#and then i might get some very standard ones too

[the-cats-noodles]

Everytime I see this, everytime, someone brings up marriage as an exception and I can't help but think, really?

I get it, promises are important (to death do us part, which is in and of itself an unrealistic standard but whatever i dont have time to talk abt that) but I feel like people forget that marriage for love is relatively recent? The point of marriage being to join households and pass on property is much older (and the origin of the whole "only death can make us separate" bc property and inheritance) like, the reason people stayed together was bc of duty not love and that was a very different environment than the one now (which is good) but it still means we're talking about a standard that is unrealistic in our current environment (not to mention the insane amount of murder over not being able to get divorced in the past, like it's a very good thing we can end marriages now)

There's nothing wrong with marrying someone and wanting to stay with them forever (we chose to do this for love and that was good actually), but can we stop pretending this idea is universal?

Making a promise is all well and good, but people change and their promises do too.

Like, yes you keep growing as you get older and yes you might grow closer with your partner (and that's perfectly normal and okay) BUT you might also grow apart and that is ALSO PERFECTLY OKAY

Saying that marriage is something to exclude from the idea of decentering permanence is kinda ignoring all the people who really shouldn't be staying together but "have" to (for the kids, reputation, etc) and anybody involved definitely feels that dynamic shift...

Just, yeah "keep your promises" but also know that breaking them is a part of life and its much better for both parties if you break a promise instead of wither away trying to uphold it for some perceived sense of duty or obligation to people whose opinions literally DO NOT matter

(If you wanna be with one person forever? great! If they don't agree bc they don't love you anymore? Oh well, tough luck, I guarantee you'll be better off letting them go then forcing them to stay in a legal contract, which is what marriage becomes when you don't feel love for the other party anymore)

Also I get most people don't want to force someone to stay in a situation that makes them miserable, at least I really hope they don't, but when (as a society) we place more importance on the whole 'till death do us part' bit and less on the 'I love you and want to show it' (or even say the only way to show it is to hold onto that person forever) then it kinda forces people into this idea of "having" to stay

And look, counseling is great, it can work wonders, but it is NOT a miracle worker. It can't fix everything and it doesn't have to bc A LOT of marriages aren't broken they're just fizzling out

Am I making any sense? Who knows, but I was raised in a community where ending a marriage or relationship was worse than cheating bc "marriages are work"

They are, but you also retire from work when it becomes a strain and you can't do it anymore. You can quit a job if it doesn't fit. I'm not saying marriage is a job, but I am saying that if we expect marriage to involve work we can expect it to reach the point where people just DONT WANT TO DO THAT ANYMORE and that's okay

I'm begging: please stop insisting marriage is different from other relationships in this regard bc it isn't. It's sweet and a wonderful experience but it's still just a love between two people and we can't expect that to be magically enough to stop the natural progression all relationships go through.

You lose friends over time but some stay around. You lose family over time (like, no contact in this case not necessarily through death) but some stay around. You lose lovers and partners over time but some stay around. And that's okay, u just don't see how the last one is somehow expected to have more weight.

(Which I believe was op's point? That they're all temporary and that's a good thing actually)

Like everything is temporary, it's just sometimes that temporary lines up with our lives bc we ourselves are temporary beings, and it's okay if it does and it's okay if it doesn't.

I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.

[pudding-parade]

Here's this lighting mod I cobbled together, up for public consumption for anyone who might want to give it a try. It's a "default" lighting mod, which means it will affect all worlds in all saves that are in the same game folder as the lighting mod, except for the dystopian/utopian futures in Oasis Landing. So, if you use a custom or EA world that includes special lighting that you like, you don't want to use this in that game folder because it will replace that lighting.

Before I start babbling, here's the download link upfront.

There are two versions included in the download. One file includes default replacements for the clouds, sun, sun halo, moon halo, and stars. Then there's a folder that contains two separate files, the lighting mod by itself and the default sky objects by itself, in case you don't want the clouds, stars, etc that you see in the pics and just want the lighting mod. (Or if you don't want the lighting mod but do want the sky objects, I guess!) The pics all use the "combined" version, but you can install only what you want, if that's more your cuppa.

This mod's "base" is Burntwaffles's Dream Dimension lighting mod, specifically version 2.5 with Lucky Palms water and no auroras, except that I changed the sunrise/sunset times back to the standard 6AM/6PM because I use NRaas Retuner to create appropriate seasonal sunrise/sunset offsets instead. It still has Lucky Palms's water, both because it's my favorite and because I don't know how to change it, but pretty much everything else has been altered at least slightly, from slightly brightening and color-adjusting the color ramps to mucking around with light angles and distance fog settings. So, not too much is left of Dream Dimension except the basic colors, but it's still at its core. I also looked at lighting mods made by @boringbones and @gruesim and compared the values they contain to Dream Dimension's values. None of the values I ultimately used are from any of those mods but they were all guidance that helped me to pinpoint values to change to get the look I wanted, so credit to those creators.

My goals for the mod, all of which I more or less accomplished, were:

1) Less-intense shadows, mostly in order to reduce harsh shadows on sims, especially in outdoor lighting, as well as too-dark bits of building exteriors, like covered porches and recessed entryways.

2) Desaturated but bright colors with less contrast, because my old eyes don't tolerate saturated colors and high contrast for long. Somehow, EA's lighting manages to be both very color-saturated and dark and often dismal at the same time. Meanwhile, most lighting mods are too bright and/or too saturated for my likings. I wanted less saturated but brighter, which seems to be a rare combination. Dream Dimension is already desaturated, which is why I like it, but I increased the brightness and warmth a bit on the color ramps because it could also be a bit too dark and "cold," in my opinion.

3) Improved natural-daylight indoor lighting. I somewhat accomplished this one, though there are still issues like too-dark ceilings and some too-bright walls, which I don't think are fixable with just a lighting mod. However, lowering the light angles seems to make the EA windows with fixed lighting (that mod is linked behind the cut) work better and gives pretty good results, which you can especially see in the WIP pics I've posted, since I didn't include a lot of interior pics on this post. I can make no promises about this issue on lots with custom windows, however.

4) Dark but not unrealistically black nights, including darker ground level lighting at night. Dream Dimension already had this, but I lowered the contrast so it's not so hard on the eyes and also made it a little bit brighter so that if you've got your sims in an unlit area far from from any artificial light sources, you can still see what they're doing. It also doesn't have the obnoxious blue tint that EA night lighting has.

