#because the link to the web page doesn't work

[fedoraxcrowned]

First of all, thank you for visiting this page!)

I don’t have very long nor very strict rules, but there are a few things I’d like to point out:

And the main rule in interacting with me is that this blog is hate free. I don’t have anything against drama and hate as long as it stays within the threads and our muses’ relationships. But OOC drama and anon hate I just won’t tolerate. This is a hobby, after all. It shouldn’t be stressful.

I’m selective in a way that I will most likely answer to what I see happening for my muse and what I have muse for at the moment, but I’m not mutuals only, which means that you are more than welcome to send me asks / memes / anything and come say hi in DMs even if we are not mutuals!

I’m OC and Crossover friendly, but only if I’m familiar with your character (for most Crossovers) or if you have an about page in your blog or won’t mind telling me some basics about your character so I could see how our muses could click (for OCs and those Crossovers with whose fandoms I’m not familiar). However, I’m probably more welcoming of Crossovers on this blog than on any other because, due to Red’s nature, it would be quite easy to fit him in most fandoms.

I love shipping dearly, but, unsurprisingly, it will be based on chemistry. Of course, Red is no monk - he enjoys casual sex and has a history of one/few-night-stands (mostly, with people he’s working with, alongside or, on a few fiery occasions, against) - but the fact that he spent a night(s) with your muse doesn’t automatically mean that they’re dating from that point onward. Might sound odd, coming from a man of his image, but an emotional connection is essential for Red to consider entering a relationship.

That said, I’m more than open to the idea of a pre-established relationship! And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a romantic one. I’m all for platonic, antagonistic, found family etc. kinds of dynamics: be Red’s associate / old or new colleague, rival / enemy, adopted-in-all-but-official-documents child (because let me tell you something: if your muse is a lone child / teenager who got themselves in a difficult situation or have no-one and nowhere else to go to, there’s a 99.9 percent of chance that Red will take them under his wing), old flame, lover… Just pop in my DMs, and I’m sure we can figure something out)

IMPORTANT NOTE: in my portrayal, just like in the show, Red is in love with Elizabeth Keen (what kind of a relationship these two have - platonic, romantic etc. - will be plotted with each Liz mun individually but the default is platonic) and doesn’t have any kind of paternal feelings towards her nor does he see himself as her father figure.

When it comes to asks / memes and open starters, as I’ve already said before, you are more than welcome to send them in, regardless of whether we are mutuals or interacted before. I love to chat and roleplay with new people! The date I posted the meme or open starter doesn’t matter either as they don’t have an expiration date)

Sending more than one ask / meme is allowed and encouraged!)

If you have an idea, there are big chances that I will try it, so don’t be shy to IM me!

My length very much depends on the particular thread and my partner’s length, but I’m usually writing para/multi-para. I use minimal formatting - bold and italics (also, small text at times, but only if you’re using it too / comfortable with it) - and either 100x100 plain icons / 110x110 icons with border or go iconless.

I don’t really have triggers, but if you do - let me know about it and I’ll be tagging them.

No God-modding, obviously.

If you are a personal blog, you are free to follow me, but, please, DO NOT like my starter calls and DO NOT reblog my threads.

I must admit that I can be quite slow with replies and a bit forgetful, so you are free to poke me once in a while. But don’t nag me constantly, that makes me nervous and uncomfortable.

If you follow me, I will most likely follow you back if I had a look at your blog, but I will unfollow you if you post too many unrelated to the theme of your blog content or make me feel uncomfortable.

[quilleth]

Just gotta keep telling myself I have a little under two weeks before I am off for a whole week...

[the-king-of-lemons]

I know a lot of people on qsmpblr use Tumblr mobile, but if you do use browser Tumblr then I would recommend the Simple Translate extension. Because Tumblr doesn't have built in translation like Twitter, there's less fans posting in their native language, instead most people just use English.

Simple Translate is an extension that allows you to translate text that you highlight into a target language. (It uses Google Translate API, but so does Twitter so the translation quality is pretty much the same).

Firefox Extension | Chrome Extension

When you highlight text in another language, a translate icon appears, when you click on it a panel containing the translation of the text appears.

You can also change the settings of the extension so that the translation panel automatically appears when you highlight text in another language.

Here's some more examples using the official QSMP Twitter accounts, you do not need to change the settings of the extension to translate from different languages into your target language.

(All of these match the translations given when using the "translate bio" button on Twitter directly.)

You can also access a translation box using the icon in the toolbar, any text you enter can be translated to the language selected in the drop-down menu (meaning you don't need to open a new tab to use Google Translate).

Some settings explanation and other stuff under the cut. Not super important but I figured I'd add it anyways.

There is an option to use DeepL API as opposed to Google Translate (it's another translation tool, there is free access to the API with a limit of 500,000 characters/month, and a pro version for unlimited access).

Whatever the target language is set as is what text you highlight will be translated into. There is another option for a second target language, I'll explain that further down.

This option changes how you view the translation panel, the first option (default) has the icon appear when you highlight text (as seen in the first image of the post), the second option has the translation panel appear automatically when you highlight text, and the for third option the panel and icon won't automatically appear, but can still be accessed by right-clicking the highlighted text and selecting "translate selected text".

The checkbox below these options means that if the text you're highlighting is already in your target language, the translation icon and panel will not appear, it can again still be accessed by right-clicking what you've highlighted and selecting translate.

This option appears twice, in both the Web-page section (for translating selected text) and the Toolbar Popup section (for the translation box in the toolbar popup).

The web page option, when toggled on, means that when you select text that is in your target language, the translation panel will translate into the second target language that has been selected. If the checkbox for "do not display if translation is not required" is toggled on, you can only view the translation from Target -> 2nd Target by right-clicking to translate selected text.

The toolbar popup version of this option is used to automatically switch the language in the toolbar translation box when you input something in your main target. (ie. second target set to French means that when you input English text in the translation box it will switch the translation setting from "(detect language) -> English" to "English -> French").

There are also settings to change the style and size of the translation button and panel.

Side note: Mixed language messages (not containing your target language) will only translate one of the languages, you can work around this by highlighting the different languages separately.

Links again if you don't want to scroll all the way back up

Firefox Extension | Chrome Extension

[engelthm]

aphaea theme by engelthm

live preview ― code

a experimental, minimalistic header theme, with animations enabled by GSAP.

on-load landing page and header/footer scroll animations.

any font and font size, with optional header and footer descriptions.

optional five links and custom cursor.

fully responsive for mobile devices.

credits can be found here.

note on experimental animations:

this is a part of a new series of codes i plan on releasing that all use some form of web animation. because of this, certain animations may be slow or laggy. i've tried my best to mitigate this, however do please let me know if something doesn't seem to work for you as intended!

do note there also may be a chance that something just won't work, based on browser capability or internet connection, but i will try my best to find solutions to any problems :)

[foone]

Speaking as someone who has written web crawlers for non-evil reasons...

I like how all the platforms (twitter, reddit) are destroying their APIs to kill "bots" but the fun thing about APIs is that only the good guys use them. They're like door locks: they only keep out honest people. Someone wanting to steal your TV will just put a brick through your window.

Similarly, people wanting to flood a platform with spam and pornbots will often just not use the API, because it makes it too easy to track them down. They'll instead write a program that pretends to be a browser, and clicks on links just like a human does.

Fun fact: that's an "API" that exists for every website, and for a long while it was the only API that any sites ever had. So when you're trying to automate using a site (for good or evil), the "api-zero" of just doing web scraping and user-agent-impersonation is always there. That's what the bad guys will use, and that's what the good guys are sometimes forced to use.

Anyway the end result of this sort of API monetization/destruction nonsense is that you're only killing the bots that were written with good intentions. You're killing the haikubots and that "THERE ARE FIVE LIGHTS" twitter bot. you're killing the reddit bots that help moderate submissions by automatically applying flair or timing out replies after too long has passed.

But the bots that are just there to send you crytypocurrentsea scams and entice you in with stolen porn? They don't use the APIs. They won't be affected. They'll keep on working. The people scraping your site for AI research? they won't even register an account, they'll just request the plain HTML contents of your pages.

So once you know that, locking out users from your APIs seems like a real bad idea, doesn't it?

[liveontelevision]

Suffer Pt. 6 | Lucifer x Reader

(This series is complete! All parts are listed on my master list and are linked below!)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6

A single anon request and a 56-page Google doc later, this is the last part, my friends. Thanks to everyone who's been so invested in this, this turned into a bigger project than I thought it would lol But! I'm so glad everyone's been enjoying it, and I hope y'all like the ending! I'm sorry for all the cliffhangers along the way haha (not really)

An extra thank you to the anon who requested a simple babysitter fic and ended up inspiring this whole deal!

♡♡♡

It’s almost been a year since you arrived to the hotel. You arrived when the building was in less than pristine condition, and just a few new guests had arrived. It was a few days after you saw Charlie’s interview on the news, that being what brought you in, despite it’s failure. You were just happy to see her face after all that time. Yet, above the cluttered space and the holes in the walls, there was a more malevolent scheme being hatched.

Any soul who might pass the princess’s room would be bombarded by curses, screams, and growls that sounded less than human. So, most the hotel residents decide it best to avoid that corridor. But not our trusty hotelier. His hand reached for the handle, after deciding that making a bold entrance might not be the best idea. His motion was put to a quick halt by a flurry of curses coming from the other side of the door. Alastor didn’t realize Charlie held such a..colorful vocabulary. Despite that, he went on.

