#but if your logistics suck and then people at the place of the work can't do their job

[wizard-mp4]

Bureaucracy makes me very mad

"It's the only way to do things at scale"

Don't scale up then

[alexanderwales]

I've been really enjoying Factorio: Space Age, but ... well, there are places where the game design starts to show through.

As a game designer, you want people to have fun playing your games, and to engage with the mechanics, and not optimize themselves out of the experience of solving challenges and having everything work together in harmony.

And players just do not seem to care, for the most part. You give them a goal and they'll do whatever they want, either the optimal thing, or the comfortable thing, and they'll bash their head against the game, not having fun until they give up.

So a game designer will sometimes sit down and say "alright, how do I make the player engage with the game in the intended way, rather than doing the stupid boring thing?" And sometimes, you can see where they've placed their thumb on the scale.

Factorio: Space Age has a few examples of the thumb on the scale, and I don't think it's bad, but they definitely stood out to me.

Small and medium asteroids can be destroyed with gun turrets. Large asteroids take rocket turrets. Huge asteroids take a railgun. Asteroid density is such that you face these as successive challenges. If players were allowed to, they'd simply add in more gun turrets, so the "damage resistances" button has been pressed down hard, effectively forcing a single goal (even if the path to that goal has many different solutions).

Factorio has logistics robots, which ferry things around from one place to another. Because that's kind of the whole game, a certain style of play can devolve into slapping two chests down next to any assembler, one for input and the other for output. There are a few different ways that they discourage bot use (like power requirements, fluids that the bots can't transport, heat pipes, etc.), but Aquilo has the bots just kind of suck because of ... the cold, I guess. You'd think that if the cold drained battery it would drain the accumulators too, but it doesn't seem to.

The game seems to really really want you to use nuclear. This is most obvious for the space trip to Aquilo, where your options are solar panels that weaken as you go, or nuclear power, which can actually power a full ship. In a normal game of Factorio before the expansion, it was very easy to just never do anything with nuclear (which didn't exist in the game when I started playing), but I feel like people who have been putting off learning it are finally getting pushed toward it headfirst.

[housederiva]

Hello! Hope all is well, I wanted to ask what do you think is best to do about Da:tv? Considering the layoffs and like, Initially i wanted to wait a couple of weeks after release, specially after the catastrophe of everything about The Sims 4, Da:tv feels like its going down the same path? Like both games owned by EA that where too many years in development hell, first being made as multiplayer then burned to the ground and made again, much of the previous lore ignored, Da:tv will probably be also patched to hell and back like ts4.

Unfortunatly with all this said i think I will buy the game anyway, not pre-order! But still buying it, because truth be told, even if its garbage i will enjoy it, as much as i enjoyed the Sims 4, but i still wanted to hear your thoughts!

Like, maybe romance Lucanis as my first playthrough? Im sure EA/bioware have player stats and if the most romanced companion is by someone you laid off... I don't really know where Im going with this, Im not too knowledgeable, but i would like that Mary Kirby to be properly compensated :(

Dear listener I'm on a midnight train going nowhere (though i did sign the lease to move into a house in my favorite beach town this morning so maybe the train is flipping a sick Uie) a general rule of thumb I've seen is to wait a few days after a AAA launch for the first patch to come out or to see if it's playable in the first place...But Veilguard did have that giant player event earlier this month and all the bugs I could see were folds in fabric and hair clipping (though those folks were playing on optimized pc's) and BW has mentioned a few times that they're trying to not repeat Andromeda

Regardless if you preorder the game or not, Steam takes 30% of your payment. Speaking as someone who works in production, I know that devs/crew get paid either weekly or monthly for the work they've already done and will do until their contacts end from funds that have already been allocated to their payrolls. The vast majority of BioWare's crew, the people who actively coded and worked on Veilguard, will see none of the money from any sales, preorder or otherwise. AAA sales line EA ceo pockets, not that of the people we care about. Which sucks but that's the way it is. (if a BW crew member sees this please feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken)

This is a bit from a Eurogamer article if you want to read more into the logistic of where your money goes

I'm not preordering Veilguard out of personal preference, and while I know my money is still going to the people who laid of Marry and a bunch of other folks with no warning, I feel better withholding my contribution until Halloween

But yeah, I think it'd be a bitter-sweetness if Lucanis becomes the fan favorite romance just like how Varric is the favorite BW is squeezing the blood out of until there's nothing left. They can't repeat that same shade of success a third time. I want her legacy to be a ghost that haunts whoever made the call and when the round of obligatory congratulations goes around, there's a deafening silence when if they purposely leave out her name. Regardless, Marry's already been paid for all the work she did on Veilguard and now it's the recognition I'm worried about.

I don't know if the folks who got laid off's correct severance pay got resolved though, last I checked 14 were suing the company about this time last year

[ashleywool]

but getting older means more awkward situations

Turned 37 yesterday. The 34 guilty convictions were a very nice present. Probably the best present I've ever received, including last year, when my present was a literal Broadway contract (ok, technically we found out on June 22, but tomato/tomahto).

A less nice present was the letter from my building management informing me that if I renew my lease (which I won't), my rent will be raised to what would have been 33% of my net income if HTDIO was still running. It was about 29% before, which is still a lot, but worth it for the ability to have no roommates in a decent apartment.

And when I say "decent," I mean decent in that it checks most of the basic boxes amenable to a reasonable quality of life. That is, if you don't mind having a walkup with a perpetually dysfunctional kitchen ceiling light, a radiator that you can't turn on, water damage on the ceiling due to other people's radiator dysfunction, construction outside your window during the day, aggressively loud pedicabs in the evening, and squeaky garbage trucks at 1am. So basically, a decent quality of life for heavy sleepers (which I am not) with fully functional body temperature regulation (again, not me) and no mobility issues whatsoever (I do check that box, at least for now).

The plus sides are: it's right in Hell's Kitchen, and within walking distance to most of the places I regularly go, it's a reasonably sturdy and non-fire-hazardy building for its age (which means I feel comfortable leaving my cats there) with functional plumbing and electricity (except the kitchen ceiling light), never had a pest problem, the refrigerator and microwave are brand new and excellent quality, the oven is younger than me, although it's small, and only one of the burners doesn't work.

I'm no stranger to the horror stories of NYC apartment living. I know I'm still more privileged than most to live in a place that's decent.

But it's not "you need a six-figure income and perfect credit just to APPLY to live here" decent.

It's not "you owe $9K in deposits and broker fees before you even move in" decent.

It's not "you must have either consistent exorbitant wealth or significant supplementary generational wealth in order to stay here" decent.

"So just get a job. Just get a roommate. Just put up with more problems. Suck it up. Or move back in with one of your parents again."

Sure. Okay. I'd love to. But.

When the minimum wage is $16 an hour, this isn't a "just get a job" problem.

When you're a highly trained professional at the highest level of your field and you're unemployed because corporate landlords were mad that your show wasn't selling $800 tickets in the middle of January like your neighbors at Merrily, this isn't a "just leave the industry" problem.

When finding a new career that would pay anything near what you need to live in this city would require taking out a small fortune in student loans to get another degree just to qualify for entry-level jobs that still won't pay your bills until you significantly advance, this isn't a "you majored in theatre, what did you expect" problem.

When you're autistic and chronically fatigued, fastidious about cleanliness and clutter, and religiously adhere to schedules and routines and predictability in your own space, this isn't a "just get a roommate" problem.

When you are a more-famous-than-average individual whose autism is directly tied to the things you're best known for, and Reddit is full of nightmare stories about what it means to have an autistic roommate, and Reddit is also rife with lies and rumors about you specifically, this isn't a "just get a roommate" problem.