Like the WIP pics I posted here, here , here, and here, the above pics have no Reshade or Photoshop editing applied to them at all, other than cropping/resizing in Photoshop. They are all taken in various EA worlds instead of all in my rebuild of Meadow Glen, as all the WIP pics I've posted have been. They are best viewed at full size, and I think they give a good representation of what the thing looks like, including flaws, assuming that you use the same appearance-improving stuff that I use on a decent-enough machine to run all this crap and still be able to play the game. I have tried to be thorough and transparent about my machine's specs and the other mods and stuff that I use that contribute to what my "naked" game looks like. That's all behind the cut.

The WIP pics I've posted have a larger sun and moon than you will get from the mod as uploaded. You can see the "included" sun/moon sizes in the above pics. I like those things to be larger, so my personal copy of the mod has larger sun/moon sizes, but I figured other people mostly wouldn't like that. The mod as uploaded has I believe slightly larger-than-EA values for those things, but not ridiculously-large like I like. As uploaded, there is also no sun halo, which to me results in a sun that looks like a ping-pong ball floating in the sky, but whatever.

I was going to write up and include instructions on how to mess with sun/moon sizes and other things in this post, including how to "reactivate" Burntwaffles's "auroras" if you want them. (Those are really just colored clouds, though; I prefer to use this mod for auroras, and it is shown in one of the pics above.) But I've decided to do all that in a separate post or two at a later time because probably no one will read this massive wall of text as it is. :)

For the sky objects replacement: They began life as parts of @wasset-asekara's "Enchanted Environment" mod, but I have edited them over the years. I don't remember all that I have done, but I do know that I edited @nilxis's clouds a bit and put that in there, and that the stars are an edit of ShojoAngel's starfield because I like its gazillions of tiny stars better than EA's sparse field of large globs that are apparently supposed to be stars. (One day I will make my own starfield from scratch that's more of a "happy medium" between those two, but that day hasn't arrived yet. LOL ) I'm pretty sure I didn't edit Wasset's sun halo, though, and it's included. You can see it in this pic, but as I said the uploaded mod has the sun halo size set to zero, so it will not appear unless you go in and fiddle with the sun and sun halo sizes yourself. As I said, I'll make a separate post about how to do that, if you don't already know.

And now for the section where I'll list my computer's relevant specs, mods that I use, and other stuff I have installed that affect how my game looks, for transparency's sake and so that you can get some of this stuff if you don't already have it…

My computer's relevant specs:

Core i9 "Rocket Lake" processor (The one before the Alder Lake one that requires a patch for TS3 to work right). It runs at 3.5GHz

64GB of RAM

The game and all CC is installed on an M.2 SSD

16GB RTX 4060Ti GPU

So, it's pretty high-spec. If your machine is lower-spec, I can't guarantee that this lighting mod plus all the other crap that most serious TS3 players use will result in a good gameplay experience. On the other hand, lighting mods aren't resource-intensive by themselves. They are literally just numbers and a handful of tiny images. It's just that people, myself included, tend to couple them with resource hogs like Reshade as well as appearance-improving mods and graphics rules and things, plus a mass of gameplay mods, and the cumulative result is one big resource drain. So, bear that in mind.

Mods:

More light through windows This fixes EA windows so that they work better and create more natural lighting. However, if you use a lot of custom windows that clone the unfixed LITE resource from EA windows, it will not help you at all.

Improved EA Lights Similar to the above, this fixes EA lamps and wall/ceiling lights and stuff so that they cast artificial light more realistically. It will also not help you if you use a lot of custom lights that clone the LITE resource of unfixed EA lights.

Fixed tileable item shaders This makes it so that lighting isn't weird on tiled bookshelves and sectional couches and stuff. Alas, it does not seem to fix uneven lighting on tiled windows. :( And, again, it fixes EA stuff, not custom stuff.

LazyDuchess's Sky Banding Fix It used to be that I used Reshade mostly to fix the gradient banding in the sky. With this fix plus this lighting mod, I can completely ditch Reshade, yay! (Of course you don't have to ditch Reshade; I just didn't personally use it much other than to deband and desaturate.)

Default replacement moon shown in the pics I use the Quartz color. You can use any replacement you want, of course. Or you can stick with the ugly EA moon.

NVIDIA Settings

Used for better antialiasing, the addition of ambient occlusion (which affects shadows), and a few other things. I listed the settings I use on this post. I imagine you can alter these settings if you use an AMD card, too, but I'm an NVIDIA girlie, so I don't know how you'd go about doing that. I'm sure there is info out there on the Intertubes, though! Bear in mind that many Reshade presets, if you use them, include better antialiasing and activating ambient occlusion, etc. via the various shaders used in the preset. Generally, you want either/or here, and I personally feel that NVIDIA settings give better results. However, with Reshade presets, you can disable individual shaders used for ambient occlusion and antialiasing and such to make them more compatible with NVIDIA settings.

A so-called "HQ mod."

Which isn't actually a mod at all but just edited graphics rules that change a few numbers so that the game uses higher-resolution images for stuff by default. This is necessary because, generally speaking, the game doesn't "know" that newer graphics cards that it doesn't natively recognize are capable of using larger textures, so it defaults to lower-resolution ones. If you haven't already done so, it's best to edit this yourself because graphics rules are rather machine-specific. General instructions on how to fart around with the graphics rules are here, and if you google around you'll find other tweaks that you can apply or not, as you choose. I personally edited mine for higher-resolution shadows and textures, both of which contribute to the pics of this lighting mod.

In-Game Graphics settings

All of mine are at maximum except for the game's native antialiasing (AKA "Edge Smoothing"), which is turned off since the NVIDIA settings handle that.

Various default-replacements.

The most obvious in the pics of this mod being @asabinsims "Project Renaissance" which default-replaces the textures for many of the game's trees, shrubs, and flowers. The "large" version is used in the pictures, but I use the "small" version for gameplay. Also, the sims in the pictures are using the default skin, eye, hair textures, and brow/facial hair replacements I use, but before the game "updated" them, they were briefly "wearing" the hideous Maxis stuff, and there were still no weird shadows and stuff on them.

Stuff that I don't have/use but that could possibly make this look even better:

LazyDuchess's Shader Framework and Tweaks LazyDuchess's Split-Level Lighting Fix (I don't use these only because, last time I tried to use them, I couldn't get the game to load with the shader framework installed, and the split-level fix just didn't work. But maybe it's time to try getting them to work again…)

And also: @katsujiiccfinds (But feel free NOT to reblog this, because it is a ridiculously massive post because of my thoroughness kink, and I would totally understand not wanting to pass that around. :) )

[evelynvipah]

Okay okay, I apologize for two asks in one day 😭 I swear I'll shut up after this. But I read a Caitvi as parents fanfic now I'm hyper fixated.