He was greeted with a sight that, unfortunately, wasn’t new to him. An intricate web of red thread connected to pins, all scattered across a once pristine wall. It all connects a collage of images, some that he recognized, some that looked like nonsensical scribbles. The view is obstructed by a furiously pacing princess of Hell. Mumbling completely incoherent complaints, she doesn't notice the opening and closing of her bedroom door.

Alastor, being the sadist he is, props his stance with his microphone, his forced smile unmoving. He enjoys the view for a moment before finally clearing his throat to bring her attention to him. She nearly stumbles over her own feet, ready to scold him for materializing into her room, despite the fact that she was just too out of it to see him walk straight in.

“Al! Good! I need another pair of eyes, come here, come here, look!” She approaches him faster than he expects, and he’s ready to reel away, but is unfortunately hooked around the neck with Charlie’s disturbing strength. With an arm around his shoulders, she drags him forward to examine the wall, as if it made sense to anyone other than her. She starts talking nonsense, again. Something about friendship and Heaven, things he never really cared about. Things he usually tuned out whenever they came up. He only seems to partake in the conversation once he heard your name.

“Alastor.. She’s one of our first guests. I honestly can’t believe anyone showed up after that terrible interview I had earlier, I’m worried i’ll mess things up, again! I mean, all of Hell already thinks i’m a joke.. I just- really need this to go well.” Her mood seems to calm, but to a state of despair. Alastor let’s out a symphahetic awe, patting the top of her head.

“Aw, our poor princess. I understand your concern, my dear, this hotel must mean quite a lot to you.” He faines a sympathy that only convinces Charlie because of her state of disarray.

“Of course it does! And she’s already so kind, I’m sure she’s close to redemption! Maybe this will be a quick one! A-and we don’t even know it, right? That has to be it!” She seems to be reassuring herself, only to be met with an unresponsive radio demon. She groans. Dragging her feet as she walks to the edge of bed, She sits down and lets her head fall into her hands. 

“I really need this to work. I’ll do anything for this to work..” It was a quiet mumble, muffled into her palms, but Alastor heard exactly what he wanted to hear. His grin twisted, something Charlie didn’t see, as he sits at her side. He gives her a quick pat to her back, in some form of comfort.

“Charlie, dear, I understand how much this little project means to you.. I do. And I want nothing more than to witness you trying as hard as you can to keep it up.” Even if it fails. Charlie looks up to him, the bags under her eyes suddenly very apparent. “How would you feel about a little deal? Just a small one, no souls on the line, I guarantee.” 

She’s been warned by Vaggie in the past. Actually, his entire reputation is enough to make her uneasy by the idea. but… 

“I-I don’t know. What did you have in mind..?” She asks reluctantly. He let’s out a chuckle that almost sounds sinister.

“Believe it or not, our little guest and I have a bit of a history.” You can barely call it a history. You served him and Rosie on occasion when you were working in cannibal town. “I’d be delighted to oversee her safety and process to redemption! It’s just as you said, she’s already a gem, Heaven is waiting for her, I can feel it. This will be a breeze for the both of us.” His offer comes off as sincere and touching to Charlie. It wasn’t like him to openly mention his relationships with other demons yet, the idea of you having a close friend throughout this process might just be what you’re missing.

“That’s so sweet of you, Alastor, but.. What do you want from me?” She has to ponder a moment before even considering letting this go on any further.

“Well, you’ve given me a roof over my head and.. A tower for my broadcasts.. Hmm..” He taps his chin, as if he’s in thought. “I’m not quite sure I’ll need from you at the moment, since you’ve just been so hospitable already.” He places a hand to her shoulder, the kind words causing her eyes to well with tears a bit in her weakened state.

“There has to be something.. Well, maybe we can both think this over, once I have a clear head.” She sighs her words, standing from the bedside. Alastor takes her hand and brings her to a halt.

“Oh, but I’d love to get to work as soon as possible, if I may be so bold.. I’m not quite sure what you could offer me in this moment… How about we work out the details, later?” He speaks as if he’s coming up with these words on the spot. He’s had this planned since day one, though. Any chance to get a favor from the princess, he’ll take. Charlie turns to him and sees the strange green glow surrounding their hands. She attempts to pull away, but his grasp is tight.

“Well.. I mean…” She’s still hesitant. He watches her rub her eyes. The still relevant exhaustion gives him a bit of hope.

“It’s simple. I’ll do everything in my power to keep our little guest comfortable and on the path to redemption, no acception. In return, I’ll ask of you one single favor when the time comes.” The glow only continues to swell with his words, and it's clearly making her reconsider. “It’s not as serious as you may think, Charlie. Just a favor between friends, really.” Friendship seemed to strike the right tone.

“I guess.. If it’s for the hotel… Okay, Alastor. It’s a deal.”

-

Back to the dreaded fight just a few months later. You're seeing red.

“Charlie! You made a deal with Alastor?? What were you thinking?” You’re scolding her at this point. The situation barely had time to cool down before your worries began to kick in. Her horns and ruby eyes are still present, she hasn’t even had time to calm herself from the previous display. Lucifer is essentially holding you back, a hand across your front as you try to approach her. It hurts you a bit. Does he think you’re some kind of danger to her?

..Are you putting her in danger?

Alastor is still propped on the ground. He holds a hand around his neck, in hopes of soothing the aggressive collar that had materialized around it just moments ago. You’re all keeping your distance from eachother.

“I-I wasn’t! I wasn’t thinking! It was after the interview! You saw it, you know didn’t go well! I-I had all of Hell laughing at me, laughing at the hotel- He was offering help, I have no idea why he’s acting this way, I swear..! I.. I-” Charlie’s demonic features start to recede when she feels a hand on her back. With heavy breaths, she looks over to Lucifer, who was standing by her side now, ready to comfort her. With a small hiccup, she falls into his arms, gripping his shirt tightly as she did. Her head fell to his shoulder, thoroughly staining his vest with her tears.

The room is uncomfortably filled with her silent sobs. Your heart aches too much looking at the touching display between father and daughter, and your guilt from snapping at her is making you fidget. That’s when you got to thinking.

The deal was for Alastor watch over you until you got to Heaven. For him to do anything in his power to keep you on the path to redemption. To prevent any behavior that might stunt that process..

“Oh.. oh, my god. You’ve been buttering me up this whole time.” You turn to face a still recovering Alastor. The realization grabs the attention of both Morningstars, they raise their heads to look towards the commotion. “The gifts, all the time we spent together.. Was because of this deal? Did.. did you ever actually care about me?” You grip at your heart, ready to rip it straight from your chest. He stands, brushing debris from his entirety.

“I doubt you’ll believe me after such a display of violence, but.. Yes. I did enjoy our time together, despite the requisite of being under my protection. It was quite entertaining before it was… tainted.” His hisses out his final words, contrasting the sweetness of it all. Tainted?

He was kind to you as soon as you arrived in the hotel. Despite the drama, you’ve been inseparable since. Things only got convoluted after.. 

“Under your protection..? Is that why you’ve been turning me away from Lucifer?! Fuck- it is! You’ve been playing games with me for months! Getting in my head..! H-How could you..” He hasn’t just been physically keeping the two of you apart. From day one, your mind was manipulated into thinking Lucifer never wanted you.

“Well.. not to defend myself, dear, but I was merely considering your redemption. I believe there’s some sort of sin in worshipping the Devil.” Oh, now he’s just trying to make more trouble.

“Oh, fuck you Al, I don’t worship him, I love him!” Your comical response seems to drive a shocked expression or two towards you. But you’re too upset to elaborate. You want to tear him apart. You want to see him experience as much pain as you’re feeling now. Luckily, you weren’t the only one. In a blur of a movement, Alastor was brought back to the ground with a thud.

A foot to his chest, Charlie has him pinned to the ground. Her fists are clenched, the aura surrounding her creates a suffocating heat.

“You took advantage of me, Alastor. You betrayed my friends, my family.. My trust.” Despite the demonic tones underlying her voice, it still sounds pained. You didn’t know she could do this, but her clenched fists become encased in fire. Just like her fathers’.

You’re surprised to see him lurking behind, but not attacking. After all you’ve seen, you were sure he’d have ripped Alastor’s head off at this point. His eyes widen, a display of fear you werent expecting. You follow his gaze to see Charlie holding a familiar angelic spear to his neck.

You hear an unearthly growl come from her chest, and before you can think, your arm is wrapped around hers. You can feel the resistance, realizing you had stopped her right as she was about to put an end to it all. Put an end to him.

“Charlie! Stop!” You yell out. You have to do it once or twice more, your words not quite reaching her yet. Once she turns to you, her eyes are still dripping with tears. “Charlie, don’t. This isn’t you. You’ll regret it, I know you will.. I know you.” You’re begging her to stop. As you feel the muscles in her arm start to relax, you reach for the spear and pull it gently from her hands. She releases her grasp without a fight.

You usher her off, glancing back to Alastor for a moment to see his wound had reopened from that. He had an obvious slash across his neck. You gulped, realizing how close she was to actually killing him. She places her hand over yours, where your arms are still linked.

Charlie let’s out a sigh, looking to her shaking hands, then clenching her fists. She looks to you, then back to Alastor.