And while I love my parents and have great relationships with both of them and they are doing everything they can to support me...for complicated logistical and personal reasons that are none of the Internet's business, "just move back in with your parents" is not a super helpful solution either.

But if I don't find a miracle between now and the end of August, that's probably what I'll end up doing.

And the crazy thing is, the fact that that's even an option for me STILL makes me more privileged than MOST people.

Nobody should have to face the situation I'm facing, and yet millions of people--especially disabled people--face this and worse, with far less support than I have. A cornerstone of my advocacy has been pointing out this inequity as often as I can, and trying to use my privilege and platform to help and amplify people who don't have those resources.

At this point in my career, I am supposed to be throwing down the ladder. Instead, and in spite of everything, I'm clinging to the ladder for dear life while the rungs crack beneath my feet.

And it all comes down to the landlords.

Legislation that limits the acquisition power and earning power of property owners, and enacts strict rent caps for residential AND business buildings, would solve 98% of my problems and approximately 75% of everyone else's problems in this city. (Please don't quote me on these statistics, they are sourced directly from my ass and are for idealistic illustrative purposes only.)

Anyway. Um.

34 felony convictions is still a beautiful thing.

[llatimeria]

another example of Instagram actually being a pretty nice place sometimes - I've somehow wandered into teacher/parent/adults-who-interact-with-kids-frequently Instagram and it's so fucking refreshing seeing adults retaining the negative lessons they were taught as kids&teens and actually trying to help their kids overcome problems instead of just punish punish punish.

like I just ran into a computer science teacher who observed that kids in her class post-covid were having a harder time getting off their phones and focusing on their work, but she still wanted to not confiscate the phones entirely because you can't just. take someone else's stuff like that. and she wanted them to be able to listen to music while they worked if they wanted, since that's now extremely normal and it'd be really frustrating and unrealistic to force someone to work in silence if that's just not how they work best.

so she came up with a genius solution: when a kid was messing with their phone too much, she'd put it in a paper bag and staple it shut, then leave the bag at the kid's workspace. this is so fucking smart it's sending me reeling. I got in trouble for fiddling with my phone too much in class so much as a teen... because I was developing PTSD and my phone was my lifeline. now, post-covid (ok "post" is a stretch but yknow), basically every fuckin kid on earth is traumatized, basically kneecapping an entire generation with focus issues and all the other delightful things that come with experiencing trauma. they aren't struggling because they're dumb phone addicted iPad babies, they're struggling because they've experienced being ripped away from their friends, their family, their culture, their community, leaving them completely isolated (in potentially toxic home lives) if it weren't for their phones. of course these kids are hesitant to put them down. they had "phone = where I get love" kicked into their skulls by a cinderblock during an extremely sensitive point in their brain's development. taking their phones away could be a minor retraumatization - not to mention all the other logistical difficulties involved with confiscating a $1000 piece of personal machinery (like if it gets broken or stolen under your watch... you might be on the hook for it, and that's no fun lmao)

so basically. you just can't do that. it's in no one's best interest.

but the kids still need to like... learn. in school. it's good for your brain to learn things, and learning skills (especially creative/technical skills like coding) might actually help them heal, so you really do not want to associate your classroom with pain and anxiety like that, and the paper bag method feels so perfect for that. the kids still have their phones, and precious little is actually separating them from it -- it's just a paper bag. if they really need their phone, it's no issue to break into it. but the paper bag is enough of a barrier that it helps redirect their attention back to their work. if they start feeling The Itch(tm), they'll look at their phone and be immediately thwarted by Bag, reminding them of their assignment or redirecting them to scratch their Itch with a fidget toy instead so they don't get sucked into an infinite-scrolling black hole or a stupid mobile game designed to hijack people's attention and keep them on their phones for as long as fucking possible because that's how ads make money.

this isn't foolproof obviously but this absolutely would've worked on me as a phone-clingy teen. honestly it probably will still work on me as a phone-clingy adult. I might actually try it. i wish someone had thought to try it when I was in school! I definitely would've felt like it was more fair than confiscating my phone entirely but still actually help me improve my attention span. I'd definitely just be like "that's actually a pretty fair deal" and put my phone in the stupid bag if it was offered to me ever, but instead I just had to endure living in a soul blender until I graduated.

[lockedtombbrainworms]

Oh no a big long politics post that's only tangentially related to what I'm here to post about!

The realisation that there are actually terfs in the locked tomb fandom, who know the books well enough to have actually engaged in some level of analysis of them as texts, is fucking terrifying to me. I should've realised they'd be here, they're everywhere now, but like, it really sucks. Lemme explain... Ten years ago, when I was a recently-out trans woman, I was a lot less afraid of terfs in fandom spaces because they were just another kind of weird internet bigot, like the homophobes and the misogynist nerd bros. They could be a threat, sure, but they were the sort of threat you had a much better chance of avoiding. Now their movement has gained the sort of political traction where they're actually impacting policy and having a tangible negative effect on trans people offline and in the wider online world, the idea of having them in a social space with me fills me with actual fucking dread. I'm no stranger to fighting these fuckers, I've counter-protested them with my friends and my comrades, met them in the street when they came to my town and said "not here or anywhere, not now or ever". I'm not coming from the perspective of someone who thinks terfs are these incomprehensible eldritch horrors that will rend me asunder without me being able to do anything about it. I'm just pissed off because I don't like having to watch out for terfs in my fucking downtime when I'm on tumblr reading about my fucking blorbos and their gay little adventures with swords and necromancy.

Drive that shit out. Stand together and don't let your friends slide down the rabbit hole. The terf ideology is melding with the far right and it's not just trans people they've got their sights on. They're after all of us, and they try to pick people off and radicalise them against the rest of us, because if we're divided we don't stand together against them and they can run right over us.

I've been seeing this shit for ten years and it isn't always the cartoonishly obvious fuckery like "hey, the trans movement is making my daughter think she's a boy, how disgusting".

It starts with trying to demonise queers for anything - for the way we dress, the way we act, the way we talk, the way we fuck, the way we love. It works its way in through feminism, by saying "how dare these gay men make a mockery of womanhood through drag and then expose our children to such misogyny", or "how can you support women selling their bodies in the sex industry by suggesting sex workers should organise and work together to keep themselves safe".

They try coming in through leftist ideology like "how dare these transsexuals complain about being misgendered at work or raise money for something as bourgeois as cosmetic surgery when there are real working-class people who can't even pay their rent". They try and launder their ideas through appeals to reactionary tendency like "aren't polyamorous people just a bit... weird? Look at all these horror stories you hear of people turning a polycule into a miniature cult, surely that can't be good!". They appeal to your inner prude, "kink is weird and violent and how can people consent to that? Hey, don't you think these queers might be a bit dangerous? Look what they get off to!".

All that shit is leading you astray. Stop caring so much what other people do. Stop inventing convoluted justifications for pouncing on your fellow queers by playing 5D chess to come up with a way to explain that actually, a man dyeing his hair pink is doing misogynist violence and therefore you have to write 10,000 words online about him. Get out there. Find the people near you who are making the world a better place, who are running food banks and soup kitchens and homeless shelters and clothes exchanges and support groups and whatever else is out there and GET INVOLVED. If you can't physically go out there, see what logistical support those organisations need that you can do from home. Fuck, knit hats to keep people warm. Just do something.

It'll feel weird. You'll see some shit that'll absolutely smash your beliefs about how everyone outside of your little bubble is evil. Some 75 year old boomer will say the most radical shit you've ever heard about solidarity between oppressed people. The crustiest middle-aged cishet punk dude you'll ever meet will go on a drunken rant about how cool his trans friends are and how he wishes he could help them more. You'll think you're a lesbian and then suddenly you'll kiss this dude you met at a punk show that your buddies from the food bank took you to, because you liked the look in his eyes when the band played a song about queer joy and resistance and tearing down borders. Weird shit will happen to you and it'll be great.