Would Vi enjoy pregnancy? What would her cravings be? What would postpartum be like? How would she handle contractions? How would Caitlyn help her throughout her pregnancy?

💀 just some food for thought

Pleaseee don’t apologize I love talking to people especially about arcane!!!! You can send as many asks as you want I promise it’s alright! My hcs for them are quite common ones for pregnancy stuff so I hope this is enjoyable somewhat 😭.

I think Vi would enjoy most parts of pregnancy like being close to the baby, knowing it’s safe and secure with her, and meeting those milestones like experiencing movements and heartbeats. Even telling those close to her like Tobias and Ekko, Jinx too even if through letters. However, I do think it could be quite challenging for her physically and mentally. Physically, we know she’s a very fit and active person—she’s never been given the opportunity to sit still (at least growing up), and even in prison she always had to be on guard. So, I believe not being able to vigorously work out, and do her parkour really takes a toll on her and what she’s just used to. I also think on a more mental aspect, while she might not be dysphoric in a sense of body standards like in our society, I think there’d be a huge adjustment to softening. Gaining pregnancy weight would obviously soften her abs and muscles in general so she might feel a bit weird about it, but she’d know it was for an amazing reason.

Now, for cravings she’s definitely always begging Cait for Jerichos, if it’s safe since it’s fish, but I also think she’d be addicted to the more spicier foods. Like putting chili oil and hot sauce on everything (a common hc I feel), but while it’s not rlly unusual I could see her developing a craving for Hagelslag which is chocolate sprinkles on buttered bread. I really love the hc that Vi has a major sweet tooth and Cait’s is left to try and sneak some nutritious foods in her diet.

I think postpartum would be hard on her mentally for the more obvious reasons like being known to have bouts of depression, having to get back into shape, new adjustments to schedules and stuff. But, I think not having her dad or maybe even her sister in the picture is what makes it a true challenge for her. Wanting to share this joyous moment with the ones she’s lost. To add, knowing Caitlyn wants to do the same with Cassandra. But she has people there to support her whenever she’s feeling overwhelmed and down. Oddly enough, I don’t see her disliking getting up throughout the night to attend to their child since it’s a chance to really bond. She’d cuddle and sing the songs her mother and Powder used to sing to them, telling their kid some stories abt her time growing up and reminiscing the good days.

Now for the hard parts. Vi’s a serious trooper. She’s faced so many battles head-on for her loved ones so I imagine her going into labor thinking it’s gonna be a breeze, but she’s totally wrong. I think her and Cait would try so hard to be calm, but they can’t help but be worried/frantic about this part as they gather their things and get ready. I don’t think she’d scream per say, but she’d definitely curse up a storm for everyone to hear. Lol just think about Cait scolding her not wanting it to be the first words their baby hears.

The process isn’t a walk in the park, and contractions are really beating her down so I think she’d enjoy trying to have conversations with cait about straight nonsense to take her mind off of them. Maybe do some walking, reluctant yoga—oh and cracking a lot of dumb jokes to lighten the mood for not just herself, but Cait. She also jokes during the process of pushing (I will die by this).

Throughout the entire pregnancy, I know for a fact Caitlyn dotes on her. I can see Cait being a bit overbearing trying to always make sure she’s comfortable, hydrated and fed, rested, isn’t doing too much movement at the later stages and it drives Vi CRAZY, but lovingly so. Cait would probably learn to make some healthier meals for Vi either through her dad or the staff who laugh at her failures. She would try and put pieces of furniture together for the nursery without Vi and she’d get somewhere with it, but eventually lets Vi help because there’s just too many parts. I really enjoy the idea of Cait not excelling at the more physical arts like painting or crafting, but really wanting to make something for Vi and the baby whether it’s through pottery, creating jewelry (little bracelets 🥺), etc.

I honestly am gonna have to really think more on this idea for them bc I think there’s so many interesting things that can come from this. I’m so glad you asked more; I think there’s a lot of creativity to get into with these two but my brain is not cooperating rn���😭

Thank you though again, I enjoyed writing this!💗💗

[lurkingshan]

Theory of Love Episode 5: 10 Things I Hate About You

We have hit a stretch of actually good movies, and I'm so grateful. This week we got to revisit one of my old favorites, a gem of the modern Shakespeare adaption pantheon: 10 Things I Hate About You. Here's the plot, in brief:

Cameron transfers to a new high school and instantly falls for Bianca, a girl whose father notoriously won't let her date and has just set a new rule: she can only start dating when her older sister Kat does. Kat is known as "difficult" and anti-social, so Cameron and his buddy cook up a scheme to recruit resident "bad boy" Patrick to date her, using the asshole popular guy Joey as a stooge to pay him. Patrick falls for Kat for real in the course of this scheme, Kat eventually finds out he lied to her, and things blow up before we cut to the happy resolution.

It was fun to revisit this movie, which has a really solid narrative underpinning its many hilarious lines (shoutout to the Bard). It holds up pretty well, minus some trappings of the era that led to the inevitable casual ableism and homophobia, and it was a real pleasure to see Heath Ledger on my screen again. The main problem with this film is that the resolution comes too easily: after only one minor argument when Kat uncovers the Big Lie, she has a breakdown and forgives Patrick for tricking her without making him suffer at all, and the other dudes who were involved in deceiving her don't even acknowledge their part in it, let alone atone. Unsatisfying!

Re-watching Theory of Love, I wonder if the creators felt the same way about the lack of real atonement and growth on Patrick's part, because boy are they going to make damn sure Khai pays for every mistake he makes in this first half of the story. That begins this week with Third distancing himself from Khai in the wake of learning about the scheme Khai and Bone ran on him to test his feelings. But of course, Khai doesn't know Third overheard him and Third won't tell him why he's mad, so the two of them circle each other in this episode getting increasingly frustrated as they fail to communicate and Third tries and fails to go back to treating Khai like a friend.

Because Third is still very hurt and angry, and he can't suppress it or stop himself from lashing out at Khai. He starts off this episode with a very literal task taken from the title of this week's film by making a list of Khai's flaws to try to talk himself out of liking him (he seems to have missed that Kat's poem is not actually about Patrick's flaws, but the opposite--one thing I've learned from this project is that Third is pretty bad at media analysis). Third continues to hold Khai to a totally different standard than everyone else--notice he excuses Bone's own involvement in the scheme that hurt him while holding a firm grudge against Khai and refusing to tell him what he's upset about--so Third overreacts to Khai bringing a date around and acts like a bitch, and Khai doesn't understand why Third is acting this way so he's an even bigger bitch in return. Their fighting in this episode is painful to watch. No one can cut you quite like the person who knows you best.

