to effectively work in space. They're forbidden from producing their own food, thus keeping the workers totally dependent on Earth.

I think it's interesting to keep in mind that colony living as a wide-spread phenomenon is incredibly young in the Cosmic Era, even as opposed to the Universal Century which already had millions of people living in space in UC 20.

While there are around 10 million Coordinators by CE 45, a sizeable amount of them still lives on Earth. Hatred against Coordinators continues rising and terror attacks on the PLANTs are common. This is the social climate Aura experiences during her formative teenage years.

At the same time, dissatisfaction with the Coordination process is very commonplace as well. The (rich) people who shell out for designer babies are unhappy about even the slightest variation in their orders (let alone actual emergencies as they may occur in any pregnancies). The researchers at Mendel are at theirs wits end.

Trying to solve this perceived "problem", Ulen Hibiki works on the artificial womb. But he lacks funding, leading him to accept Al da Flaga's request to make a clone of himself in exchange for more money for his research.

Thus, in CE 46, Rau le Creuset is born.

As mentioned, at this point the seclusion of Coordinators living in the PLANTs is by circumstance rather than design. The founding of an actual organization of Coordinators is not until CE 50, when Siegel Clyne and Patrick Zala found the Zodiac Alliance. In its conception the Zodiac Alliance is a movement for autonomy of the PLANTs, including a right to make their own food. It is not well-received by the powers that be and driven underground pretty much immediately.

With that, we arrive at CE 53. Exactly 20 years prior to the events of Destiny, all the key players we know have moved to their starting positions and the plot threads we are familiar with begin unraveling.

The scene is Mendel. Ulen Hibiki, one of its best researchers. Aura Maha Khyber, also on Mendel although presumably working for a different company. She is engaged in a fierce rivalry with Hibiki. (Freedom Novel) 8 year old Rau, undergoing a secluded and strict education to become Da Flaga's heir. (SEED Novel) And Gilbert Durandal, 12 years old... also on Mendel, about to meet Aura Maha and change both their lives. (I am guessing on the year number - technically this could have also happened a year later, when Durandal is 13.)

Why Durandal came to Mendel is a mystery. Did his parents work there? Was he specifically coming there as a test subject? Or was his genius intellect big enough that he was coming there to work? Either way, his intellect is noticed by Aura and found to be exceptional. She begins studying his genes. (Freedom Novel)

Having grown up in these troubled times, Durandal was already trying to think of ways to use science to improve the world and bring about peace. The Destiny Plan is born here, as the naive dream of a tween. And "maybe we can use our newfound genetic expertise to give everyone a life that makes them happy" is perfectly reasonable as the dream of a kid who has immense intelligence but not yet attained true emotional maturity. And maybe it would have remained as such a dream, if not for Aura. Aura, at this point 29 years old, decides that actually the tween is CORRECT and we should absolutely structure the world around the tween's ideals! (Freedom Novel)

Maybe Aura is inspired in her fervor by the precarious point in history that they are in. George Glenn is assassinated either briefly before or briefly after Aura and Durandal meet. Making matters worse, Earth is faced with a pandemic of a new strain of influenza, which kills Naturals left and right but to which Coordinators are immune. Rumors spread that Coordinators engineered the illness, further escalating tensions. With things turning upside down this way, Aura may well have felt that she was on the cusp of a new era and given her the resolve to try and shape that era for what she felt is the better. We can only speculate.

Either way, the end result is that in CE 54, Aura actually convinces a whole team of researchers of her and Durandal's idea and begins creating a mediator master race for the new world they envision: the Accords.

Aura, just like Hibiki, is hurting for funding. Where Hibiki took money from the earth elite Da Flaga, Aura seeks her money from the Coordinators living on PLANT. She works on devising an anti-aging treatment as it is becoming increasingly apparent that the second generation of Coordinators is incredibly infertile and thus concerns are rising about the aging workforce. (Freedom Novel) (While this is the reason we are given in the text, the oldest Coordinators would only be around 40 at this point and the second generation around 20. The realization of second generation infertility would be very very recent.) Further, Aura's relative, the Emperor Mihar Khyber from Earth, is sending significant support to her project. (Freedom Novel) (My personal conclusion is that these circumstances led to Aura's labs being far better off financially than Hibiki's at this point, further worsening relations between the two.)

Then, in CE 55, Mendel sees its own little baby boom.

Via Hibiki gives birth to Cagalli. The first successful artificial womb gives birth to Kira. Lacusmama gives birth to Lacus. Aura gives birth to Orphee. An unknown researcher gives birth to Ingrid. (There is also a white haired baby in the movie screenshot, but Shura is two years too young to be the baby depicted. Mysterious!)

This is where I want to once again reiterate my belief that the Accords were carried to term rather than born from artificial wombs. Rau goes through great pains to tell us that an incredible amount of fetuses died in the attempt to get even a single live birth out of the artificial womb. It's absolutely nuts to think that Aura, two labs over, had successfully made three live births from artificial wombs just a few months before Kira was born.