This was about the locked tomb fandom at first I promise. It's turned into the post I always end up making on every social media platform I end up on, which is "I'm getting too Online because of this platform and I'm not gonna be around as much, you should try that maybe"

[sculptural-renaissance]

SGU Week Day 2 (still????): Favorite Character (another one????)

I already stayed up all night writing a damn novel about why I'm obsessed with a character that only showed up in 4 episodes, but while Amanda is definitely Best Girl, I'd be remiss in leaving out Best Boy.

Master Sergeant Ronald Greer~

I really wasn't sure what to think of Greer at first. He seemed like kind of a wild card, eager to shoot first and ask questions later, but also super wholesome and selfless, always putting others first. Towards the end of the series, he had secured his place in my heart as Best Boy (sorry Eli).

Here are some of my favorite memes I've made starring Greer.

This is the second SGU meme I ever made, a Rick and Morty mashup. I thought Greer and Krombopulos Michael were similar, in that they're both surprisingly wholesome despite their chosen professions.

Given Greer's expert marksmanship and his eagerness to show it off, I was reminded of this scene from My Cousin Vinny, featuring Vanessa delivering the deer monologue.

I was 100% on board with Dale x Lisa until Ronald Greer entered the chat. They are so precious together. It's so rare that I like canon ships because they always feel so forced, but SGU is so good that I can't think of a canon ship I actually dislike. The characters are so fleshed out, even the obvious "designated love interests," that they feel like people who came together naturally instead of being forced together by writers who want pretty people to suck face for ratings.

Anyway!!! Apparently Lisa said her favorite food was chicken parmesan, but in The Hunt, she declares herself a vegetarian. She's not a biologist, so I guess we can give her a pass.

Speaking of meat... Anyway, I'd love to know how the conversation that led Rush to assert that there's no beef jerky in space started.

This is an excerpt from a longer comic, but I think it can stand alone. Most of my content takes place after the show's end, but this one takes place between Hope and Seizure (or idk, maybe post-stasis after Waifu_01.exe and Waifu_02.exe are jailbroken [jailbreaked???], and Greer somehow missed all of that drama before because he had actual work to do), as himbo Greer grapples with the logistics of how one might date a ghost.

Speaking of ghosts, I loved how Greer was Eli's wingman. It was so sweet, and I loved seeing their friendship.

Also my thought is that, due to its numerous cutaways, Eli shows Ginn Family Guy to teach her about earth culture. It's actually not a terrible idea, except that it's definitely a terrible idea.

I'm gonna post the context for this on my Day 3 post. For now, POV you are Lisa Park and your himbo boyfriend is really excited about nonsense 💖💚

[make-me-imagine]

I found out about something bad my boss has been doing to me and my coworkers. Which is making me real upset because I genuinely like my boss, and I can't believe she would do something so awful. But a couple people have quit over it with several months in-between, so it seems extremely unlikely that it's a false alarm. So I was prepared to quit today, but she said she was giving me a raise, and there's not many people left where I work so she would like me to train some new hires. And my parents say that I shouldn't quit immediately.

But I don't feel comfortable there anymore, and I'm trying to start some college stuff, and I don't want to deal with the added work pressure.

But I also don't want to be the reason this small business can't stay open (I know logistically that it wouldn't be my fault, but I'm the type of person who feels that if u can prevent something I should). But my favorite coworker has her last day tomorrow, and she thinks I should leave.

I just I don't know what to do. And the whole thing is making me so anxious. Luckily I don't work for a couple days, but when I do go back it's going to be to the extremely reduced staff, and I don't know if I can deal with that.

I feel like I should quit. And writing all this down is showing me I should quit. I just feel really bad doing it, and I don't know what my boss and manager are going to say. Supposedly they get mean when someone puts in their 2 weeks. And I just don't know if I can deal with that at the moment.

Sorry I know this was really long, and probably not what you signed up for, but thanks for listening to me ❤️ I hope things get better for you too.

I am sorry for the delayed response to this.

I can see how extremely stressing that is, and it sucks that you are dealing with it.

I understand guilt, as I feel guilty about everything even remotely selfish that I do. But in the long run, you need to think about yourself and your health, physical, mental, emotional, all of it.

You need to listen to your gut. If you think you should quit, quit. If other people that have been working their too think you should quit I would take their word over your bosses.

You may feel guilty about it, but if you force yourself to stay because of that guilt, forcing yourself to take on that added pressure and responsibility, you will only be hurting yourself.

It seems to me (and obviously I don't know everything that is going on, so this is from an outsiders perspective) if they get angry and mean when someone quits, it is because they are failing to convince those people to stay because of whatever bad thing it is they are doing. They are failing to guilt people into staying and it's making them angry.

If they offered a raise after you told them you were thinking of quitting, or if they had an idea that you might be quitting, it seems like they are buttering you up to convince you to say and that is manipulative in itself.

If they are doing something to harm their employees in any way, and their business fails because of it, it is not your fault in any way, shape or form, it is their failing, not yours.

If you want your focus to be on college, I support that, it's smart. You can always keep your eyes open for new places to work that would hopefully treat you better. If you want to delay quitting, maybe to help train the new hires, or earn some of that "raise" you could look into other jobs that might be less stressful, and quit once you find something else. But you would have to deal with that stressful additional workload. And college takes a lot of focus, so staying to work at a place that is causing you stress will not help.

It is entirely your decision, and this is all just my opinion as I am not living this, you are. But I want you to think of yourself first.

xx

[woodsdyke]

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to become a sociologist? any do's and dont's?

ok hi anon i had to let this marinate for a bit before i answered it

anyway good question! and i'm not necessarily the best person to answer it because i currently don't directly work in sociology, but i'll give it a shot

first some of the logistics/career stuff:

-if a program doesn't sit right with you, and you have the option, just get out of there. no point in getting a sociology degree from a school that can't follow the program's own tenets (i.e. for my BS, i encountered soooo much unchallenged ableism. i was in psychology). also if the program is all white guy profs, get out of there

-if you already have an associates/bachelors degree and want to go to grad school, it's okay if it's not in sociology. my BS is in psychology with a bunch of biology/chemistry coursework i did before changing my major. some smaller universities don't even have sociology undergraduate programs. a lot of subjects that aren't sociology are still very closely related and won't strike any points against you when trying to get into grad school

-on that note, people will tell you the likelihood of getting a tenure-track professorship in sociology is like 1%. don't be demoralized. 1% isn't 0%. go get that shit

-know that the likelihood of you working specifically as A Sociologist isn't really high (not saying you can't write/etc on the side, writing a book is something i keep considering). other than professor/instructor positions, there aren't a lot of places hiring specifically sociology-related roles. my specialty is rural and queer studies, but i've worked in clinical research, community violence and suicide prevention, adolescent development, substance use disorder. which all made good use of my skills but weren't really related to my specific focus. would i like to get something specific to my degree specialization? sure! but who knows when that may happen

-sociology is useful in a TON of different fields. you can still use your skills/interests even if you're not in a specific sociologist role. any social science, marketing, education, medicine, public health, policy, etc. are all places that want that cool shit you're bringing to the table and you'll probably enjoy it too (idk about marketing. it seems soul-crushing. but maybe not for you)

-if you really want to specifically Do Sociology you're probably gonna want to get a doctorate. i have an MA, which allows me to be the sociology guy on my projects, but i still work within other fields (public health most recently)