Khai can't possibly give Third what he wants until Third tells him, but Third is unwilling to talk to him about it. Not that I can really blame Third for that, because Khai is not ready to receive a love confession from his best friend. The whole reason they got into this latest mess is because Khai was determined to prove Third doesn't like him that way. He wants to keep him as his best friend, and the idea that Third might want something different is not welcome. We saw Khai's hurt in this episode when Third suddenly started treating him differently without explaining, we saw him get upset when Third blew up at him for "whoring around" and return his nasty energy, and we saw him regret and go to Third to apologize the next day, because he cares about this friendship. I thought it was interesting that in their fight this episode Khai told Third he's not his "wife." Part of Khai knows exactly what's going on here, and he is not yet ready to admit it to himself. Third doesn't want to be his friend, and that's the heart of the issue.

[coyote-with-a-keyboard]

would you ever write a Hosea x younger male reader, around Arthur’s age, with gunplay? very generic but i cannot get the thought out of my mind… need that old man whimpering shyly, trying to not make much noise….!

a/n: brainworms and a breakup have been haunting me lately yall but now I really wanna write this so

Minors DNI

tipsy. Yah, that’s what he could say he was- just tipsy, a rare thing for Hosea to be in the fist place. He was usually a healthy drinker, a small shot or flask he’d sip on here and there. It’s much harder to control his drinking when he’s thinking about you now isn’t it?

a new member, half his age at best and recently had saved him from a petty death in a botched mission. You had lugged him over your shoulder like a sack, and he hadn’t been quite able to get it out of his mind

you acted a lot like a younger Dutch, shiny pistols and a sharp tongue.. but there was something calmed in your tone, something more possessive in your grip. More controlled he supposed. It was getting to him badly.  It made him yearn, made him ache, made him want.

he hadn’t planned on bothering you about it, not ever. He wasn’t young or pretty or fast paced or anything he was years ago- not by his standard anyway. He had planned to sit and let it simmer down until it was gone, but alas you seemed to have other plans when you slid up behind him, man-handling him onto sitting against your chest with his legs draped over your lap in one fluid motion.

he almost let out a yelp before he whipped his head around to catch a glint of your face, his heart pounding in his chest so hard he thought it might burst out of him.

you didn’t make a single sound as you seemed to look around for any other camp goers, before your hand trailed up his shirt and popped each button out of place, your voice low as you hummed out little tempting compliments as if to convince him he should be doing this.

He squirmed in your hold, words coming out breathy and muttered. Sure he was drunk, but just sober enough to know you had just gotten back from some errand by the dirt under your fingers and your gun still shining in the dimmed light on your holster. He laid pliant when you kissed as his neck, leaving hickeys down his collarbone. Too afraid to say some half-excuse and actually make you pull away.

he bit down on his lip to not make some pitiful sounds that his body begged him to let out while your hands slid his worn pants down, clearly careful and precise as to not make a sound. It didn’t help much though, truly unable to stop himself from whining like a dog

he heard the click of your bullets falling out of your pistol before he saw your gun in your hand, a surge of adrenaline filling his head as he heard five distinct clicks, unsure if you had shot one earlier or just left one in for the fun of it as the tip of your barrel pressed up against his lips. A silent command to suck on it to stop his groans and whines.

he opened his mouth the slightest bit, letting out a choked sound when the cold metal pressed against his tongue and made his teeth hurt when you adjusted it in your steady hand. He was so hyper focused on it that he failed to notice that you were undoing your belt all the while until he felt the head of your cock pressing against his hole, breathless muffled sounds flowing out of him as you slid in inch by inch. It hurt with no prep, but it was a sting he had gotten used to longer ago then he’d like to admit to any living soul

he was already hard as he could be, pre dripping down from him as you managed to manhandle him properly down onto the rough ground to properly thrust into him, fixing the awkward position. He suckled on the barrel of the gun, reveling in the taste of it as his eyes rolled back Witt every buck of your hips into his warm walls, his body clenching around you and his hands staying behind his back to resist scrambling to grasp onto you. His eyes hazy looking and tears making his eyelashes all the more noticeable as he looked up at you with pure lust.

it didn’t take long for him to reach his max, spent as sticky cum covered the lower half of his chest, mixing with the small amount of sweat that was beginning to accumulate on him, letting his lips pull away from your pistol with a wet sound as he licked up the bottom of the barrel, eyes making contact with yours in a way that was meant to egg you on and tease you, to which it clearly worked.

It didn’t take any longer for you to hold him steady down on the ground, painting his insides white with your orgasm, before pulling out slowly and tugging your pants and chaps back up, not a word exchanged as you wiped the spit off of your gun and shoving your hat over his messy hair while he got up, already leaving off to your tent by the time he was sat up and had caught his breath

[guinevereslancelot]

acquired some small apple trees for $10 each and now i have a little orchard 🥲

[cluescorner]

I cannot imagine being a Damian stan right now. You've got both Zdarsky's bullshit (where he clearly doesn't give a shit about your boy) and The Boy Wonder (where Juni Ba clearly gives so many shits about your boy) coming out on the same day. The whiplash must be insane. I hope y'all get some nice warm soup for your efforts jfc

[cerbreus]

baking never feels more like science to me than when i'm trying to cobble together an intricate multi step recipe together from several different recipes and tutorials online because the recipe I'm imagining doesn't exist....

[absentlyabbie]

seriously, though. i work in higher education, and part of my job is students sending me transcripts. you'd think the ones who have the least idea how to actually do that would be the older ones, and while sure, they definitely struggle with it, i see it most with the younger students. the teens to early 20s crowd.

very, astonishingly often, they don't know how to work with .pdf documents. i get garbage phone screenshots, sometimes inserted into an excel or word file for who knows what reason, but most often it's just a raw .jpg or other image file.

they definitely either don't know how to use a scanner, don't have access to one, or don't even know where they might go for that (staples and other office supply stores sometimes still have these services, but public libraries always have your back, kids.) so when they have a paper transcript and need to send me a copy electronically, it's just terrible photos at bad angles full of thumbs and text-obscuring shadows.

mind bogglingly frequently, i get cell phone photos of computer screens. they don't know how to take a screenshot on a computer. they don't know the function of the Print Screen button on the keyboard. they don't know how to right click a web page, hit "print", and choose "save as PDF" to produce a full and unbroken capture of the entirety of a webpage.

sometimes they'll just copy the text of a transcript and paste it right into the message of an email. that's if they figure out the difference between the body text portion of the email and the subject line, because quite frankly they often don't.

these are people who in most cases have done at least some college work already, but they have absolutely no clue how to utilize the attachment function in an email, and for some reason they don't consider they could google very quickly for instructions or even videos.

i am not taking a shit on gen z/gen alpha here, i'm really not.

what i am is aghast that they've been so massively failed on so many levels. the education system assumed they were "native" to technology and needed to be taught nothing. their parents assumed the same, or assumed the schools would teach them, or don't know how themselves and are too intimidated to figure it out and teach their kids these skills at home.

they spend hours a day on instagram and tiktok and youtube and etc, so they surely know (this is ridiculous to assume!!!) how to draft a formal email and format the text and what part goes where and what all those damn little symbols means, right? SURELY they're already familiar with every file type under the sun and know how to make use of whatever's salient in a pinch, right???