“But.. everything he’s done to you… It’s not right, I’m not sure I can forgive him..” She’s speaking quietly to you.

“Well.. You don’t have to forgive him. But he doesn't deserve to die, Charlie.” You state the obvious and it makes her flinch. “And.. you should let him stay.” You hear a collective What? from the room.

“I know I know.. but… this whole place is about second chances. I.. think he can change. And even though, he is being such a dick right now-” Your voice is cracking, as if you can hardly believe your own words. “-I still believe it. You taught me that.” You smile up to Charlie. After a moment you turn your head to Lucifer, meeting his eyes. He looks more in shock than anyone, almost hurt by your act of mercy. You’re surprised by his expression, not realizing Charlie had slipped from your side to approach Alastor.

“She’s right, you know. I can’t forgive you, Alastor. Not yet, at least.. But you’re welcome to stay here, considering all the help you’ve done for the hotel.” She sounds stern, still not entirely convinced this is the right call.

“Yeah, some help you’ve been, you prick..” Those are the first words Lucifer has muttered in awhile. You approach his side to jab him with your elbow and shush him. Despite your scolding action, your presence only reminds him of your previous confession. He crosses his arms and continues to curse quietly, despite his flushed cheeks. Charlie steps closer to Alastor.

“You’re still here, because of her.” Charlie’s voice goes dark as she gestures to you. “That favor I owe you? Is letting you live. This deal is done, Alastor.” She hisses her words out. The intensity and anger radiating from two of the most powerful creatures in Hell is enough to leave even Alastor a bit weary. He nods, still gripping his wound that has been repeatedly opened these past few days. Other than that, he slinks away with barely a scratch. Lucky him. 

Once he’s out of sight, Charlie let’s out a groan and falls to her knees. With a unison call of her name both you and Lucifer rush to her side. You place a hand on her back, attempting to keep any displaced hair from her face. She leans into Lucifer’s chest, a heartaching sight of sniffles and apologies.

Before long, she seemed to exhaust herself. Curled up to his chest, Lucifer smiles, despite the circumstances of their closeness. He lifts his eyes just slightly to see yours. You look embarrassed. Before he has a chance to question you, you rise from the ground.

“You should take her to bed.” You say in a hushed tone, gripping your arms and making some distance. “She needs some rest after.. all that.”

“Sure, but.. are you-” He speaks just as softly, opening a portal behind him silently.

“I’m fine. I’m-” You let out a sigh, beginning to move towards the stairs. “She needs to rest, Lucifer.” You remind him.

“Oh- Oh.. Right, yeah.” He rises to his feet, effortlessly lifting Charlie into his arms and stepping through the portal. You try to keep moving. You try to not meet his eyes as the portal shuts, but you find yourself unable to go on. Once they’re gone, you cover your mouth, only making your labored breaths worse, but you’re desperate to muffle any cries. You feel yourself wobble in place, before seeing a portal open to your side. It leads to your room.

After stepping through, you silently approach your bed. Your legs suddenly turn led, and you're hitting your bed with a gasp. Your exhaustion is enough to keep your sobs to a minimum at least.

-

The feeling you have when you wake up is worse than any hangover you’ve had. With alcohol you can at least forget your troubles. But on this morning, you can vividly remember the previous night. You sit up, your body aching. You only wonder why for a moment, before realizing you had fallen asleep sideways across your bed, your legs still dangling off the side. You still need sleep.

You remove any uncomfortable clothing or accessories that had pressed marks into your body and return to bed. The right way, this time. Your pillows feel like heaven after all that’s happened. Heaven..

You try your best to sleep, you really do. Your body is essentially begging you to empty your thoughts just for a few more minutes. But your mind is sending you tossing and turning, any times you close your eyes, all you can imagine is everything you've done wrong. Your eyes drift open after trying to force them shut, and your eyes spot the radio on your nightstand. You sit silently for a moment, maybe try to close your eyes again..

Nope.

Before you have a chance to process every movement, you’re opening your door and thoughtlessly throwing the radio outside. You don’t care where it ends up, clearly. You were waiting to hear it break, into multiple pieces hopefully, before shutting your door. You’re met with a startled groan instead. Taking a moment to process that you had thrown an old-timey radio at someone, you stand at your door with a yawn.

The panic hits you. It could’ve been Alastor, assuming he stayed. It could’ve been Charlie, who doesn’t need any more conflict. You could’ve taken out Niffty as far as you know. Swinging the door open, your eyes see the radio first. They’re wrapped in your victim’s arms.

“Good catch.” You let out hoarsly, rubbing the sleep from your eyes to clearly see Lucifer.. It could've been worse. He let’s out a breathless thanks, clearly having the air knocked out of him. You definitely didn’t hold back with that throw. And it wasn’t exactly a lightweight radio.

“Er.. Sorry. I meant to say sorry.” You try to recover, your words are followed by another yawn. You watch him drop the radio into a small portal he conjured below his grip.

“Good morning to you, too. I was, uh.. about to check on charlie, but-” He’s ready for a conversation that you aren’t. You quickly shake your head, pulling your door in.

“Nono, I need some time.. To wake up. I’ll see you around, though.” You didn’t expect him to perk up from his words, but he does. His smile is infectious. You watch him give you a little wave before shutting your door. You lean against it, your smile that you had been presenting to him, leaves you almost immediately.

There’s so much on your mind. You scan your room, memories of Alastor popping up no matter where you looked. Every chat you’ve had in here, every moment you’d call him in for advice for clothes or accessories, all the nights you’d fall asleep listening to his voice. Your eyes stopped at your vanity seat. Draped across the back is a bittersweet sight, your gifted red sweater. You finally rise to your feet, quickly reaching for it and holding it tightly in your hands. You hesitate before bringing it to your nose. You’re not sure why. Why would you want to remind yourself of anything involving him? Did you think that same scent that’s brought you comfort so many times would have the same affect? You give it a shot.

Hesitantly breathing in, you’re immediately reeling back, throwing the sweater down to your ground. Your hand covers your nose, that sickenlingly sweet honey scent now smells like rotten flesh. Like road kill. You need some air. Digging out a different sweater, one you haven’t had to use in months, you decide you just need to walk around for a bit. The hotel was big enough that you could safely avoid any unwanted attention. Plus, you were sure Alastor’s pride was too wounded to freely roam the hotel. And his other wound.. You hope he’s okay.

You groan out loud, mentally cursing yourself for your sympathetic thoughts. You make your way down to the lobby, and are met with a surprisingly clean lounge. You scan the walls that were previously cracked, the carpets that should be stained with blood, then wonder where Vaggie’s suddenly conjured spear might have gone. What would have possessed Charlie to choose such a weapon.. an angelic spear? She didnt really want him dead, did she? She's emotional. And extreme. Like her father. You decide not to question it any further. It’s not like you were upset by the erasure of the previous night's events.

-

A day or two passed. Your mind seemed unwilling to accept the reality you're currently in. You're anxious, and paranoid to any sentence thrown your way. You're constantly looking around corners, checking all parts if your room before locking it for the night. Yet, if someone were to ask what was making you so nervous, you wouldn’t have an answer.

You found yourself taking those little strolls often, though. Keeping your body in motion, with only the sounds of your breathing keeping you company, seemed to clear your mind. It never helped come to terms with any seething pain you felt, but it cleared your mind at the least.

You'd pieced together a few things in the meantime. After passing the bar, where Angel and Husk were chatting, they would smile and wave, ask you join them form a drink, but you’d decline. Neither of them seemed to know about anything. Maybe Niffty cleaned the mess. Maybe Alastor asked her to. Before anyone could see the outcome of his mistakes.

You passed Vaggie in a hall, and she immediately looked concerned. She opened her mouth, an Are you okay? sits on the tip of her tongue. But then she looked at you. Your body only mirrored the fog of your mind, baggy eyed and wrapped in some blanket as you roamed the halls like a damned ghost.

“Hey, um- it's.. it's gonna be-" you held your hand up to her.

“I know. Thank you.” You smile, the action stiff, considering you hadn't used those muscles in awhile. Vaggie knew. That was fair, though. You were glad Charlie had someone to confide with. You walked on after she gave a hesitant goodbye wave.

One night, when your body had taken over and you were wandering aimlessly, you realized where you ended up. Not only were you standing in front of Lucifer's workshop, he had already spotted you through the window on the door. He opened it before you could fully take in your surroundings.

“Hey..” You let out softly. What else are you supposed to say? You didn’t come prepared. You feel embarrassed standing in front of him, realizing how much of a mess you must look. You're not even sure what part of your mind made you end up here.

He doesn't respond at first, another speechless moment letting your mind wander. He opens the door more, offering his space to you. You look at him and he smiles before you shuffle inside. You take in the sight. You haven't actually seen it, considering your circumstances after the hotel was renovated.

“It looks nice in here.” You say quietly, your voice cracking just a bit. You walk through, tracing your fingers along desks and tables, stopping and looking at family photos on occasion. You looked to Lucifer’s smiling face in a picture where he was lovingly holding his wife and daughter. How did you end up like this?

“Oh- um.. thank you, it's more than enough space for me, but, uh.. it's nice.” His voice sounds unfamiliar as it snaps you from your mindset. He moves to his main bench, which is slightly elevated by a platform that connects to the windowed wall. You eventually make your way around, standing near him.