-make sure you have a good background in analysis. you don't have to be good at quant or qual (people will tell you otherwise but i suck at quant and i'm here, so), but you want to be good at one of them. you are going to find more positions, and make more money, if you're good at quant (including SAS/R coding and probably python). it's the reality of math. but i think quant sucks and i'm a qual specialist, so follows your dreams

-if you're in/want to be in research: understand your jobs may not be permanent. i'm speaking from experience as someone who just got laid off. if you're working for an academic institution with grant-funded research, funding can run out! contracts will fall through! if you're looking to stay at one job for years and years, not sure if academic research is the place to be

now my own little tips about The Vibes:

-you will be weird at parties. sociology is basically going uh oh! this social phenomena is bad! we should fix it. but how ? and god descends and hands you a note card that just says ?????? on it. you will have knowledge of things that are bad. they'll be interesting! but also it can get kind of depressing at times. but so can all of existing, so

-you gotta like books. or at least just learning rly specific shit. if you're specifically wanting to go into sociology you probably know that, but i did read 300+ pages of articles and 14 books for my MA thesis. on purpose. over about 4 months

-people in more "hard science" heavy jobs will act like you're amazing for knowing things like what medical racism is. this will feel jarring and like you are being tricked. you're not, people just don't know things. just go with it

i know this is A LOT and i'm also early (ish) career and only MA level, but i hope at least something could be helpful!

-sociology is a really gay field. the queer autistics love that shit, most of my grad cohort was queer and weird and we spent 30 minutes deciding the coolest way to dispose of our own corpses when we died

[dawnowar]

Feeling good

I don't know if I'll remember to do it, but I have found out today that theres a way to cross post from instagram that doesnt take too many more clicks than not cross-posting so I'm gonna try and keep my tumblr up. From the day I first found tumblr in the very beginning, I have always preferred this as a format than any other way to post my stuff online.

No one looks at it but not only is that fine, it keeps me very unguarded here since I don't have to worry about which assholes on my friends list are gonna argue about things I say here or who is going to see my opinion about them or whatever so I've been using it as a place to vent.

Anyway I just got back from my 2nd workout of 2024 and I'm just logging here that my fitness level is much higher than it usually is when I start my January diet. Probably because I just did 17 classes in like 21 days to get my 2023 shirt before the end of the year.

It's good. I'm also a lot flabbier than i usually am this time of year but i feel like its very realistic to think that by Valentines Day i'll be considerably less flabby.

I always do January diet and exercise till Valentines day when i begin celebrating my birthday for way too long. Till im sick of it and then i go back to being normal, meaning some balance of eating and exercising till the holidays when it all goes out the window.

I got sick back in October and then again and again and again 5x till i just gave up and was like ill go back on a diet in Jan. Theres no way to be sick and on a diet. anyway i've been eating whatever for so long im flabby as i was before i got serious and took it off last summer so I gotta do it again. Which sucks but I also feel like I know how and I'll do it.

So i just cross-posted most of 2023 over here and had to take the time to look at everything i did all year.

It's a scrapbook really. I think tumblr started out with that premise. That you should use it as your scrapbook. Ive always seen it that way. its just a public-facing scrapbook.

Only things I really left out were some failed relationships. I started or tried to start or meant to start and i think ultimately all of them, even though they were all completely different, failed because I just wanted to do my own thing. I think I've been on my own a long time, and as much as I'd like someone to fall in love with and live happily ever after with, i also have my own agenda and its hard, after so many years to coordinate time and spending money for other people.

And again, I spent all this time on diet and exercise only to have to do it over again now... but romantic dates = eating for some reason and I'm so stressed out spending time and money on meals. I like company but I need to save money and exercise and this is my priority now.

I do girly exercise so its not like i can exercise with a date and its too damn cold to go for walks or whatever. I hate gyms and i dont think theyre a good place to get to know each other anyway.

I just logistically can't make it work.

Oh im sure there are other reasons I'm not trying to publish that things didnt work out with any of these guys but it really is just so much easier and less stressful to not try to date and to eat right and exercise.

So thats what ive been doing and thats what i intend to do for January and into the first two weeks of February and then i guess maybe ill reevaluate.

[raphotograph33]

5 Industries Using Drone Photography To Benefit Their Business

Movies, businesses, law, institutions, construction, and government, you name it, and a drone has it. This is how the use of drones has become frequent. Even if not for business motives, social media is another hotspot to see the versatile use of drones. Making it the most popular yet common device to enhance photography and its methods used by famous architectural photographers.

What Exactly Is Drone Photography?

Drone photography, also named aerial photography, takes pictures and videos from aircraft and, of course, drones. The first aerial picture was taken in 1958, mentioning the history of aerial photography. With this, the increasing number of aerial photographers was in the headlines. Furthermore, the first drone was invented in early 1935. 

Have you ever felt the need to see nature from 60 ft? Well, you can't go to the height of 60 ft but can experience it from the ground. Yes, it's the drone we are talking about! However, this experience can only be experienced by the best architectural photographer or aerial photographer.

Considering the need and perspective, various industries are taking aerial photography into account. Some businesses might not get the result they seek from drones. But these are some specific industries that get the best benefits from aerial photography. 

5 Industries Taking The Benefits Of Drone Photography To Its Fullest:- 

Energy And Resource Management

Agriculture

Infrastructure And Construction

Real Estate 

Shipping And Logistics

Energy And Resource Management

One of the most crucial jobs of all time is preserving nature and its resources. Drones have made this job so fascinating for people by helping in preserving the generation of the environment.

You might wonder what sense this holds. But let me tell you, with the help of drones, experts and professionals can travel to safe places to take surveys.

Capturing data on deadly locations, documenting climate changes, and many other important utilization of drones are undertaken to maintain stable communities and environments. 

Agriculture

The use of drones in agriculture is the best way you can protect crops and the field by providing real pictures and videos of the area to give you information if there's any harm, fire, or unforeseen situation that needs to be taken care of. What's better is you don't have to spend hours and days investigating harms in the crops; with aerial photography, you can get this done in minimal time with good quality images. 

Infrastructure And Construction

Even after great technologies and digitalization, the construction industry is still behind in adopting new technologies in their work. Additionally, those who have already taken technology into action to take construction seriously have seen vast growth and efficiency. 

Infrastructure is another excellent industry to see the use of drones. Surveys on large-scale plots and open areas are costly and time-consuming. Moreover, complex projects and structures are done efficiently by drones. 

Real Estate 

Just imagine; you have a real estate business, and all your properties are top-class, but when it comes to pictures and house tours, your photography sucks. Don't worry; just get a professional interior design photographer to have your work done. 

Shipping And Logistics

Many logistics stakeholders are switching to drone technology to address inefficiencies in last-mile logistics because it can reduce operational costs, overcome traffic bottlenecks, and reduce vehicular emissions while satisfying customers' appetites for on-demand and instant delivery.

On A Final Note

Well, it's not like these above five industries are the only ones who got the attention of drones in their businesses. Multiple industries and institutions use drones for photography and videography to enhance their businesses. You also might be wondering how much drone photography costs. But you can trust me on this that this is something you don't have to worry about. 

I know you want an aerial photographer, you know you want an aerial photographer, so why wait? 

With my passion and love for photography, I have been a professional interior design photographer and aerial photographer for a long time. All those years of experience made me get the most profound hold of various industries and aerial photography to work in them. 

If you really want to know about me and are looking forward to contacting me, my website is where you can get a hold of me.

[alarajrogers]

So here's my problem with this framing.

We are on a planet that is 75% water. Water comes down from the sky over most of the planet. All water used eventually comes back down from the sky. There is no water shortage.

What there are, are:

Water distribution problems. It's costly to get water out from the coast to the desert.