THEY MUST CERTAINLY know, innately, as one knows how to inhale, how to type in business formatting and formal communication style, how to present themselves in a way that gets them taken seriously by formal institutions, how to appear and be competent in basic/standard digital skills. SURELY. Of course. RIGHT!!!!

it's MADDENING, it's insane, and it's frustrating from the receiving end, but even more frustrating knowing they're stumbling blind out there in the digital spaces of grown-up matters, being dismissed, being considered less intelligent, being talked down to, because every adult and system responsible for them just

ASSUMED they should "just know" or "just figure out" these important things no one ever bothered to teach them, or half the time even introduce the concepts of before asking them to do it, on the spot, with high educational or professional stakes.

kids shouldn't have to supplement their own education like this and get sneered and scoffed at if they don't.

[lamtfluff]

A few years ago I had a phase of being REALLY into digital privacy, using tor, duckduckgo, etc before suffering some burnout because I was trying to be 100% secure. So I'm by no means a expert I'm just relaying experience.

The culture of a lot of left leaning and "fandommy" sites (tumblr, twitter, etc) tends to fear/dislike (or just not know about) a lot of the IT stuff used by people into online privacy because they asscoiate it with "techbros". ESPECIALLY anything even remotely involving cryptocurrency. But if Trump is going to start censoring things and making morning after pills harder to get now might be a VERY good time for Americans to get into online privacy and how to avoid being tracked as well as avoiding censorship. Perhaps even some crypto to buy things discretly (or perhaps if ICE agents start caring about cash?) and because many activists groups also take donations in crypto. Never dealt with crypto myself but from what I know Monero was designed to be more untracable than Bitcoin. Don't know how succesfull that is though. Definetly get into privacy in general though.

I'll leave some useful links to get started. Words of advice:

Don't install a fuckton of privacy extensions on your browser, your unique combination of extensions will give your browser a unique fingerprint. Instead read up on and pick a few commonly used ones.

The BIGGEST annoyance for me was acedemic/proffesional settings because noone wants to switch over to some software they never heard off for one group project. Personally I use some normie software for exclusivly proffesional purposes with NO other information on me and do my actual browsing/leisure computer use more privatly.

https://www.privacytools.io/os: General software/browser/etc recomendations.

https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/: Test how private your browser is.

https://www.torproject.org/: THE gold standard for privacy focused browsers. Also obscures ip. Might not always be practical. Has the disadvantage of being notoriously slow and is blocked by some services/websites to avoid people bypassing ip bans and whatnot. Probably don't use this as your everyday browser but if you ever need to look up anything without censorship use tor.

https://tails.net/: Install a portable mini operating system on a usb stick to browse privately from any computer.

https://www.eff.org/ Electronic frontier foundations website.

https://mastodon.social/explore Don't have experience with it myself. But open source social media that should be much harder to censor.

Tumblr probably won't like me talking too directly about this because of ties to piracy but for people interested in banned books https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_library should be an interesting read...

[shencomix]

Recently I decided to go to my local fighting game tournament.

Here's how it went.

I had been getting pretty good at Guilty Gear over the past few weeks, to the point where I was getting the input correctly for the Potemkin Buster 1 out of every 4 or 5 times I tried it. So I thought "I might not be the best yet, but, surely good enough for my local" -- and I decided to go.

It took place at a the comic & games store in the town center. The venue was full of people 10-15 years younger than me and even more drastically cooler. They all turned to glare at me as I walked through the door, but as I stood completely motionless like a gazelle hoping to blend into the grassland, their gazes slowly returned to each other and they continued to banter friendlily.

I sat down next to me first opponent, and reached out to shake their hand. They looked down at my hand, and then up at my eyes slowly.

"You're supposed to do that at the end of the match."

"Oh, s-sorry"

I got perfected twice and lost the match. At the end, I reached out again to shake their hand, but they just stood up and walked away.

Because I lost, I got moved down to the loser's bracket, which was literally below the main tournament because it took place in the basement of the comic shop. I could hear footsteps, cheering, and happy conversation in the floor above. Here in the loser's bracket though, the mood was a lot more somber.

My next opponent reminded me a little bit of me. They were equally nervous and disheveled looking. They said "Um, h-hello" and reached out their hand for a handshake as they saw me approaching. I said "you're s-supposed to do that at the end of the match." But as a look of deep sadness came over their face and they slowly put down their hand, I pulled them in for a hug.

I'm not sure why I did that.

I think that some part of me knew that, in this dark, dank, alien place, illuminated only by a single failing ceiling light and the neon glow of a few arcade machines, I had at last found a friend -- someone I understood, and who might understand me too.

They hugged back.

I lost that match by a very narrow margin, and as they jumped up and began dancing around and cheering ecstatically, I began to hate them. This was no friend of mine. A friend would not do this to me. After they were done dancing, they reached out to shake my hand. After a few seconds of pause, I stuck out my hand too, but didn't look at them and refused to close it around theirs as they grasped it. They shook my karate chop.

I thought that at that point, since I had lost and then lost in loser's bracket, I was free to go home. But one of the tournament organizers approached me and informed me that I was going down to sub-loser's bracket in the sub-basement of the store, and pointed me towards a descending staircase.

The people there were fewer, and it was darker. I could faintly hear sobbing in one of the corners, but as I went to investigate, another participant put his hand on my shoulder. He furrowed his brow in a look of pain and shook his head slowly.

"You can't do anything for them."

In sub-loser's bracket I went up against a man in a suit whose face was cloaked in shadow. He spammed May's dolphin move. I lost.

As I went to go back upstairs, one of the tournament organizers held out her palm to stop me, and pointed towards a staircase leading further down instead.