“Are.. you… How are you..?” You listen to him struggle to form such a simple question, and yet you have an equally hard time trying to respond. Obviously, you were crushed. devastated by the betrayal and overwhelmed by everything else.

“I'm okay.” You reply thoughtlessly. It was your go-to answer. You hear a muffled chuckle and look over to him. He's blocking the laughter with his fist in front of his lips. Is he laughing at you?

“Sorry sorry, I just.. know that you're lying. You've done this before, don't forget how much time I've actually spent with you.” You want to scold him for acting so bold, for saying he knows you better than yourself, but..

You're leaning against the table in one moment, and before you know it, you're hoisted to sit on its top. You felt like a relief you didn't realize. Your feet were aching. How long were you walking the in the halls today? The sensation of his hands planted on your waist. to steadily bring you to the counter, lingered after he had removed them.

“I used to see you wandering around back home- at the mansion, I mean. usually after a tough day. But it's been a few days, so I just thought you might be-”

“Why are you so calm?” Your sudden question made him visibly finch. "You were tricked, too, you know. He tore us apart. How can you be handling this so well?” Your voice starts to turn agitated. You weren't sure why you were taking it out on himm, but you both knew in the moment that this was the first time you’ve let any emotion out since the fight.

“It's like some.. malevolent force is constantly tearing us apart. One moment I'm happy, I'm in love, I'm smiling- then the next, you're just gone. and everything else that keeps me sane goes with it.” You feel a flood of tears beginning to well. Tears that you should've been letting out days ago. “Is this some kind of fucking curse? Why can’t things just be easy..? A-Are we just doomed?” You're wiping your face clear, your words becoming sloppy and hoarse.

“Maybe.” Your head lifts to see him, still calm as before, but with a solemn look on his face. “But, we keep finding eachother, right? And all the good times.. they'll stay good, won’t they?” You nod your head reluctantly.

He approaches you, with a hand on your shoulder, he's wiping away tears with the other.

“Honestly? I'm not handling this well at all. You're right, the universe has done nothing but tear us apart and hurt both of us. And I’m just about ready to tear Alastor limb by limb. I want Charlie to be okay.. I want to keep you by my side and never let you out of my sight this time.” You see his emotions range throughout his words, his eyes flashing red for a moment. He calms himself down, running his hand down your arm to hold your hand. You don't resist.

“But, you made some good points back there. And I just thought.. if you're strong enough to let that prick live, after everything, then.. Maybe I-I.. I'm trying to be strong.” He sounds almost embarrassed to admit it, and the comment on your strength leaves you a bit red in the cheeks. “You've always been so strong, darling. I just wish you'd tell me how you're really feeling.. I miss talking to you. Not this.. empty shell.” His words stung and he knew it as soon as they slipped from his lips.

“W-wait, no, I mean..”

“It’s fine, you're not wrong.. Jerk.” You share a little laugh with him, the mood lightening for just a moment. “Lucifer, I'm.. I'm so tired.” You let out weakly. That barely scratches the surface of everything. It's as if your mind was boiling over, with all the thoughts of Alastor turning sour, and the thoughts of redemption suddenly in question, not to mention all those feelings of Lucifer that were repressed until just recently. You want Charlie to be okay. You want things to be normal, but.. you're not quite sure what normal looks like. You wish you could say all this to him.. it’s hard to put it to words. But you're trying. He makes you want to try harder.

You feel a gentle hand holding your cheek, bringing your blurred thoughts to clarity and meeting eyes that left you breathless. When was the last time you've looked in his eyes? A blush forms across his cheeks, your gaze seems to fluster him. He clears his throat, getting his mind back.

“You're not okay. But.. You will be. I promise.” With a wry smile, you let the weight of your head fall into his palm.

Your eyes meet. He leans in and you feel his arms snake around yout waist. Looking back, you're almost embarrassed by the way you leaned towards him, eyes shut, head tilted, your lips just slightly parted. You were startled by the feeling of his head resting on your shoulder. He only pulls you closer after he feels your breath start to deepen, his hands gentle across your back. You finally return his touch, digging your nose into the crook of his neck and gripping tightly at his shirt.

It used to feel like, if you let go, you'll never hold him again. God, how the possibility scares you. But.. it feels a little different this time. You weren’t worried about him disappearing, this time.

You’re so comforted by his presence, you let yourself fully relax to him. You open your eyes just slightly, blinking out some tears that still remained, thoroughly ruining his top. You pull away, meeting his eyes again.

You feel as if you were close to forgetting this side of him, but you recognize this face. You saw it the night you first kissed him. You saw it after seeing him at the hotel for the first time, then when he decided to sweep you off your feet for a little date. You saw it after every little date that followed. You realize he's never stopped looking at you this way.

“I love you, too.”

-

I had to put that worship the devil in there it just made me laugh so sorry if that seemed out of place lol

And not to fear my friends,

I plan on making a little epilogue about how everyone's recovering, and some sweet, yummy, fluffy goodness to top it off.

Again, Thank you all so much for your support! :)

I'll be working on some requests next, and some more vamp Luci! Kind of in love with that guy ngl

Taglist! (good lord I hope I got everybody )

( @vififofum / @thornwolfy235 / @tinywolfiegirl / @chipper-chip / @bat-boness

@misfitgirlwrites / @nayomi247 / @lonelynmisunderstood / @escapistoftherealworld / @b4ts1e / @hamthepan / @kyo-kyo1 / @looking1016 / @polytheatrix / @littledolly2345 / @lillianastuff / @yourlocalcryptidbee /@0strawberrysorbet0 / @themageofblood / @jayyyayaysblog / @floralsightings / @azmosposts / @8har0ley8 / @actuallyspiderwoman / @sirenetheblogger / @christineblood / @kaytemchugh / @cimadreamer / @simpdevil66 / @azmosposts / @m3ow1 / @acrazyartist / @redfoxwritesstuff / @4k1to / @meesachan / @corvusskid / @alientee /@xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx / @alon3lylov3r /@sapphireravensworld / @mjmdragons / @catticora / @the-maladaptivedaydreamer / @carrie0-1 / @shamblezzz / @cassandras-nest / @wendigonamecaller / @chirimeimei / @sapphireravensworld / @sillywormtrixareforkids

[emptymasks]

Old Web European Musical Sites

So this post started because I was looking through the waybackmachine on the Internet Archive for the old Disney Fairies site for a friend, and remembered I'd backed up some old musical related sites a couple years ago on the waybackmachine just to archive them.

Which made me remember how recently I saw someone on here, I don't remember who, asking if there were interviews either about Elisabeth das Musical or specifically with Uwe Kroger (the actor who originated the role of Der Tod/Death) in English to which someone had answered no but there are some quotes and fragments in other posts on here. Which made me remember an old website I'd found that did have interviews on and I went out to find it. After I found it, I tried to find another website I'd found that had nice old photos of Uwe on that I'd save for I'd never seen them anywhere else, but sadly can no longer find the site and I hadn't bookmarked it or archived it. But, in doing so I did find some others.

So, come along with me as I find some ye olde websites based around European Musicals and Non-English Musicals, all of which I am archiving using the waybackmachine and can be found on my archive.org account @ wennli3b3 under the 'web archives' tab on my profile.

What is old web? The aesthetics wiki describes it as "Essentially consisting of screencaps and gifs, Old Web is an aesthetic utilizing traditional web design elements combined with aspects of poetry and self-expression. This also includes GIFs, video games, and clip-art. This aesthetic expresses nostalgia for Internet culture of the early 1990s to early 2010s." Think of old GeoCities and AngelFire websites, the pre-2010s internet where it wasn't uncommon for anyone to make their own little website for anything and the internet wasn't just social media. There's just such a charm for me about these old sites and the work people put into customising and decorating their sites, often just as a fun project for themselves or a way to document things they loved. Therefore the websites we'll be looking at are from the 90s up to the late 2000s, 2010s and onwards websites don't count for this list.

What is the waybackmachine? The waybackmachine is hosted on the Internet Archive, it's a digital archive of websites that lets you visit websites as they were during the past if they've been archived there.

[Note: this post won't have clickable links because that can make Tumblr unhappy and either hide or soft-block my post, so sadly no clickable links, but I will write out the links with spaces in the hopes that won't hide the post and you will just have to type them in for yourselves, and I will link my web archive page in the replies to this post. I am also not claiming to be the first to back these sites up or discover them, some of them have already been archived in past, but doing them all under one account means you guys can have an easy list of them all in one place. Some of these sites no longer exist and are only accessible via the waybackmachine, in those cases I will save those sites to my web archive so they are all listed on one page.]

1. musicalvienna . at

Staring with a website some of you will be familiar with and while in it's current 2023 form doesn't count as old web and is easily accessible, we're going back in time with the waybackmachine to see how the site looked and what information it had about old current productions in 2000-2008. And frankly I don't know what to do with the information that at some point in 2000 there was a 'vampire museum' inside the Raimund Theatre that had what appears to be a wax figure of Steve Barton in his original Graf von Krolock costume. I. What??

2. eljen . net / kroeger

A fansite dedicated to Uwe Kroger, the actor, that was run seemingly from 1998-2002 that old photos, links to music that no longer work, but most important to me is the 'Press' page that has many articles and interviews with Uwe that have been translated into English! The site is also available in German eljen . net / kroeger / deutsch. A special shoutout to Uwe's own drawing of himself as Der Tod.