Issues with desalinization and purification. Most of the water on the planet isn't drinkable. We need to treat it to make it drinkable.

Capitalism making the problem obscenely worse. Between rapacious corporations handling privatized water systems in the Global South, essentially stealing money from impoverished people for a resource that should be damn close to free, and corporations in the US just stealing local reservoirs to feed the bottled water industry, capitalism is essentially working very hard to create water scarcity so they can make bucks over a resource that should be very, very cheap.

What we need are things like salt water aquifers that can transport seawater for cooling things, where the water is then dumped into massive stills while it's still very hot, allowing it to be desalinated easily. Problem is, data centers don't sell bottled water, and neither data centers nor water bottling companies want to build aquifers, and the government is not taxing corporate use of water nearly enough to allow big public works projects to do this.

We could be using salt water for cooling applications, and then using the heat the water absorbed to distill the water, resulting in pure water that can be bottled, and sea salt that can be sold. There is no reason we should be using the fresh water people need to drink for cooling applications, except the expense of getting the salt water to the data centers. The problem isn't the revolutionary new technology. The problem is the logistics of moving water that people don't need for drinking. And, because capitalists are short sighted shitheads, the inevitable problem of "they dumped the salt water rather than distilling it because they're shitheads and they're not in the water selling business."

I realize that it is not particularly easy to move water away from the sea and that is why it hasn't been done, but jesus, we have massive oil pipelines going all over the place. We could have pipelines that transport salt water to giant distilleries in the desert, which then produce fresh water to fill town reservoirs, and sea salt to sell off to the people who sell sea salt. We could use solar energy to heat the water for distilling, and use the steam generated to create enough electricity to power the pipelines.

I'm not enough of an expert on any of these technologies that I personally could design this system, but a species that can dig oil out of the ground and then transport it thousands of miles (against the will of everyone anywhere near the pipeline) can transport fucking salt water! Which our planet has no shortage of whatsoever! Proper early filtration could even make sure that fish don't get sucked in and make the whole damn thing relatively environmental-neutral. (Relatively. A break in a salt water pipeline is not as bad as one in an oil pipeline, but its still pretty bad. That much salt in your water table wouldnt be good for living things. But, counterpoint, most deserts are actually only a mountain range away from ocean, and we know how to make pipelines run through mountain ranges, and if salt water dumps all over the desert by accident, there's a lot less harm done than if it dumps all over green fertile farms.)

Given that I am not, you know, a world shaking genius -- I mean, I'm pretty smart, but I very much doubt I'm in like the 98th percentile for the planet -- I suspect the only reason this hasn't been done is that it wouldn't be profitable. It could pay for itself, I feel, but it wouldn't bring in oodles of moolah. And this is no longer a country that invests in public works. So if a corporation can't make tons of money off it and the government doesn't want to spend to build it, we all suffer, and big corporations take our water and do shit with it.

But every time I hear about water shortages I want to scream. How can there be water shortages on a planet mostly made of water? It's because we're collectively idiots who refuse to invest in redistributing it properly.

Popular large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard are energy intensive, requiring massive server farms to provide enough data to train the powerful programs. Cooling those same data centers also makes the AI chatbots incredibly thirsty. New research suggests training for GPT-3 alone consumed 185,000 gallons (700,000 liters) of water. An average user’s conversational exchange with ChatGPT basically amounts to dumping a large bottle of fresh water out on the ground, according to the new study. Given the chatbot’s unprecedented popularity, researchers fear all those spilled bottles could take a troubling toll on water supplies, especially amid historic droughts and looming environmental uncertainty in the US.

[…]

Water consumption issues aren’t limited to OpenAI or AI models. In 2019, Google requested more than 2.3 billion gallons of water for data centers in just three states. The company currently has 14 data centers spread out across North America which it uses to power Google Search, its suite of workplace products, and more recently, its LaMDa and Bard large language models. LaMDA alone, according to the recent research paper, could require millions of liters of water to train, larger than GPT-3 because several of Google’s thirsty data centers are housed in hot states like Texas; researchers issued a caveat with this estimation, though, calling it an “ approximate reference point.”

Aside from water, new LLMs similarly require a staggering amount of electricity. A Stanford AI report released last week looking at differences in energy consumption among four prominent AI models, estimating OpenAI’s GPT-3 released 502 metric tons of carbon during its training. Overall, the energy needed to train GPT-3 could power an average American’s home for hundreds of years.

[bigskydreaming]

What are your takes or opinions on Mr. Haley? He knew abou the court of owls didn't he? I honestly can't remember

He did. I know a lot of people don’t like that aspect of the Court of Owls retcon because they prefer Dick to still have that kindly uncle/grandfather kind of figure from his childhood to remain untarnished by that association. But its better than it like, having been his parents in the know, and I do feel like it just wouldn’t work narratively to have the Court have this association with the circus stretching back several generations into Dick’s family, without ANYONE from Dick’s childhood having any idea. Not only does it strain suspension of disbelief purely on a logistical front, it kinda....wastes the narrative opportunity of a personal betrayal/revision of a character’s understanding of their own history, that’s kinda....the POINT of doing a story like that in the first place.

So I’m fine with Mr. Haley having known and being a reluctant/intimidated functionary of the Court who knew what Dick’s fate was intended to be, because frankly, someone had to be and it might as well be him. He’s more of a cipher/plot vehicle than a character most of the time anyway.....the point of him is the impact/role he has in Dick’s life, and again, when personal betrayal is the point of the story, like....someone’s gotta take the fall.

But then, I know a lot of people don’t like the Court of Owls retcon in the first place, because of the way it makes it Dick’s destiny to always become embroiled in violence or the superhero/villain fight one way or another. That it further angsts up his backstory, etc, etc.

First off, my opinion on that last part will always be: bah humbug. Dick’s backstory is the tragic loss of his parents and everything familiar to him. Its already angsty as fuck, and if you think that adding the Court of Owls makes it extensively MORE angsty, its likely you weren’t giving his original trauma/angst as much deference as it was due all on its own, and unconsciously or not, you’re still just leaning into the idea of Trauma Olympics in general, the idea that there even CAN be rankings to trauma on this scale, or at least, that there’s any practical reason for TRYING to rank things in that matter.

So that, much as with the juvie origin, I say is irrelevant.

Now in terms of how it makes Dick’s future ‘destined’ to be painful even without the loss of his parents, if the night of their murder hadn’t happened......I mean, I can kinda understand that a little more, but I don’t really agree with that notion because like.....the point is, in everything other than random AUs.....Dick’s parents DID die that night. We already KNOW his fate. The POINT of his character is that happened, and this is how it shaped him.....so the fact that he was already ‘destined’ for more hardship and tragedy isn’t really a deterrent to adding this retcon because.....he already ended up with more hardship and tragedy anyway, so ‘avoiding’ taking an alternate route to hardship and tragedy doesn’t really....actually avoid anything or add or keep anything in Dick’s premise or narrative.

But then there’s the argument that it diminishes the power of Dick’s choice to be a superhero, if he was always going to be destined to end up in this conflict one way or another....that he’s not really an everyman who voluntarily takes up the fight if the fight was always inevitable for him. That’s a bit more of a compelling argument for me, since y’know I’m always about the power of choice and yada yada yada.

But the sticking point here is that.....Dick’s archetype and narrative have NEVER been him as an everyman who could choose an ordinary life for himself but instead is a hero. Like, to me that’s just a very superficial reading of the fact that he’s not actually superhuman. But in no other way has Dick ever been an everyman. Pre-his parents’ murder he was a professional acrobat and showman from early childhood, of international renown. Post-his parents’ murder he was raised by a bona fide superhero who moonlights as a ditzy billionaire playboy by day.