Going down through the levels, I lost to many interesting participants. One player played exclusively by bashing the controller against his face. One player was a mushroom with a few circuit cables clipped onto it, that I later learned was able to play because its bioelectrical signals got sent to a machine that interpreted them as fighting game inputs. One player didn't touch their controller at all, but instead just told me their life story, which was so tragic that I picked up their controller and won for them.

Finally, at the very bottom floor, where construction standards were long abandoned and the stairs and walls were just messily carved out of the earth's stone, I faced my final player. It was a small bit of metal framework, with a controller nestled in it. On it was a tiny piston that just pressed the jab button exactly once every second. I lost.

I hung my head for a moment, then said "close game" and stuck my hand out for a handshake, before remembering that I had played against a metal framework cube with a piston in it and retracting my hand slowly. Then I heard a slow clapping from the darkness.

"No neutral. No footsies."

Out of the darkness slowly walked a woman about my age, clad in a decorative poofy dress that looked more expensive than my entire life savings. She smiled at me warmly, continuing to clap slowly, but there was a hint of mischief in her eyes.

"No meter management. No mixups. No spacing. No learning. No strategy…

…You're perfect."

"Wh-what?"

"You're perfect. I absolutely must have you."

"Have me for…um…for what…"

(Her eyes went wide as her smile grew more manic.)

"WHY, MY MORON FAILSON HAREM OF COURSE."

"Um, I-I"

"Tell me, what do you do for a living? Let me guess, you work at a fast food restaurant? Or, retail?"

"No, I'm a--I'm a comic artist."

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Oh my god, you are PERFECT. What will it take to get you."

"To-to ge--"

"You would be well taken care of, of course. 3 Michelin star dining for every meal. Only the finest, softest sweatpants and sweatshirts, pre-stained with whatever flavor of Takis your little heart desires. You would have access to the entire mansion except for the main foyer when I'm in business calls, and you could make all the comics and play all the fighting games you want."

"I'm uh--"

I knew that I had to think fast here.

"I'm already i-in a moron failson harem."

"Oh, DARN IT!! TELL ME, WHO IS IT??? WHO GOT YOU??"

"I-I think I'm not allowed to s-sa--"

She stomped her foot petulantly, her shoe clacking against the stone floor.

"WAS IT SHUXUAN?? IT'S ALWAYS SHUXUAN HOGGING ALL OF THE GOOD ONES."

"I-I'm sorry," I blurted out, shuffling along the wall to make a wide radius around her and then running up the staircase.

As I got home and began making my standard dinner of Trader Joe's microwave falafel, I thought about her offer. Maybe I should have taken her up on it after all. A 3 Michelin star meal right now wouldn't be so bad.

Then I hopped on Guilty Gear and lost 22 matches in a row.

[maikaartwork]

Artists, let’s talk about Instagram commission scammers

There’s been a huge rise in commission scammers recently, mostly on Instagram. A lot of new artists don’t know what to look out for, so I figured this might help people.

How they begin

Usually the scammer will write to you asking about a commission. Something deceptively cute - mostly I encounter asks about pet portraits, with one or two photos sent. They’ll probably try to sell you a sweet little story, like “It’s for my son’s birthday”. They will insist that they love your artwork and style, even though they don’t follow you or never liked a single piece of your art.

What to look out for:

Their profiles will either be private, empty, or filled with very generic stuff, dating at most a few years back.

Their language will be very simple, rushed or downright bad. They might use weird emojis that nobody ever uses. They will probably send impatient “??” when you don’t answer immediately. They’re in a crunch - lots of people to scam, you know. 

They’ll give you absolutely no guidelines. No hints on style, contents aside from (usually) the pet and often a name written on the artwork, no theme. Anything you draw will be perfect. Full artistic freedom. In reality they don’t really care for this part.

They’ll offer you a ridiculous amount of money. Usually 100 or 300 USD (EDIT: I know it might not be a lot for some work. What I mean here - way higher than your asking price, 100 and 300 are standard rates they give). They’ll often put in a phrase like “I am willing to compensate you financially” and “I want the best you can draw”, peppered with vague praise. It will most likely sound way too good to be true. That’s because it is.

Where the scam actually happens

If you agree, they will ask you for a payment method. They’ll try to get to this part as soon as possible. 

Usually, they’ll insist on PayPal. And not just any PayPal. They’ll always insist on sending you a transfer immediately. None of that PayPal Invoice stuff (although some do have methods for that, too). They’ll really, REALLY want to get your PayPal email address and name for the transfer - that’s what they’re after. If you insist on any other method, they’ll just circle back to the transfer “for easiest method”. If you do provide them with the info, most likely you’ll soon get a scam email. It most likely be a message with a link that will ultimately lead to bleeding you dry. Never, and I mean NEVER click on any emails or links you get from them. It’s like with any other scam emails you can ever get.

A few things can happen here:

They overpay you and ask for the difference to be wired back. Usually it will go to a different account and you’ll never see that money again. 

They’ll overpay you “for shipping costs” and ask you to forward the difference to their shipping company. Just like before, you’ll never see that money again.

The actual owner of the account (yes, they most likely use stolen accounts to wire from) will realize there’s been something sketchy going on and request a refund via official channels. Your account will be charged with fees and/or you get in trouble for fraudulent transactions. 

You will transfer the money from your PayPal credit to your bank account and they will make a shitstorm when they want their money back, making your life a living hell. They will call you a scammer, a thief, make wild claims, wearing you down and forcing you into wiring money “back” - aka to their final destination account. 

Never, EVER wire money to anyone. This is not how it’s supposed to go. Use PayPal Invoice for secure exchanges where the client needs to provide you with their email, not the other way around.

You can find more info on that method HERE.

What to do when you encounter a scammer:

Ask the right questions: inquire about the style, which artwork of yours they like, as much details as you can. They won’t supply you with any good answers.

Don’t let the rush of the exchange, their praise and the promise of insanely good money to get to you. That’s how they operate, that’s how they make you lose vigilance. 

Don’t engage them. As soon as you realize it might be a scam, block them. The sense of urgency they create with their rushed exchange, and pressure they put on you will sooner or later get to you and you might do something that you’ll regret later.

Never wire money to anyone. Never give out your personal data. Never provide your email, name, address or credit card info. 

Don’t be deceived by receiving a payment, if you somehow agree to go along with it. Just because it’s there now doesn’t mean it can’t be withdrawn. 

Here is a very standard example of such an exchange. I realized it’s a scam pretty fast and went along with it, because I wanted good screenshots for you guys, so I tried going very “by the book” with it. 

Please share this post, make it reach as many artists as possible. Let young or inexperienced artists know that this is going on. So many people have no idea that this is a thing. Let’s help each other out. If you think I missed any relevant info, do add it as an rb!