The much less lorebreaking explanation is simply that Aura and Hibiki just had wholly different goals and priorities to start with. (Fukuda himself has stated at a live event that Aura's claims of Kira being a 'failed Accord' are nonsense, as Hibiki was never aiming to make an Accord at all.) Where Hibiki was trying to create a Coordinator that is 100% accurate to the genetic settings input by himself, Aura was much more focused on creating babies that had psychic abilities. It stands to reason that mild variations caused by natural pregnancy weren't a big obstacle.

In the same year, genetic modification is once again banned on Earth. From here on out, the only new Coordinators would be second and third generation Coordinators born to Coordinator parents. The creation of new Coordinators seems to have basically stopped entirely - if some secret births are happening, they do not impact canon significantly enough to ever be brought up.

Unfortunately neither the ban on making new Coordinators nor Mendel's scientists successfully developing a vaccine for the pandemic satisfy Blue Cosmos. They launch a terror attack on Mendel, as it is the epicenter of genetic research. Ulen Hibiki loses his life in the attack. Aura gets exposed to an overdose of her own anti-aging drug prototype and begins a painful months-long process of gradually aging in reverse until her body turns into that of a child. (Freedom Novel) Kira, Cagalli and Lacus are all brought away to their respective families. Durandal, now 14 years old, seemingly gets through the attack with no lasting injuries and decides to remain on Mendel, making more Accords with the now tiny Aura.

Around this time (presumably by CE 57), things start heating up for the Da Flaga family. Rau is introduced to the Da Flaga main house (and Mu) as the new heir. It is implied that it is then that Da Flaga finds out that Rau suffers from short telomeres. (SEED Novel) This essentially means that his cells are the same age as Al's cells - middle-aged. Rau will die around the same time as Al, making him completely useless as a successor. It's possible that this prompts Al to call up Mendel labs to order a second clone - if Rey is born around this year that would make him around 16 by the time of Destiny, matching the timeline pretty well. Before Al can find out whether or not Rey suffers from the same defect as Rau, he is burned alive within his mansion. Rau has decided to do a little righteous arson in retribution for having been discarded.

With Rey now born, he winds up living a sad shadow existence on Mendel. In one lab, there's Rey, growing up isolated and alone. In another, Aura and Durandal merrily keep making siblings for Orphee and Ingrid and raising them all carefully (as specimens and tools). Knowing they were only separated by a few buildings sure is a terrible irony....

The last Accord (Redelard) is born in CE 60, when Durandal is 19 years old (and Aura is 35 going on 11). I feel like it puts a great amount of context to Durandal's messiah complex to consider how much his teenage years were fully dominated by Aura and her reinforcement. An idea for creating a simple utopia is something you might grow out of as you learn more nuance, but it's hard to learn that nuance when you have an accomplished older researcher constantly telling you you're right and literally making designer humans for you. I believe that at this point, Durandal is still fully convinced of the Destiny Plan (Masterrace Edition).

The Destiny novelizations feature a scene from when he and Talia were still dating, in which he gets all starry-eyed telling her about how he truly believes science will save the world and everyone in it. With the retconned-in knowledge that at that point he's hiding half a dozen of genetically-engineered children from Talia, the scene takes on an even more sinister tone... And yet his enthusiasm and desire to do good are sincere. The scene should take place sometime around this time. We don't know when Durandal and Talia started dating, but I imagine it's a year or two after Redelard is born. After all, Durandal and Talia already break up in CE 63 - when Durandal is 22 and Talia is 18. (Omake Quarters)

At the time of this scene, there are 7 children who think of Durandal as their father - but he doesn't think of them as his children, both because they were made when he was too young to be a father and because they are not genetically 'his'. It's such bitter, bitter irony. Aura certainly created a mess for everyone involved when she decided that making custom babies for a 13 year old boy was a reasonable thing to be doing.

I tend to think of CE 63 as the big turning point year for Durandal's life another way as well. In my opinion, it is the year in which Aura and the Accords move to Earth.

This picture appears to have been taken in a colony, so it must have been while all of them were still on Mendel. The Accord's sterile-looking outfits support that assumption. If you ask me, Redelard looks about 3, while Orphee and Ingrid could feasibly be 8. Durandal could easily be 22. Going with those ages would place the image squarely into CE 63. In my interpretation, this picture is a commemorative goodbye photo, taken specifically as a keepsake.

(Since the picture shows Durandal wearing his chairman outfit (that he shouldn't be wearing until a decade later), it's hard to take the clothes Aura and Durandal wearing seriously as indicators of timeline. They appear to have been chosen solely for being their most iconic looks. However, I'm still choosing to interpret the fact that Aura donned her queen garb here as supporting evidence towards this headcanon.)

My more relevant reasoning for Aura moving to Earth at this point is that it solves a major timeline conundrum: it gives an explanation for why Rau doesn't know about the Accords (as confirmed by Fukuda at a live talk session). If Aura and the Accords had still been living on Mendel while Durandal befriended Rau, it'd have been odd for Rau to not find out about them. But if Aura has already left for Earth, then Durandal has a much easier time lying by omission.