Nothing about Dick Grayson’s skills or life was EVER that of an ‘everyman.’

Additionally, I think this notion also only comes from comparing him directly to Bruce, and focusing on the similarities in their backstories and the common bond of their parents’ murders, and the fact that he’s more of an everyman in comparison to Bruce because of how Bruce sticks out as a billionaire from birth, accomplished at everything, a master of all trades by the time we ever really MEET Bruce on the page, with his own origins largely told in flashbacks and backstory.

But, this is also why personally, I focus on the differences in their backstories....on using that shared experience they have as the BASIS for their relationship, like the reason Bruce sees him as especially standing out as a victim he has empathy for given that it brings to mind his own past trauma and hurt......but not like....using it to juxtapose Dick and Bruce directly, as I think that really doesn’t work.

Because Dick’s archetype, all of his narratives, IMO, are those of the fish out of water.

The culture clash, I’ve always maintained, is every bit as much a trauma as his parents’ murder, because it was like living one life until he’s eight or ten or whatever, and then just being told all in one day, or one week, hey, all of that is over now. This is your new life, even if it has NOTHING in common with your old one, and you just have to suck it up and make your peace with the fact that everything you knew is gone and you have to start over from scratch. New city, new routines, new family, new future, new everything. Even how you act around other people and expect or take as a given they’ll act with you is going to be different from now on.

None of that is anything that Bruce can relate to, because its not Bruce’s archetype. Those aren’t his narratives. And I think there’s a tendency to focus overmuch on Dick and Bruce’s similarities at the expense of acknowledging that Dick Grayson is no more a knock-off of Bruce Wayne than Robin is a derivative of Batman. Robin’s Batman’s junior partner or protege or sidekick or whatever you want to call it....but Robin has never stood in anyone’s mind as “Batman-lite” because he’s ENTIRELY different from Batman even just on a CONCEPTUAL level. They’re linked, but they’re not the same. Robin follows where Batman leads, but Robin does not derive from Batman directly.

Same with Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne. They’re similar in places, they’re linked by shared experiences and stories, but Dick’s no more Bruce-lite than he is as Robin. And I think focusing on him in terms of who his character is SEPARATE from Bruce, like....goes a long way towards making him distinct in his own right, even when standing right next to Bruce.

So I’ve always felt that whether in canon or fanfics, the key to developing Dick as his own character in his own right, not dependent or derivative of anyone else, is to determine what his core archetype is regardless of all else around him, and lean into THAT.

And for me, that archetype is the fish out of water, so my inclination is always going to LEAN INTO the fact that like....the point of his character, his entire character premise, is and always was going to be that of the guy who was plucked from one life and dropped into another entirely, and had to find a way to adapt to that, survive and even learn to thrive despite all the obstacles this presented, and the inherent tragedy of him having to do it at all.

So that means acknowledging the culture clash, building on it, emphasizing the class distinctions between his origin and Bruce’s, just focusing on the fact that he was NEVER Bruce-lite....because he always arrived on the scene, came into the picture, with his own entirely separate and distinct backstory, origin, and beginnings, just with his narrative journey then merging with Bruce’s at that point of OVERLAP, that shared experience where they both lost their parents in similar ways.

So coming at the character from that direction - the Court of Owls retcon doesn’t really change any of that for me at all. Because when the premise of Dick’s character is that he had to learn how to survive and overcome being forced into situations and a life that he wasn’t prepared for and didn’t even want in the first place.....well, then, the parallel path of him being taken from the circus by the Court of Owls instead, again....doesn’t actually force anything new on his character or take anything away from his character. It just....presents an alternative course for the same essential narrative journey.

So despite me not being a fan of Talon fics because of all the reasons I’ve mentioned before (plus the fact that it bothers me that so many people feel a need to make Dick literally superhuman but in no other way operating on a different level from his family’s general capabilities when.....his character has never required being superhuman to do anything on that level before, HMM. Or if people do focus on making him different, its usually just in terms of showcasing his healing, which...kinda tends to end up turning him into a human pincushion every other scene, with an additional decrease to how much other characters even notice this or wonder if he’s hurting because oh well, he’ll be fine again in a paragraph. Which again I say, I Object)....despite that, lol, I have no problem with the Court of Owls retcon even though it nominally takes away some of Dick’s choices to say that he never really had a choice in getting involved in these larger than life conflicts.

*Shrugs* Because it only does that in theory. In practice, we’re all reading the adventures of Dick Grayson as Robin and Nightwing and Batman. Not the daily life of Dick Grayson, adult circus acrobat with a nice, happy life.

Instead, the Court of Owls retcon IMO actually just adds directly to Dick’s premise as I see it....both with the fish out of water archetype AND as the fact that like....his core struggle throughout all of his stories is that he’s the guy determined to chart his own destiny no matter how much circumstances or society or even his own loved ones try to force him down specific paths or pigeon hole him in specific boxes. Limit him or take away his options or force him to act or make choices from a place of having less avenues he can go.

Like, that’s who he is to me, so the Court and his ‘destiny’ as the Gray Son just.....if anything, bring that into even sharper focus.

If anything, my biggest issue with the Court of Owls retcon is that it didn’t go FAR enough.

It was basically the first major story of the Batfamily in the New 52, when we were introduced to these familiar characters in different ways, so I would have taken that and run with it, and in the process opened up a LOT more doors.

What I mean is....instead of this having been a revelation to Dick ALONGSIDE the rest of his family and readers when it occurred in the present day....I would have had the present day storyline reveal this as the secret history of Batman and Robin, and build on the idea that the Court had already made a move to claim Dick as the Gray Son right after or soon after his parents’ death, and Bruce had rescued him/defeated them, and then they’d kinda just buried this ever since.

First off....it cleans things up logistically. Having them seize upon an already existing tragedy and capitalize it, either by taking him directly then or maybe being the cause of him going to juvie/a bad foster home and using that to present themselves as his saviors when they introduce themselves to him, or anything similar to that.....its always going to make a lot more sense than the idea of a secret society pulling the strings of the city like....having no option to prevent an infamously irresponsible young bachelor from taking in this traumatized boy, and then just waiting a decade or more while their target becomes more and more ingrained in the public eye and consciousness before trying to....disappear him. Umm. No. Make it make sense.

Secondly, it goes a long way towards addressing the problems in child superheroes/sidekicks at all....which is definitely something DC already had on the brain when they rebooted their universe. Given that they....tried to claim Dick was like sixteen when he met Bruce, and that the other Robins since then all came and went in a span of like, a year each. Endless sigh of endlessness. Hey, DC, if your big priority is keeping the ages of your more famous characters down, is the best move condensing the timeline and simultaneously aging UP many of those same characters before they even debut? Umm. No. Make it make sense.

However. Keep Dick the same age he was when he and Bruce met pre-boot (which, lbr, most fics and even canon stories ended up doing anyway).....and suddenly, you get a lot more options. 

Because say you’re Bruce Wayne, and you just took down the Gotham chapter of this globe-spanning shadow organization and rescued a traumatized boy you empathize and relate to, who had been taken by this organization with the specific intention of raising him up to be a merciless killing machine they then made an immortal, obedient weapon out of. And you know that other chapters of this organization are still out there, they still want this kid because they literally believe they own him and his destiny, and no other foster home or group home or placement is ever going to be able to understand what this kid has already been through and might have to face again if they ever try and take him again? 

And on top of that, this kid has already like...imprinted on you from saving him from this fate, trusts you despite having major and understandable trust issues up the wazoo now, and probably will NEVER open up to anyone the way he might to you? And oh yeah, he also wants to learn to do all the stuff you can do so he, like you, can MAKE something of his tragedy, find a way to give it reason or purpose he can use to hopefully move on someday, he wants to defy the people who viewed him as nothing more than an inevitable killer by learning how to be a protector and defender instead, by CHOICE?