Also, if you know other scam methods that you think should be shared, consider rb-ing this post with them below. Having a master post of scam protection would AWESOME to have in the art community.

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC Heritance

There's not much left for Tim in his parents' wills. Or, well, not much by his standards - the rest of the family, barring Bruce and Damian, think he is absolutely loaded and too full of himself to care. Which is maybe a little bit true; receiving about a dozen properties across the world, a trust fund and a wide collection of artifacts that his parents have accumulated through years of their archeological escapades is a lot by middle class standards.

But Tim knows how much money Drakes actually had, and a few old houses and an assembly of junk seems like not much in comparison.

In any case, it's all rather useless in Tim's position. He has no interest in traveling aside from when he has to for a mission, and he couldn't give less shits about archeology even if he tried. The trust fund is fine, he guesses, but it's not like he needs it, what with being the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and one of the Wayne Wards.

So, as morbid as it is, the best reaction he can muster at his inheritance is a shrug and a mention in his mile-long list of 'things I need to figure out when I have time'. Which basically means he'll maybe get to it when he's old and retired, and not any sooner, because Tim Drake the CEO and Red Robin the vigilante are both very, very busy people who never have time.

Naturally, his life has other plans, and it's only two or three months later that Tim finds himself breaking through the balcony window of his own apartment in Praha.

It's at that moment, when he's lying on top of a soft persian rug, surrounded by glass shards and wondering if this move was enough to lose his tail that he realizes his inheritance might be slightly more than just a few properties and some boxes with old things.

Because, through his own heavy breathing, he hears a thoughtful, slightly sarcastic voice from inside the room, "I guess the door was too hard to figure out for you, wasn't it."

He sits up, turning his head so sharply it almost snaps. His eyes immediately fall on a boy not much older than him, sitting with one leg thrown over the other on the dark red couch near the wall. He looks like he clearly belongs here: white, vintage collar shirt and black, high-waist trousers, a silver ring on his thumb that looks too old to have been bought in this century, dark raven hair and perfect porcelain skin.

And he is reading a newspaper. Like a slightly bleeding costumed guy in a domino mask breaking the window and falling onto the carpet is just another Tuesday.

Hold on, this is Tim's house! He double-checked the address, there's no mistake!

"Who are you?" He demands, frowning, as his hands reach to the birdarangs out of habit.

"Keeper of Doors," the boy answers, not looking up and flipping the page, "And you're the Drakes' heir, I assume."

Tim blinks. The response provides no actual answers, it only creates more questions. "What doors?" He asks because the rest of the points can most likely be addressed later. Like the issue of his busted secret identity, right.

The boy sighs and closes the newspaper, folding it in half and uncrossing his legs to sit a bit straighter. "Doors, capital 'D'. The ones that lead everywhere you want."

"The what?.." Tim repeats, dumbfounded and lost in this unexpected nonsense. The boy gives him a truly unimpressed look, his eyebrow twitching. Then, he stands up - Tim's fingers close around the birdarang again - and steps towards the nearest door, grabbing the handle. His feet make absolutely no sound.

"Drake manor," the boy announces and pushes the door open. He doesn't step through, however, instead just standing in the doorway and turning back to Tim, gesturing for him to look.

Tim does.

Seeing the familiar hall, the one he's seen so many times, the one he walked through every day before he moved out, makes him realize a few things at once. One, he needs to revise the list of houses he inherited since it looks like they are not just properties but a map of teleportation points, most likely. Two, his parents knew full well he didn't need the trust fund, it wasn't for him, it was probably for this boy, who may or may not be the, well, gatekeeper. Three, if the first part of his inheritance turned out to be this, he is going to need to call in Zatanna to sort through the collection of his parents' artifacts lest something turns out to be actually cursed in there.

Four, he's been staring at the boy and gaping like a fish for longer than its socially acceptable.

"...What's your name?" He asks, suddenly conscious about the fact he was kind of rude before. The boy snorts, a ghost of a smile on his lips as he closes the door back.

"Danny," he introduces and snaps his fingers. The glass shards around Tim move all at once, rising from the ground and going back towards the window, like a reversed video recording. A second later, the balcony window looks as good as new, not a crack in the glass. "And you?"

"Red Ro-" Tim starts, but then pauses. Fuck it, he might as well, "Tim."

Danny waves his hand in the air, like snatching something out of nowhere, and, just like that, there's a box that looks suspiciously like a first-aid kit in his hands.

"Nice to meet you, Tim. Now, get over here and stop ruining my carpet with your blood."

[castillon02]

Jason and Tim have similar competence standards and end up swapping employees sometimes.

---

"Boss, I'm outta the game with this hip---"

"You're outta the beating-up-traffickers game. I got a guy who can get you into the scaring-the-rich game just fine."

"You mean, like...?" A fist into an open palm, quirked eyebrows.

"Nah, verbal intimidation only unless someone steps up to the plate. Mostly you got good eyes and this Wayne kid values having people around who can observe things that aren't spreadsheets."

"Hey, you said I did pretty good at that Excel thing!"

A pointed look.

"Ohhhh. I'm gonna get to learn spreadsheets and threaten people? Oh, man. Thanks, boss!"

"They've got the same insurance, too, so that'll roll over automatically."

---

Meanwhile, on Tim's end of things:

"I noticed that you tend to get impatient with slow results, that you're happy to yell at people for safety violations, and that your plan to remediate the company's incompetence in these areas involves 'firing every single one of them who can't get their head out of their ass.'" Tim smiled.

His employee smiled back. "I mean, that's why you hired me as safety supervisor, right?"

"Of course; your proactive attitude is one of the reasons we chose you. However, I also noticed that a lot of your frustration stems from employees whose work is being impacted by personal issues, often ones stemming from attacks by prominent local criminals."

"Listen, I'm from Minnesota. I know from cold. And I also know that you can't let a little hypothermia from Mr. Freeze screw up your numbers, especially not when those calculations impact lives." Squared shoulders, hands on the hips---yeah, definitely more of a cultural fit with Jason's organization.

Tim nodded and continued his pitch. "And you're competent with a firearm, correct?"

"Hey, I'm not about to go postal just because---"

"No, no, you misunderstand me. You're a skilled employee. I'm just wondering if you might benefit from transferring to a work environment in which you can shoot some of the people who are actually causing these problems."

"I'm sorry?"

"You have a dartboard with Leeds's face on it because he screwed up so many times after that Ivy incident put his kid in the hospital."

"...Okay, I admit that's not my best look."

"The organization I'm recommending you to has a printer next to the firing range; it's sized specifically for target paper."

"Oh."