3. eljen . net / elisabeth

Run by the same person as the first site, in fact it is technically the same site however if you go to the root eljen . net there is just a blank page with a link to the /kroeger site, there's no direct link to the Elisabeth site, you can only find it through googling or having the direct URL.

4. iukc . de

The Uwe Kroger fanclub webite seems to have started around 2000 but it was taken offline sometime after October 2021 as going to the URL now leads to a 404 error page, but the site is still accessible using the waybackmachine. On a 2019 capture of the website it states this fanclub was dissolved on December 31st 2019 and was advertising the uwe-kroeger-community . com website as a new fanclub. Some of the pages are available in English and Japanese, but all of the pages are only available in German. The site includes information about the fanclub, as well as lists of Uwe's work, discography, and more.

5. gudrun-kauck . de

A site that as far as I can tell is run by someone just documenting their life and things they see, and that happens to include many musicals. Down the left side of the site there are pages for The Phantom of the Opera, Tanz der Vampire, Ludwig, Concerts, Musicals and Actors. Here there is so much information, interviews, photos, screenshots, transcriptions of scripts and lyrics, articles, and more. This site is a real treasure trove. It's been updating since at least 2004 and it's most recent update was in 2023. This site is in German.

6. jimsteinman . com

The Tanz der Vampire page on Jim Stienman's website has links to lots of articles, interviews and photos for the original 1997 Vienna production and the 2000 Stuttgart production. This site is in English.

7. carpe-jugulujm . com

Another site that is no longer active and can only be accessed via the waybackmachine, it was online by 2006 and taken offline between late 2021 and 2023. It has information on productions of Tanz der Vampire between 1997 and 2009 and is one of the few if not the only place I've found information about the 2000 Estonia production. This site is in English.

8. geocities . ws / mymusicalworlds

This website is all in Chinese, however parts of it are in English and German. It lists information on different musicals, actors, and has lyrics for songs, and photos. It also has midi files but, as with almost all of these old sites, the download links no longer work.

9. theatre-musical . com

This website started around 2002 and was closed some time in 2016, if you go to the website now all you'll get is a message saying the website has been closed, however the old pages are still accessible via the waybackmachine. There's pages for many musicals with lots of information about each show and each of these musical pages has a link to a page that lists other sites, official and fanmade, that are about this musical. There's many more sites to find via

10. elisabeth-fanclub . de

A fansite dedicated to Elisabeth das Musical, more specifically the 2001 Essen production and 2003 Vienna Revival. This site includes information and photos about these productions. It was online by 2004 and was taken offline some time after 2007 and is only now available via the waybackmachine. This site is in German.

11. sisi-net . de

While this site is more dedicated to the actual real Empress Elisabeth, it also has a page dedicated to Elisabeth das Musical which includes several articles and interviews for the 2001 Essen production. There is also some information on here about the Ludwig musical. This site is in German. It was online by 1999, in 2008 the site was empty and "'"under construction" and after 2008 seemed to have either had it's domain sold or hacked and became used for something else, and by 2019 was offline.

12. geocities . com / broadway / 8851

Another site that is dedicated to the real person Elisabeth, but also has information about multiple productions of Elisabeth das Musical. The site was started in 1996 and is no longer online as GeoCities no longer exists as a website hoster, but can be accessed using the waybackmachine. This site is in English.

13. elisabeth-musicpage . de

A German fansite for the 2001 Essen production of Elisabeth das Musical that contains information about the show, merchandise, photos, etc. The site was online by 2002, went under construction in 2005 and after 2006 went offline and only accessible via the waybackmachine. This site is in German.

14. elisabeth-das-musical . de

The old official site for the 2001 Essen production of Elisabeth das Musical. It's only accessible via the waybackamachine however all I could access is this homepage as the site seems to require flash player which no longer exists. The site was made in 2001, by 2006 it was redirecting to a different website that no longer exists, and by 2008 it was just offline.

15. sissi . nl

The official site for the 1999 Dutch production of Elisabeth das Musical. The site went up in 1999 and is no longer online and only accessible via the waybackmachine.

16. marloes . info

A site where someone cataloged every musical they saw between 1996 and 2004. Some of these listings link to their reviews of the musicals and pictures they took (the pictures of Elisabeth das Musical really interest me because they went on a night where Jesper Tyden was understudying for Der Tod (he usually played Rudolf) in teh 2001 Essen production).

17. danceofthevampries . com

The official site for the 2002 Broadway production of Tanz der Vampire. Whilst we all have... feelings about this production, the site's design is very of its time. It has information on the (re-written) plot, cast, downloads for the original English demo recordings (that no longer work), and more. In 2002 the cast page lists the Broadway cast, after the shows closure in 2003 these pages advertised the 2003 Hamburg cast, and by 2006 it now advertises the 2006 Berlin cast, and then even by 2012 that page was no longer being updated. This site is now only accessible via the waybackmachine, I don't know when exactly it went offline but I remember being able to acccess it back in 2020. This site is in English.

18. tanzdervampire . de

The official site for German-lanuage productions of Tanz der Vampire from 2000 to around 2004, mostly the 2003 Hamburg production. Some pages of the site sometimes redirect to musicalwelt . de, like the 'galarie' page that links to a page of many paintings by Mike Schöbs of the original 1997 Vienna production. The site is only accessible via the waybackmachine, sometimes I have difficultly loading the pages, and sometimes the pages on later dates redirect to stagegholding . de which no longer exists or works.

19. tanz-der-vampire . de

A fansite for the 2003 Hamburg production of Tanz der Vampire that is still online. It has info about the musical and this production. The page I found the most interesting is the info > links page. It has a list that includes screenshots of websites from around 2003 with official and fanmade sites for different actors from the musical (such as Marjan Shaki, Maike Switzer, Aris Sas, Thomas Mülner, Jens Janke, Ian Jon Bourg, Kevin Tarte and more) most if not all of these sites are on the waybackmachine (and I'm saving them to my own web archive page rather than listing them all here, Tumblr has a text limit and an image limit and we're already running close to it).

20. fuer-sarah . de

A fansite dedicated to actors who played Sarah including understudies, alternates, swings, and dancers who played Sarah/Solo Female Dancer in the dance sequences in Tanz der Vampire. This site is in German and is only available via the waybackmachine and was active between 2001-2005.

21. musicalland . de

A fansite dedicated to musical theatre with some more specific pages dedicated too Elisabeth das Musical, The Phantom of the Opera, 42nd Street and Mamma Mia. The site is still online and stopped updating in 2010. This site is in German. The link to the Elisabeth das Musical page no longer works, but can still be accessed using the waybackmachine.

22. old-hickory . demon . co . uk / jim

A fan page for composer Jim Steinman that has pages about his non-musical work as well as his musicals Tanz der Vampire and Whistle Down the Wind. The Tanz der Vampire pages include lyrics in German and English, as well as the entire original 1997 Vienna libretto translated into English, as well as the 2000 Stuttgart production's programme fully translated into English that includes information and interviews. The site is in English and only accessible via the waybackmachine.

23. romeojulietmusicals . com

A fan site for the French musical Roméo et Juliette that has pages dedicated to many different language productions with cast lists, information, lyrics and lyric translations. There are galleries on the site but the images on longer load. This site is in English and was online between 2004 to 2008. There is a 'related links' page that contains so many more links to other musical sites.

24. compat . tf1 . fr

A fan site for Roméo et Juliette for the original 2000 Paris production containing images of the cast, and video interviews and behind the scenes with links that no longer work. This site is in French.

25. mozartbudapest . hu

The official website for the 2003 Budapest production of Mozart das Musical. This website is only accessible via the waybackmachine, it contains the cast list, a bio of Mozart (the person), but sadly most of the image no longer work. I mention it here only because when i opened it I was surprised the original logo animation and music still played. This site is available in English and Hungarian.

26. notredameonline . com

During 2000-2001 this URL was for the French musical Notre Dame de Paris and you can see this via the waybackmachine. The site then went offline after 2001 and the domain was sold and since 2006 has belonged to the University of Notre Dame. I really like the design of this site, sadly most of the links open pop-ups that no longer work. The site is available in French and English.

27. notredamedeparis . it

The official site for the 2002 Italian tour of Notre Dame de Paris. It has a lot of information about the musical and this specific production. This site is in Italian and is only accessible via the waybackmachine.

28. geocities . ws / dreamcatcher182004

A fansite dedicated to a few musicals that was last updated in 2003. It has pages for Chicago, Les Mis, Miss Saigon, The Phantom of the Opera and Tanz der Vampire.

.

So yeah, that was a list. I hope that was interesting or for anyone wanting to find more information about these musicals for research, essays, or just for fun, that this post was helpful or interesting in some way. There are a lot more websites than just the ones on this list, however Tumblr has both a photo and a character limit for text posts. If you want a larger catalog you can look at my Internet Archive (archive . org) page @ WennLi3b3 and go to my 'web archives' page, this lists both pages I myself have archived and pages other's have archived and I have bookmarked. Hope someone found this interesting. I just like making lists.

[the-timewatcher]

A disgruntled Tumblrina (gender-neutral) made a website and why you should too.

Or "reject social media, return to personal websites".

PART 1: THE PART WHERE I CONVINCE YOU TO MOVE TO PERSONAL WEBSITES

So, the Web 2.0 social media infested landscape seems to be crumbling before our very eyes. Reddit's leadership is increasingly greedy, Twitter is sinking under the weight of Elon's massive, yet increasingly fragile ego, Tumblr is slowly turning into another lifeless corpo-fest, complete with the layout, Instagram continues to be vapid and soulless and Facebook seems to be going the way of MySpace.