What do you do in THAT case?

You take that kid in. You train him, teach him everything he needs to know to be able to defeat them the way you defeated them, if they come back for him in the future. You keep him by your side, not to control him, but to protect him, or at least make him feel that he’s protected, that he has someone who WANTS to protect him, be there for him, WITH him, that despite having his own life, wants to be just one grapple swing away and the first person able to do something about it if the threat always lurking just around the corner someday reappears. 

You introduce him to the others in the hero community, maybe even build connections where you previously stayed aloof, so that he’s PART of something, feels connected to something other than the fate tied to him by a bloodline he can’t shake or do anything about, that he has family and friends that aren’t just his much hated Great-Grandpa Billy Cobb Thornton. You make sure he has people who will be there for him even if you can’t be someday, if that Court tries to take him again, you won’t be the only cavalry riding to his rescue.

You probably don’t advertise any of this, at least not beyond a few trusted friends like Diana and Clark. Even as others start to emulate you, training proteges of their own and assuming they know your reasons, you still respond to people criticizing your debut of a young, child partner, no matter his skill level, by brusquely telling them its none of their business. Because there’s really no other way to justify it without telling the truth, and the truth is not something you want to hide not just to keep secrets or because you don’t trust others, but purely for HIS sake. You take it and lock it away and bury it as deeply as you can for no other reason than because it HURTS him. Because the truth is PAINFUL. 

Its inherently connected to a time and a space and a part of Dick’s personal history that will never be anything other than a trauma whose shadow he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to break free of no matter what you do. But at least what you can do is minimize the number of times and places and people which require he face it all over again. That bring it all bubbling back up to the surface to confront and shove back down each and every time someone might feel like reminding him his own ancestor wanted nothing more for him than to be someone else’s obedient weapon, so why should they care anymore than that about his opinion, or plans, or viewpoint. You bury this secret not because its shameful, but because you know people will try and use it to shame him anyway, and you can’t banish the shadows looming in his past, but you can help him stand in a spotlight of his own choosing, where people can’t easily see those shadows amid the glare of his own highlighted role and mantle and self.

And its not always easy, raising this kid, because you WANT that blight on his personal history to be gone, for HIS sake, so you focus maybe more than you should on the stuff you CAN relate to, even though its not always the reason for his latest nightmare. And sometimes he’s bound to resent that, he’s going to want to yell because you’re saying you understand and you honestly don’t, you truly never will, and you’re going to fight about that and its going to hurt but its not because there’s anything wrong with either of you, or either of you are bad people.

And you’re bound to be overprotective, almost paranoid about his safety, always looking for the monster lurking in the dark for him, because that monster is REAL, you’ve already met it, you know its name, and its not paranoia when you know exactly what it is you’re afraid of and why. And he’s going to bristle at this, and its going to chafe, because you taught him well, you prepared him just as well as you prepared yourself, and he’s as ready as he’ll ever be to face that monster when it comes back, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less afraid of what that will do to him no matter how ready he is, not when you were the one to see what it did to him, what it wanted to do to him, that first time. 

And you’ll be so preoccupied focusing on the monster, the Big Threat, the DANGER, that you forget sometimes about the other ways you and he are different. About all the other things he’s lost or had taken from him and that the monster isn’t the only one whose ever tried to put him in a box or confine him to the limits of someone else’s choices. So sometimes you fuck up, you think he’s being unreasonable or reckless when really he’s just trying to say its worth it to risk it all sometimes just to have a CHOICE, because the very act of having that choice, even the freedom to make the WRONG choice, is so much more precious and valuable to him than will ever make sense to someone who has had so many more choices respected and allowed and allotted in life.

But as long as you remember to rein yourself in after these times, as long as you never try and shirk the burden and responsibility you willingly took on when you willingly took him in, you never forget that that was YOUR choice, and that means the onus will always be on you to stop, take a breath, and try and see things from his shoes, be the one to try and bridge the gap in your life experiences and reach across the aisle instead of impatiently waiting for him to adapt and change and stretch himself to accommodate you and the choices and life and expectations you’re used to....as long as you do that, he’ll be able to look at THAT. And see that its not because you’ve just stopped caring what he wants at some point, so he’ll forgive you even when his friends don’t understand it, can’t make sense of why he puts up with stuff they never would, because they’ve never had that monster hiding in their shadow and don’t see it in his because he’s not quite ready to point it out to them yet, draw their attention to it yet. He’s still trying to become HIMSELF clearly enough that he can face it head on and look at it and then look back at himself and see without a doubt that the two are not the same.

And when you take in more kids eventually, for other reasons that are different but no less important, there are going to be problems here too. Maybe some of them think you favor your eldest, care more about him or are more worried about him when its really just that there’s something specifically TO be worried about, to keep an eye out for and always be wary might be lurking in the dark. Maybe when the truth finally comes to light, there are hurt feelings and resentment because you’re supposed to be a family, you should have trusted them with this, and it’ll take time to impress upon them that it was never that you WEREN’T a family, never that they weren’t trusted or confided in by their brother because they didn’t matter, but rather it was just because part of this monster in his past is ALSO his family, whether he wants it to be or not, and that’s CONFUSING and its hard to face and not something he WANTS to face and so maybe it just was easier, HAPPIER, to try and pretend it wasn’t there or didn’t matter for as long as he could because deep down he always knew it’d come back and there’d be an After that he had to adapt to all over again anyway, so at least he wanted to try and make the most of the Before. And maybe that’ll be a mistake, and maybe it won’t be, but what it will be is HUMAN. RELATABLE. REAL.

And 100% not anything that anyone in this family is to blame for, or unreasonable for, or because anyone loves or cherishes anyone else more than the rest.

And bing, bang, boom, you’ve just cleaned up a WHOLE mess of junk, strengthened and clarified several core premises and characterizations and seeded entire fields of potential conflict of all types, interpersonal and story-wise and everything in between.

All with ONE. SINGLE. STORY.

And no brain cells had to be harmed in the reading of it.

But nah.

*looks at how it played out in canon*

Sure. 

That’s much better.

[tabloidtoc]

OK, May 10

You can buy a brand new copy of this issue without the mailing label for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Inside Kim Kardashian's Wild New Single Life

Page 1: Big Pic -- Jenna Dewan enjoyed a stroll around her L.A. neighborhood with 13-month-old son Callum, whom she shares with fiance Steve Kazee, in a stroller

Page 2: Contents

Page 3: Contents

Page 4: The world watched as Prince Harry came face-to-face with the royal family for the first time in over a year to say farewell to his late grandfather Prince Philip, and now that he's back home in Montecito, California, with pregnant wife Meghan Markle and their 23-month old son Archie, Harry's been reflecting on the emotional reunion and preparing for what lies ahead in the coming months -- although the trip inevitably had its share of awkward moments, he's generally happy with how it went, and things had been especially frosty between Harry and The Firm following his televised tell-all, but the main thing is they broke the ice, and he's finally communicating properly with his family again -- in fact, Harry is said to have enjoyed low-key meetings with several relatives before heading back home to the States, including his grandmother Queen Elizabeth and cousin Princess Eugenie, although he did not have a one-on-one chat with his estranged father Prince Charles and it was more of a civilized catch-up than an intense sit-down because it wasn't an appropriate time to delve into recent tensions; however, Harry did take the opportunity to reassure everyone it wasn't his intention to upset them and that he loves them all very much and they, in turn, echoed their affection for him and they mutually agreed to keep moving forward positively and constructively and there's a still a lot of unfinished business, many are hopeful that all will be resolved when Harry returns to the U.K. for a memorial honoring his late mother Princess Diana on July 1 and this could be Harry's last chance to sit down with his family and properly repair things and Harry and Prince William have both agreed to meet before the event and have a frank discussion about how they can do their best to fix the damage that's been done and air their grievances in a calm and pragmatic manner