"It's also an organization that works specifically to keep kids from needing to be in the hospital."

"Oh. You mean---" There was really only one group it could be.

"They need someone with your eye for logistics. Hood's work isn't 'legit,'" Tim made careful air quotes because the dorkiness tended to put people at ease, "but your insurance would roll over to them automatically. And you can rest assured that they take safety very seriously."

[solarplanet2]

Which one is in Danger?

Part 2

DCxDP Prompt/Drabbles

Part 1

"We have your son."

Bruce was expecting a very normal day. If you consider having to deal with the chaos of his children and being a vigilante at night as normal.

But nonetheless, a very simple day of his normal routine and once a week dinner with his family.

Only to be broken by a phone call by someone stating that his son has been kidnapped.

Bruce didn't answer right away, he was mentally counting his sons who, are all counted for, are on the dinner table.

"Which one?" Bruce eyed each of his sons and counted them again just to be sure.

"Timothy Drake-Wayne."

Bruce immediately eyed Tim who was sitting in between Jason and Cass.

Tim's here.

Then who's the one being kidnapped?

"Bruce?" Dick spoke up, thinking that something was wrong the way Bruce was looking at all of them.

Bruce slightly waved at Dick, telling him to calm down first. "What do you want?"

Dick's question seemed to catch everyone's attention since they were all looking at Bruce now.

"Two Million. Or he gets it."

A standard threat. The kind he was expecting.

"Can I speak to my son?" This earned confused looks of his children and Bruce waved them off gesturing that it was not what they were thinking about.

"Alright kid," The kidnapper from the other said grunted, almost sounding smug. "Say hello to Daddy."

Bruce could hear heavy breathing, almost sounding like a grunt. It made Bruce slightly worried. "...Tim?" Bruce decided to speak first. "Tim, Are you okay?" And Bruce hopes that he is.

A soft grunt responded. "Hi." A croaked voice managed to respond. It sounded young. And was punched in the stomach. He should know, almost all of his children had experienced that way.

"Don't worry, chum. I'm getting you out of there." Bruce tried reassuring the kid, worried about what they might do to him. Because this isn't Tim. Tim is right across from him and these kidnappers basically had kidnapped the wrong person.

He gestured to his children, a familiar gesture, for them to head to the cave and suit up. They quickly followed, not without worried glances and confused glances at Bruce's way.

"No.." The kid had said, choked out which made Bruce paused on his step in confusion. It caught his children's attention, stopping as well.

"Uhm...Dad? I'll be fine."

Bruce believed that, for some reason, but it didn't stop his worry. But the next words from the boy made him blink

"Please give me your permission."

"....To what?" Bruce asked confusingly. Permission to what?

"To hurt."

Bruce has raised enough children to know enough about silent words in some part of the sentences without right out saying it.

To hurt them.

The kid is asking permission to hurt his kidnappers.

Bruce should say no and wait for help. Should be saying that help is on the way.

Bruce should say that he'll come and save him.

Now, Bruce doesn't normally follow his gut. It causes too much mystery and had no explanation to either it would be a good thing or a bad thing.

But right now, for once, Bruce would agree with his gut.

"....Alright."

Static came in the phone, like it was losing signal but he could clearly hear the boy voice coming out like an echo.

"Good."

"What the-- AAAHHH!!!"

Beeeepppp

Bruce blinked as he looked down at his phone after the call ended.

.....Should he have not give him permission?

"B? What's wrong? Did something happen?" Dick asked, increasingly worried now as he saw Bruce staring at his phone.

"....Suit up." Bruce concluded. They should find the boy as quickly as possible. "And call an ambulance."

Bruce could see the confused look at everyone's faces as he walked passed them.

"Wait, B!" Duke had spoke up running after Bruce with his siblings. "Was someone hurt? Is it another gang fight?"

"No. The ambulance is for the kidnappers."

".....What??"

: )

Parts: Part 1

[celtrist]

Next thing you'll say is he doesn't have a tail

ref to this pic

EDIT: Just to keep things clear I didn't really think about bringing it up but not everyone's gonna click to see the first picture and might be confused. Alastor was stated to know only a little bit of broken French, the reasoning due to being from New Orleans. Speaking standard French is very much not a thing in New Orleans, so he would logically only know French-Creole. This is very different from the standard French language and a large misconception that people from New Orleans speak regular French. So yes, he does speak some French, just not as well as people make him nor would it, in theory, be the regular French that everyone makes him speak [but I wouldn't put it past the writers to not do that research but maybe I have too little faith in them]. I'm not from New Orleans, I visited it once so it's not like I'm an expert. But I HAVE looked into it and just bothering with one Google search will tell you it's not common and you'll even have a special term called "Louisiana French" pop up. With that all said, these were statements made on years past streams and could've been changed in the official series. However, as of right now, the official statement is that he speaks only a little broken French that should technically be French-Creole if they're going by and that he's from New Orleans to know that language. And again, I don't have a lot of faith in writers to do the research into it being Louisiana French rather than regular French, but now I'm rambling lol This is just a bit of context for this comic so people who were curious can understand it a bit more. And it's totally possible I got something wrong, so feel free to point it out when I do. I just like to dig into the nooks and crannies of information for things :3 2nd EDIT: Just for any future reblogs, I did get somethings incorrect in the above (not surprising), so here's some of the corrections I got:

@mangotangerine: "A tiny nitpick - it would likely be Louisiana Creole, which is one of the French-based Creole languages (Haitian Creole is prob the most well known as it has about 10-12 million speakers vs Louisiana Creole which has around 10,000 due to multiple factors but especially legislation in early 1920s outlawing it). Louisiana French is an umbrella term for the various French dialects/etc in the region (e.g., the dialect Cajun French)." (We actually had a whole conversation in the comments of this post and highly suggest looking down there in case you're interested in learning more!)

@alyssumflowers: "I am from New Orleans and a little bit of a language nerd. You're confusing some things here. Cajun French is a dialect of French. My great grandmother spoke it fluently, my grandfather in pieces.

Louisiana Creole is another language entirely. The word "creole" means mixed and a creole language is basically a mixture of two or more languages. Sort of, it's a linguistics thing. Anyways. Louisiana Creole has next to no speakers left and I've had a hard time trying to find somewhere or someone to learn it from because I really want to." (Always great to hear from someone who has more insider knowledge on the subject! So I wanted to give this it's share due as well, hope you can fine somewhere to learn it! /ᐠ > ˕ <マ ₊˚⊹♡ )

Thank you for the comments! My previous statement still stands about Al probably not speaking normal French, but I wanted these corrections still known and pointed out :3