(feel free to check the alt text on these, btw)

In these troubling times, where everything looks the same and you're expected to be milked for every dollar you're worth, what is a disgruntled Internet surfer such as yourself to do? Move to an untested alternative that's bound to get overrun by fascists thanks to poor moderation? Stay the course on the sinking ships you're used to?

Well, what if I told you that we've solved this problem way back in the 90's and early 2000's and were merely duped by the Big Zuck into forgetting our legacy? What if there was a cure for the sanitized, dull social media hellscape?

It takes a bit of work, when compared to just using a social media site, but even if your particular use case makes switching difficult (ex. an artist looking to promote their work), it's still a good secondary option to consider.

The core appeal is the ability to customize and individualize, make a corner of cyberspace unabashedly yours,

It can also be an exciting avenue of creative expression, giving whatever you want to say a unique coat of paint,

Most website hosting services are a bit more lax about what you can do on them, due to changes in the profit structure (rather than depending on advertisers and investors, they either have a premium option to give supporters perks, have another product, or, in the case of paid services, you renting that space IS the product),

If you want your website to be more accomodating and accessible, you don't have to file tons of feedback - do it yourself,

If you'd like to connect with other webmasters and promote each other's websites, we have webrings - sets of circular links that connect websites with something in common, be it a topic, aesthetic or friend group,

You're less likely to have your stuff purged by an ill-advised change in policy (especially if you have a backup of your files somewhere),

The more people do it, the less power those massive social media corpos have over the internet,

It can be a load of fun!

If I have you convinced, keep reading into part 2. If you just wanna see what I did, skip to part 3. If neither, feel free to continue scrolling. I won't hold it against you. You'll be missing out, that's all.

PART 2: SO, YOU WANNA MAKE A WEBSITE!

Good choice, here's some resources!

sadgrl's absolute beginner's guide to Neocities - what it says on the tin!

W3Schools - a more in-depth tutorial site, a learning resource so excellent it substituted for what I was supposed to learn in technical highschool (because our teacher just told us to go on W3Schools instead of teaching us shit)

A list of free layouts for your website - whether to use as a base to learn from or to simply take for yourself,

Neocities - the posterchild for free website hosting for personal websites. Doesn't allow video or audio, but you can get around that by linking those files from elsewhere. Beginner-friendly to a fault - once you have an account just drag and drop your files in,

Gitlab (& Gitlab Pages) - a more advanced option, but it has a few advantages of its own. Gitlab is a website hoster second and a version control service first - which is programmer speak for "keeps track of changes in your code and stores a backup of it online". it helps a lot when working on multiple devices or co-writing with a friend. And secondly, you can use Gitlab Actions to automate putting your website up (even on Neocities, like I do!)

My askbox - I am not joking, if you have any questions about any of this, I'd love nothing more than to help you out!

But with most of my indie web propaganda out of the way, it's time.

PART 3: Welcome to Timewatcher OS.

Of course, because I couldn't be normal when it comes to making a website, I had to turn it into a fake operating system. Each subpage is an "app", opened in a separate embed window. It has unlockable wallpapers (no pay2win, prommy). There's bideo games on it! I even made a music player for it so I can share my incongruent music tastes!

Like I said in my Tumblr bio, if I ever go radio silent for more than a month, it means I've gotten fed up with this hellsite and moved to my own homepage permamently. And I highly advise you make an option like this for yourself too! Lastly, if any of y'all would like to start a webring, do let me know in the askbox - I'm down to manage it if I'm not alone in there.

Anyways, I hope I convinced you to make a website, or at least check out some of the cool sites you've been missing out on! Hope to see you on the Old Web!

[thephooka]

Happy Webcomic Day! My webcomic White Noise is a labor of love--according to Procreate, this page took me 15.5 hours to complete.* Here's a look into that process!

Some other notes:

The thumbnails are done on graph paper and I script while I do them--there is no separate written script for White Noise. I usually spent a couple hours on weekends as needed thumbnailing, sometimes at a coffee shop or at home listening to records.

I then set up the file in Photoshop, so I can lay in the text and use the template I have with bleeds already set up. The text is rasterized and I shuttle the file over to my iPad via Airdrop.

The bulk of the actual work is done in Procreate, which records timelapses that I sometimes share to my Patreon. I usually spend a couple hours most nights after my day job or on the bus commuting doing this.

Once everything art-wise is done, I shuttle the file back over to my desktop to re-set in the text, add a stroke around the speech bubbles (Procreate doesn't have that took fsr) and do the resizing/exporting for web.

On Sunday mornings I get up, queue the page and write the page descriptions. I don't spend any time on the page descriptions outside of that.

Also, this process goes for the whole first arc of White Noise. I'm done with that arc (which means you can binge the whole thing I'm js!!) and am experimenting with some different methods these days, but my workflow is still generally the same.

*Some more talk about the labor (and burnout) involved below the cut:

This particular page (and most of the pages I did in 2023) took a lot longer than normal because I was heading into a burnout period that I'm still lowkey in/recovering from. It's obvious to me now in retrospect watching the timelapse here and seeing how much noodling I'm doing and how much I'm struggling with the process, but at the time I was just very frustrated generally. When I'm not burned tf out pages take maybe 10 hours max.

2023 was a pretty stressful year--lots of big life changes, uncertainty, pet death, health issues--so it's no wonder it propelled me into burnout, but it just goes to show that even the slowest and steadiest pace is not sustainable forever. I've been doing one page a week following this general process for over a decade! And I stuck to that pace because I knew it was one I could maintain. But even so, by the end of this arc I found myself working more and more slowly, not really looking forward to the work, feeling anxious about being behind, unhappy with the finished work, and extremely annoyed with myself for not being able to give it my all right there at the finish line.

I did stop for a while after the epilogue and took a more or less complete break from drawing for about a month--the longest I have EVER gone without drawing, much less working on White Noise--which did help, but these days my ability to work is...inconsistent. I should probably take another total break, but I'm reluctant. What if my passion never comes back? What if people forget about WN? It's already pretty obscure, and with the general social media collapse, it's harder than ever to get people to read my work. Now that I've left Hiveworks, WN doesn't even get the benefit of being linked to other comics (although objectively very, very few readers actually got referred to my comic that way.) And frankly, I'm also just too proud to go too long without comic updates. I've always told myself, I might not be the best artist or the fastest worker or make a popular comic, but I'm consistent. Difficult to let that go.

This is all to say that webcomics are hard. We do them because we love them, we have stories to tell, we are seized with the human compulsion to create. We spend hours of our time, almost always on top of the paying work that allows us to eat, to make something that we then give away for free. It has consequences on us that the reader doesn't often see, no matter how careful we are about it. If you ask me, webcomics deserve to be valued more.

Happy Webcomic Day! Read webcomics!

[crownmemes]

Advice; Where to Make Rules and About Pages

If you've read my advice post about the difference between about and rules pages and why they're both important, you may not be wondering the best way to make them. The good news is, there are plenty of options!

Tumblr

The simplest choice. In the past, people would make custom pages on their theme. However, since dash view has become popular (and you can't view custom pages via it, nor can you view them on mobile), most people simply post their about/rules page as a normal text post, and link to it in their pinned post. If you have a custom theme, make sure to link the pages in the navigation bar too!

Using a plain Tumblr post increases your page's readability, but reduces the amount of formatting you can do. If you make your pages elsewhere, you will be able to customise them a lot more.

Carrd

A free website maker. You can make a small site with a free account, and the prices are pretty reasonable if you need to make a bigger site. Carrd has a minimalist aesthetic, and it will also adjust what you make to fit a mobile browser (though this may break your formatting if you have designed something complicated).

Carrd is easy to use, but it is best used for simple designs. If you want to do something more complicated than a basic Carrd layout, you're going to spend a lot of time trying to make the formatting work. If you want multiple pages for your site, you're also going to spend a lot of time formatting as you can't clone pages, therefore have to recreate each one every time instead.

It uses markdown for formatting text. If you're familiar with it, this can speed up writing, but it may slow you down if you've never used it before.

One of the benefits of Carrd is that there are lots of free templates available within the rpc! Here are resources I found with a quick Google search, but there are plenty more out there if you look for them: [x] [x] [x]

Weebly

Another free website maker. You can make more for free here than you can on Carrd. Weebly sites should adapt to work on a mobile browser.

I've never seen anybody use Weebly for about/rules pages, but I do recommend it! It's very easy to use, and, unlike Carrd, you can copy and paste entire pages. This makes it ideal if you have lots of muses that you want to make individual about pages for.

It uses a more typical text editor than Carrd. Instead of markdown, it's more like Microsoft Word - where you highlight text and click buttons to add formatting. You also have HTML/CSS options.

Weebly does offer some free templates, but you're likely to want to edit them to suit your needs more. This is okay! It isn't difficult to do!

Google Docs

A popular, completely free option. As with Carrd, there are plenty of templates and resources within the rpc (here are three examples: [x] [x] [x]). These pages will be viewable on a mobile browser, but the theme may not translate well. Keep readability in mind if you use this option.

If you use this option, also make sure the link you share is viewer only and doesn't have editor permissions!