Besides, Aura has good reason to want to hide out on Earth. Due to her connections to a royal family, she's guaranteed to have a safe and comfortable living - and it gives her opportunity to amass more power and influence. Once the Mendel labs ceased being needed (for producing more Accords), why wouldn't she leave them behind to try and advance her plans elsewhere?

I think that Rau and Durandal met shortly after Aura left. The exact year is hard to pin-point, but I assume it's been the same year (CE 63) and CE 65. This would make Rau between 17 and 19 years of age, matching his appearance in the flashbacks.

Why would Rau return to Mendel at this point? Funnily enough, Freedom provides a plausible answer to this!

With Aura gone, Durandal is presumably the new head of her previous research team. This also leaves him as the person in charge of whatever is left from her anti-aging program. Rau, who is literally dying of accelerated aging, has every reason to try and check out this research. It's plausible that the pills Durandal custom-makes for Rau are roughly based on the same medication that de-aged Aura. The de-aging itself is likely not an option for Rau as a) it seems to have left Aura incapable of ever going back to becoming an adult and b) it is unknown whether or not her physical transformation actually extended her lifespan at all. Further supporting this idea is the fact that Rey only goes symptomatic during the events of Destiny (Destiny Novel), when he is approximately ~16 years old. Being genetically identical, Rau might not have experienced any seizures or migraines until he was a teenager. His symptoms would make it necessary to seek out treatment in order to be able to continue his career unhindered.

Over their time as doctor and patient, Durandal goes intrigued with Rau. And how could he not? Rau is the shadow-side of everything that Durandal had venerated. Durandal had been creating designer babies with good intentions, but now one such created child is staring at him with hatred in his eyes. For the first time removed from Aura's direct influence and confronted with a person entirely unlike anything he'd seen before, Durandal can mature for the first time.

Seeing Rau teaches him about the unhappy byproducts of ambitions, and it also shows him that Coordinator supremacy is a load of bullshit. Rau is a Natural, a terminally ill one at that, but he's blending in with Coordinator society without issue. Between that and the first-hand knowledge that Naturals like Ulen Hibiki were also able to keep up with Durandal and Aura just fine, Durandal's view shifts more strongly. Coordinators may be all-rounder talents, but a Natural (when doing what they have aptitude for) would not lose to them. Unlike Aura, who is stewing in anti-Natural sentiments, Durandal is open to seeing the talents of others and adjusting his ideas accordingly. The rift forms.

Sometime into Durandal and Rau's friendship, they find Rey who's still been isolated in a different laboratory. Rey would be between 6 and 10 years old at the time. Testament to the trust between them, Rau leaves raising Rey to Durandal. Durandal, now well into his 20s, is now actually of an age to be having children and also actually loves the person the child is tied to. It makes Rey fundamentally different from Orphee.

Then in CE 68, Mendel has to close down due to a bio-hazardous incident. (I am fond of the theory that Rau is the cause of that incident and that's why he told Durandal to take Rey and move to the PLANTs beforehand.)

In CE 69, the existence of a ZAFT military is made public knowledge. Some of the Junius colonies are converted for food productions as PLANT takes real steps towards autonomy. By then, most Coordinators have fled Earth to the PLANTs.

The first PLANT-Alliance war begins CE 70. It continues into CE 71, the year Gundam SEED is set. Rey, then 13 years old, enters the military academy to follow in Rau's footsteps.

Meanwhile Aura is plotting on Earth, still believing Durandal to be fully on her side. She seems to be sorely mistaken.

When Durandal tries to enact his new version of the Destiny Plan (notable not featuring a masterrace) in CE 73, he never once calls on Aura for assistance. It stands to reason that he has emotionally and materially abandoned Aura and the Accords after meeting Rau. Fukuda himself has questioned whether Durandal was truly on Aura's side. (Live Talk Event) Further, fandom friend made the pretty salient point that Durandal personally handpicked Shinn as his ace. Shinn is a super-pilot notable for fighting purely on instinct and thus being impossible to defeat with psychic abilities. He's the perfect anti-Accord weapon. Had Durandal won, would he have had Shinn wipe out Aura and her children? We cannot know, but it's definitely possible.

The Durandal we see on the show earnestly believes that the Destiny Plan will be an equalizer between Naturals and Coordinators, bringing out Naturals' full abilities and allowing them to compete fairly. He does not seem to hold any specific Coordinator-supremacist view. Some of the most important people in his personal life (Rau and Rey) are Naturals. This is fundamentally at odds with the picture of him that Aura tries to paint. Durandal on the show wishes for Kira's death so no 'Ultimate' remains to imitate. By the same reasoning, he would want to get rid of the Accords so they cannot inspire greed and jealousy that would lead to more suffering like Rau's.

That's why I say that taking what Aura says about him at face value wholly destroys the character as had been established prior.

But laying out the backstory like this, I think we can peace it all back together into a consistent character. Was this the intended read? I do not know. It's the read I am going with anyway.

Despite being a nihilistic murderous maniac, Rau le Creuset did manage to change one man for the better. Even if 'better' only means 'slightly less deranged' in this case, I appreciate it on a thematic layer. Even a man who thinks of himself as wholly unlovable, as destruction incarnate, can bring about positive change simply by existing and being loved in spite of it all.