Other Options (WordPress, Self-Hosting, etc)

Don't feel you have to follow the crowd. If you like to use WordPress, use WordPress. You could also use Neocities, or any other website builder!

Personally, I already own a web domain because I have websites for other online activities, so I use about pages that I've coded from scratch and host them myself. For my rules page, I just use a Tumblr text post that's linked in my pinned post. In the past, I've used Carrd and Tumblr pages for about pages.

If you want to write your site using HTML, some free website hosters will allow you to do this (Neocities, for example). If you're interested in coding, I do recommend this! It allows you to have full customisability, and coding can be a really useful skill. However, one downside of this is it can make your pages hard to read on a mobile browser. It's up to you to decide how important this is.

If you're interested in learning HTML (as well as CSS, JavaScript, and other coding languages), this site is a great resource!

[cirrus-grey]

Didn't know about that Corruption theory before (and didn't wanna reblog the post for spoilers) but now I'm curious, what other theories did people have while the show was still airing? I joined the fandom around 160 so anything before that is a mystery to me.

Referencing this post (beware, it has spoilers for The Magnus Protocol).

Oh goodness, so so many. Only a few that I remembered off the top of my head, but I spent some time today trawling the depths of my "magnus archives speculation/analysis" tag and found a couple more fun ones.

Most of the ones I did remember are either still popular headcanons (Web!Martin), or actually turned out to be canon (Jonah!Elias). The Gertrude one always stuck in my head because it's very silly on the surface but also draws attention to the fact of like - how was her skin still in good enough condition to wear after being buried for months? (And Lietner's too, for that matter). Was Nikola just wearing really tattered rotten shreds???

Anyway. Some that I remembered, which all relate to Martin for some reason:

Backup Archivist: Heading into the Unknowing, Elias had Martin reading statements specifically to train him to be a stand in Archivist in case Jon died. Also included sub-theories that he could end up able to compel people on his own, share the role with Jon, or take over entirely if the show pulled a bait-and-switch and Martin was the real protagonist all along.

Who's the Father?: Every single possible theory about who Martin's dad was and what implications that could have on the show, from Leitner to Elias to Peter Lukes to that one dude Peter banished to the Lonely in his statement in 159.

Schwartzwald Cousins: Albrecht von Closen says he and Clara/Carla had trouble having kids in his first statement, but in a later episode says they have two boys. Part 1 of the theory was that the kids were actually avatars who'd emerged from the mausoleum after Albrecht disturbed it, and been adopted by the childless couple. Part 2 was - well - it's canon that Gerry is descended from one of these kids. The theory was, what if Martin was descended from the other? Gerry seems to have some Eye powers linked to his heritage and upbringing, so it was speculated that Martin might turn out to have some as well and be important to either Elias's plans, or to thwarting him (this tied into the Backup Archivist theory nicely). A sub-theory was that they were significantly closer cousins, Martin's mum's maiden name had been Keay, and Martin K. Blackwood was Martin Keay Blackwood all along.

And the ones that I found in the tag (credit in brackets):

Martin’s mum was a runaway Lukas (@/centaurianthropology, here)

The lighter was linked to the Desolation (@agnesmontague) + an addition by me that I'm so proud of in hindsight - "I think the web design pretty much confirms that it’s linked to the Web, but if it’s the Desolation as well, might it be linked to the other occasions we’ve seen those two powers interact? Namely, the ever mysterious Hill Top Road?" (Here)

Another of my posts that I'm delighted to reread (here) reminded me of the many, many, "what's up with the tapes?" theories. I remember "the tapes are sent by the Web", "the tapes are sent by Elias", "the tapes are manifestated unconsciously by Jon" (my personal favorite, sadly disproven), and I think there were also some "the tapes are Gertrude's ghost" posts???

Elias was the Eye the same way Michael was the Spiral - Gertrude sacrificed him to stop the Watcher's Crown (@/statementbegins, here)

Also reading through these is reminding me that there was a stretch where we were calling the Vast and Lonely the "Void" and "Isolation", which I love.

This is just a select few posts from 2018, so there's a lot more under the tag if you're interested in looking! Link below, copy and paste into a web (lol) browser because the archive (lmao) page doesn't work on the app.

https://cirrus-grey.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/magnus%20archives%20speculation%2Fanalysis

If anyone else remembers other old theories please feel free to drop them in the notes! I know there were so many more that I don't have saved.

[mcytrecursive]

How DO I sign up for this?

We have had to squeeze the sign-up form until it screams to make this work, so buckle in. Here is an example of how to sign up on Ao3 for the recursive exchange, step by step.

I have an idea for a side story for Etho and Iskall in This Is About A Stuffed Bird, by bee_4. So, to start with— that's a hermitcraft fic.

So I select Hermitcraft on the Fandoms part of the sign-up. Note that as we add more fandoms to the list, potentially this will become a drop-down menu instead of checklists. You still select the fandom you want in the same way.

Next is Gift Style. We're using the "characters" tab for that one.

I'm good with my gift being an art, a fic, or a web weave, so I can select all three of these! If I only wanted a fic, or an art, I would only select one.

Next is the Relationship tab, which we're using for characters (told you that we were having to squeeze the signup form until it screamed).

This is a drop-down menu, and I select the characters I want— in this case, Iskall and Ethoslab. Note that possibly I will only match on one character, as we couldn't do relationship matching this time, so I try to keep that in mind when it comes to my requests!

Next is Additional Tags, which is where I select the fic that I'm actually asking for a gift about! In the future, as more fics are added, this will be a dropdown menu, but right now it's tickboxes.

Next is categories. This is our shipping on-off switch.

I've decided that I am good with shipping or not with this one, so I've selected BOTH Gen and M/M. But now that I'm on the page I'm like "I wouldn't mind it if they were lesbians either" so I have selected F/F as well.

Next is rating, which is the NSFW on-off switch. I'm good with smut or no smut, so I've selected both options.

If I wanted no smut whatsoever I could do just Gen (which could also lead to a Mature or Teen work, but excludes E-rated work), and if I definitely wanted there to be dicks out I could select only Explicit.

Then we get to the major archive warnings. This is where you opt-in to archive warnings— it doesn't mean I will necessarily get them, but I'm okay with them! The matching says you might get any one of the things you select here.

Given the source material, I'm opting into Violence and Death as options, and I'm also selecting no warnings apply to show that I'm also good with no major archive warnings!

Now on to the actual request!

There's a space where I could link a letter if I wanted to go into detail with my request, but I think I can fit it in the text box today! I had to put my DNW on the Ao3, and because I said I was open to smut I included a NSFW DNW.

Okay, on to request two.

As you can see, for request two I'm doing a DSMP fic this time, and I specifically want art or web weaves! I selected emerald duo, and the fic I want. And I just want this one to be no shipping, so I only selected Gen for the type of relationship.

I opted out of explicit for this one, and I did say graphic violence was okay OR no archive warnings apply.

On to request three!

This is much like request two, except I only want fic for this one! But it's Dream SMP, Fic requested, the characters I want (techbur twins), the fic I want (catbag), I want it to be Gen and no shipping, no NSFW, I'm okay with graphic depictions of violence, and my prompt!

Now on to my offers.

I'm gonna start with Stuffed Bird again.

So it's a Hermitcraft fic, I am only able to make fic for it, but you know what, I'll write literally anybody in this world. Hit me. I selected any relationship (which in this case means any CHARACTER). And I selected any TYPE of relationship too— yes I'll write any type of shipping or non-shipping. I can't write smut though, so I only selected General for the rating, and I will absolutely do violence but I am not good with MCD or noncon, so I didn't select those.

For my second request, I opened up catbag.

That's a Dream SMP fic, but this time I only wanted to do specific characters. I set it up so that I'd write any combination of SBI, Beeduo, and Quackity. No shipping for me with this one, and no smut, but yes I'll do graphic violence.

And then on to odaigahara's fic!

That's a Dream SMP fic, and I think I could make a web weave for that one, so I selected both fic and web weave. I only want to write Emerald Duo for it, so I just selected them. No shipping, only Gen for this one, and no smut, only gen as well. I don't feel like doing graphic depictions of violence for thisone, so I just selected no archive warnings apply!

For my final one, I really want to make sure that I'm matchable on femslash, so I did a bit of a basket offer.

I selected both Hermitcraft and 3rd life, and selected that I would be making fic. I selected all the ladies (+iskall, for stresskall), and when it came time to select an additional tag, which is what fic I'm saying I'll match on, I selected any. With that and the F/F tag selected, it means that I'll be matchable to any Hermit-Traffic femslash request, no matter which story or art it's attached to. Cause I figure I can read the source material and make something in the creation time period!

So that is 3 requests and 4 offers done, and I have a full sign-up! I'm ready to go! That is how you sign up! Over the course of the sign-up period I might keep an eye on other people's sign-ups (available at the Ao3 automagic app) and tweak my sign-ups so that I'm matchable with someone (or several someones), but for right now, I'm good to go!

[ches-nogat]

PSA: the tumblr downloaders don't work anymore(or at least, haven't worked for me), so here's what you need to do

step 1: go to the post on your web browser

it doesn't matter if it's on a custom blog or if it's not op or anything, you just need to be able to right click on the audio itself.

step 2: go into VIEW PAGE SOURCE. not inspect element

here's what it should look like, or at least, that's what it looks like in firefox. don't worry too much about anything, because I'm gonna teach you a neat trick

step 3: hit Control + F. (Or your specified hotkey for finding something in a page)

type in, without the quotation marks, "content="

you wanna look for the urls inside of the quotes that start with "https://", an example being "https://a.tumblr/randomstringofnumbers" or "https://idk.man/ijustworkhere". those will be the places where the media is stored, and therefore were your audio/video to download will be.

examples(media):

examples(not media):

step 4: trial and error

there should only be a few that start with "https://", so this part shouldn't take so long. copy and paste the URLs that start with "https://" into a new tab, and eventually it will link to the media you want to download.

let's try the first media link.

nope, not this one. second one, maybe?

there we go.

step 5: downloading

once you have gotten to the media itself, you can right click on it, and then click the "save media as..." button. i hope from there you know what to do.

(also, thank you @paper-mario-wiki for the post that motivated me to figure this out)

[teecupangel]

Ad Altaïr Anon

Curse ye Tumblr! Why must you prevent me from showing the image of t-posing Altair moments before being sucked into The Cube!! (it's absolutely not me being a first-time nooby asker who has never sent a link through ask ever nu-uh it's all tumblr)

maybe this link will work instead, I'm slightly better with imgur links at least :v

https://imgur.com/a/Hl2elSH

And yeah that's it! I never put one on my computer myself simply because i once tried to mod minecraft in the olden days and messed up so badly that I figured i should just leave that sort of stuff alone.

But AH, my heart! The future and doomed Desmond giving them that slight control over the grey so maybe this Desmond wouldn't have to die 😭

but also lol oh boy would Altair get lost in the sauce surfing the web! It worse than when he was alive with the apple because now he doesn't have to eat, drink, or sleep so someone has to pry him out of the web every once in a while.

(The only real modding I’ve done in a long time was for Mugen back in those days. To be honest though, my brother helped me add characters and stuff hahaha)

The “Altaïr interrupts Desmond’s game using an ‘ad’” idea and its sorta prequel sorta sequel for those curious

“We need to talk about Altaïr’s internet addiction.”

Desmond stared at Shaun’s solemn expression for a fraction of a second before he turned his attention back to the instant noodles he was having for lunch.

He didn’t really like soggy noodles.

“Desmond, this is serious.” Shaun placed his hands on the table and towered over Desmond who was hunched to make it easier to eat his noodles.

That was a bad move.

Desmond could just as easily headbutt his nose at this distance.

“I’m listening, Shaun.” Desmond replied half-heartedly before eating once more.

He didn’t understand why Shaun wanted to talk to him about Altaïr’s internet addiction. It wasn’t like Desmond could stop the man from scouring every web page available in Wikipedia in his endless pursuit of knowledge.

… not that he would want to anyway.

“Desmond, Altaïr has been using the computer 24/7. We have to keep the AC on just to make sure the computer doesn’t overheat. Together with the electricity needed for the Animus and our other devices, two of which are now fully being used by Ezio and Connor-”

Desmond slowly raised his head so Shaun would have a warning to pull away. It was still a close call, Desmond’s head almost knocking against Shaun’s nose but Shaun stood and crossed his arms while Desmond took a sip of the soup before asking, “Are you… are you trying to talk to me about our upcoming electric bill?”

“Not ‘ours’ but the building we’re ‘piggy backing’ from.” Shaun clarified, “They’ll definitely think something is up when they see the sudden spike.”

“Then isn’t this too late already?” Desmond countered lightly, “The bill’s gonna come sooner or later. Might just be better for us to book it.”

Shaun grimaced but did not deny it.

Desmond sighed before he said, “How about this. I’ll tell Altaïr to find us a new safehouse and take care of the logistics and stuff. That’ll be his punishment for skyrocketing some random business’ electric bill.”

Shaun opened his mouth, most probably to argue, so Desmond asked, “Unless you already have the next safehouse in mind?”

Shaun sighed as he said, “I’ll tell the others about it. You tell Altaïr about his punishment.”

Desmond waved his hand before lowering his head to continue eating while Shaun stormed out of the dining room, most probably to bother Rebecca.

Or complain to her.

Maybe both.

Probably both.

Desmond waited until he could no longer hear Shaun’s footsteps before turning to look at his phone that was lying next to the cup noodles.

“Congrats, Altaïr. You got what you wanted.” Desmond mumbled.

His phone’s screen lit up and showed Altaïr in front of his homescreen, arms crossed as he said, “Not yet. Not until we’ve finally settled in a more secured location.”

“More secured.” Desmond snorted, “Just say the internet is too slow for you here.”

“Hm.” Altaïr didn’t even bother to give him a proper reply.

Nor deny it.

“Well, at least wait until midnight before sending the plan to everyone.” Desmond reminded him, “Otherwise, Shaun’s going to find out this was your plan from the start.”

“I know. I’m not a fool, Desmond.” Altaïr said calmly before adding, “Eat a fruit or have salad after that.”

“I’ll eat an apple, alright.” Desmond rolled his eyes, “Please don’t repeat to me how bad it is for my body to keep eating instant noodles.”

Altaïr sighed, “Fine. I’ll leave you with your pathetic excuse for a meal then.”

“Thanks.” Desmond sarcastically said, watching as the screen of his phone turned off.

And he can finally eat in peace…

… soggy noodles.

Damn it.

[ilyastudies]

I saw that you use a tablet, a desktop, and paper notes. How do you conciliate those notes?

Is there a mechanism of making primary notes on one resource and then passing those notes to other while reviewing them?

hi! thanks so much for asking! here are my favorite methods for sharing notes between devices :). i personally have apple devices so i can fairly easily airdrop and sync things between devices, but i also frequently work at the library desktop computers where i can't do that! so here's my tips and tricks for sharing notes between devices

for context: i've been mostly doing digital notetaking recently, but i also like to scan my paper notes as well!

i'm going to be dividing this post into 2 methods! (there will be some overlap). syncing already written notes and syncing notes (in progress) between devices

for already written notes:

the first step i would take is export your notes as a pdf or any other file type. if they're handwritten try going into your notes app (for ios) or downloading a pdf scanner app for your phone! if your notes are digital check the sharing options in your app to see if there's anything about "exporting".

personally, i like to use either discord or notion. i have created a discord server with only myself that i use just for sharing links/files/anything between devices! i like discord because there's apps for pc, mac, tablets, and phones; and even a web app! discord is really nice and fast, and you can make different channels (as pictured below) for organization. as long as your file size isn't too big, you should be fine.

my second app i like to use is notion! notion is such a beast in itself, but i like to use it to upload files and images and links! below are two ways i have used it: to upload pdfs/files, and to upload goodnotes (my notetaking app) links to the pages i'm writing on! similar to discord, notion has apps for all devices, but it also works great just by itself on the website (no app required)! it's really great to access it from all my devices.

another way you could share your notes on different devices is through the cloud! (yes, discord and notion are both through the cloud). google drive, microsoft onedrive, icloud storage, etc. are great tools that you can use to upload files and see on multiple devices. i personally like discord and notion more, just because they're already apps i frequently use, but if you can't get either one cloud-based storage platforms are also a great idea! they definitely have more security than discord or notion, because your files may be at risk of being deleted!

for the purposes of sharing notes to reference on another device when writing an essay, or something of similar vain, i really love discord and/or notion and they both work great!

for syncing notes in real time:

pretty similar to the last one, i would say notion or google docs (or microsoft word on the web i believe has similar functionality, or onenote, anything similar!)

if you want to be writing notes on one device and have them sync up quickly on another - i think any word processing software is the best bet for you.

both notion and google docs you can access them on any device, and/or on their websites too!

google docs is a lot more straightforward, but since notion is so powerful it provides a lot of flexibility for your notes! here's an (old) example of notes i've taken on notion. (i personally really like how easy it is to make columns!)

i hope this helped a little bit! please let me know if you have any more questions :)

also! notetaking is very much an individual thing, if something works for me and doesn't work for you - that's okay! we're all learning and just have to figure out what's best for ourselves.

[audreyhalessaviour]

A post to assist Audrey Hale research.

Links that Audrey made herself.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230327201651/https://ahillustrations.myportfolio.com/

https://www.pinterest.com/audreyhale10/

https://www.tumblr.com/floofymcmuffin2317

https://web.archive.org/web/20230328003005/https://www.linkedin.com/in/audreyhale10/

https://web.archive.org/web/20230327193021/https://www.tiktok.com/@iam_aiden10

https://web.archive.org/web/20230327200834/https://www.redbubble.com/people/AidenCreates/shop

https://soundcloud.com/user-431161390

Useful links for research.

https://www.thesilentbell.org/

https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/https://audreyhalememorial.tumblr.com/

https://web.archive.org/web/20240501000000*/https://www.tumblr.com/audreyhalememorial

Audrey Hale Memorial might take a bit of fiddling around with in the archives because wayback doesn't work very well for archiving Tumblr pages but it's worth it. If you can't get it DM me and I'll send you the local archive AHM sent to me. It's not complete and it's too big to link somewhere else but it's better than nothing.

https://schoolshooters.info/aiden-hale

Tips.

I'm not a professional by any means but maybe these tips can help somebody. Imagine the places you are searching are old dusty places lost to time. Places where nobody would look for Audrey. Search things like obscure websites, profiles of people she knew, places she frequented think outside the box.

If you find something and don't want to share it yourself or need help with a search please feel free to message me.