Page 6: Next spring, Johnny Depp and his ex Amber Heard will head back to court in the latest installment of their ongoing legal drama, but this time, Johnny, who filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Amber following a 2018 op-ed where she detailed her experience as an alleged abuse victim, is determined to clear his name one and for all -- Johnny and his team have new and explosive testimony from two of the responding officers, plus new body cam footage, that they believe will finally turn things around in their favor and they're convinced it will show that Amber made up claims about their alleged May 2016 brawl in an attempt to ruin him and the video shows a neat apartment with nothing out of place, nothing broken or anything to suggest a knockdown fight had just occurred -- Johnny's always maintained his innocence and now he's confident this evidence will prove it and Johnny's also working on a tell-all that he intends to release as soon as he's declared innocent and the tome will vividly detail what happened on that night in 2016 and throughout their year-long marriage and Johnny feels Amber never really loved him and his friends warned him not to marry her, but he didn't listen, and he's paid a dear price for it

Page 7: A fateful chapter from Ashton Kutcher's past could be coming back to haunt him as he's being urged to take part in the upcoming documentary on his late ex Brittany Murphy and it's stressing him out to no end and so far, he wants nothing to do with it -- the documentary is going to look for clues as to why it all ended like this for Brittany, and producers want Ashton to tell his side of the story and the thinking is he may have little choice but to participate because he had a front row seat to Brittany's life, and her fans want him to shed light on what really happened

* Alec Baldwin and wife Hilaria Baldwin knew that having six kids would be a challenge, but they're realizing it's even harder to find nannies who are up to the task of tending to their brood because Alec and Hilaria have some pretty high expectations for the kind of people they want to employ and what the job entails and it's been a logistical nightmare hiring and scheduling a rotating team of caretakers -- in addition to children Carmen, 7, Rafael, 5, Leonardo, 4, and Romeo, 2, the parents welcomed baby Eduardo in September and their sixth child, Lucia, via surrogate in March -- long hours and multitasking are a must given the meal prep, diaper changes and homeschooling, plus the nannies have to know how to deal with a cranky set of kids without losing their cool and Hilaria's every bit the mother hen, so she won't settle for anything less than perfection

* Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna have had it with the romance between their daughter Amelia Hamlin and Scott Disick -- Amelia recently raised eyebrows when she was spotted with bruised lips, which often occurs after lip filler injections, and Harry and Lisa drew a line in the sand and they're concerned that Scott is convincing her to mess with her appearance, especially since she's talking about boob and butt surgery to keep his eyes off other girls and ever since the couple hooked up last October, Harry and Lisa have been sitting back and hoping that Amelia would come to her senses, but it's clear she's in way too deep now, and that they need to make their feelings known, but the worry is that Amelia will be pregnant before she knows it, so Harry and Lisa are ready to take the bull by the horns before Scott ruins their daughter's life

Page 8: It's been nearly four years since Matt Lauer was fired from Today amid a sexual assault scandal, and he's still being snubbed by his old Hamptons crowd -- Matt, who retreated to his waterfront estate in the celeb enclave after a colleague accused him of assaulting her at the 2014 Olympics, has done everything he can to regain his place in the community, but he's remained persona non grata despite his best efforts; he'll turn up to fancy events and be super friendly with everyone but most people just turn their noses at him -- the disgraced ex-anchor, who hooked up with public relations exec Shamin Abas after his 2019 divorce, has been talking to friends about marrying her in a big Hamptons wedding, but it's hard to imagine there'd be much of a turnout and people have had ample time to put out the welcome mat, but it seems like they've shut their doors on Matt for good

* Former Playboy Bunny Kendra Wilkinson has gone from living the high life to pounding the pavement to earn a paycheck, and she's missing the glam old days -- Kendra, who enjoyed a pampered existence as Hugh Hefner's girlfriend and Girls Next Door star, has had to bring home the bacon in the wake of her 2018 divorce from Hank Baskett to help provide for their two children, Hank, 11, and Alijah, 6, and being a single mom is a lot harder than she thought it would be and she currently resides in a humble Calabasas rental and recently snagged a job as a realtor and was hired by Kyle Richards' husband Mauricio Umansky and she's working long hours and weekends, and she looks pretty burnt out and Kendra tries not to complain and is sucking it up as best she can, but she can't help but think about the times when she didn't have to worry about bills and rent and could sleep in as long as she wanted

* He was once Hollywood's biggest bon vivant, but Jack Nicholson has become a total hermit, and friends are concerned that he's harder to get a hold of than ever and Jack's shut himself away in his hilltop home on Mulholland Drive, and everyone is worried about his state of mind -- the actor, who was last seen in public looking disheveled at a January 2020 Lakers game, says he just wants to spend his retirement in peace and quiet, but his loved ones wish he'd make himself a little more accessible -- Jack's admitted that he yearns for one last romance, but how can that happen when he's hiding at home? Jack turned 84 in April, and it's as if he's resigned to spending the rest of his life alone and it's so sad, but it seems there's nothing anyone can do for him

Page 10: Red Hot on the Red Carpet -- stars wow in sexy shoulder-baring dresses -- Ella Balinska, Renee Zellweger, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

Page 11: Adrienne Warren, Martha Hunt

Page 12: Who Wore It Better? Rainey Qualley vs. Celine Dion in Chanel, Melissa Wood-Tepperberg vs. Idina Menzel in Alice + Olivia

Page 13: Ellie Goulding vs. Charli XCX in Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood

Page 14: News in Photos -- Gavin Rossdale took his beloved dog Chewy with him to tennis practice in the park in L.A.

Page 15: Jeff Goldblum stopped at celeb hotspot Craig's for dinner with wife Emilie Livingston and their kids Charlie and River in West Hollywood, newly single Real Housewives of Orange County star Braunwyn Windham-Burke hit the beach in Miami, Natasha Lyonne continued filming her series Russian Doll in NYC

Page 16: Amber Rose enjoyed lunch with her son Sebastian whom she shares with Wiz Khalifa in L.A.

Page 17: Anchor Robin Roberts filled viewers in on current events during Good Morning America in NYC, Kristen Taekman got all gussied up at her home in NYC, Howie Mandel showed up to the America's Got Talent set in surfing gear in Pasadena

Page 19: Bling Empire's Cherie Chan and fiance Jessey Lee grabbed a bite with their daughter Jadore, pro wrestler Ariane Andrew (a.k.a. Cameron) fueled up with a healthy sip

Page 20: Wells Adams stocked up on some essentials at the grocery store in L.A., Rachel Brosnahan protected herself with an umbrella while filming The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in NYC

Page 21: Jon Hamm and his new rescue dog Splash get some fresh air in L.A., Whitney Port in a beige sweater dress and matching boots while recording her podcast in NYC

Page 22: Selling Sunset's Christine Quinn brightened things up in designer duds while walking her dogs in L.A., Monique Green attended the drive-in premiere of her new series Big Shot in L.A.

Page 23: Irina Shayk and her daughter Lea De Seine walked hand in hand around NYC, friendly exes Sara Gilbert and Linda Perry take a stroll in L.A., Law and Order: SVU stars Mariska Hargitay and Ice-T snapped a photo together in between takes

Page 26: Inside My Home -- Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's designer digs

Page 28: Home Town stars Ben and Erin Napier recently announced they're getting ready to welcome their second child, a girl, and the famously private pair, who chose to keep the news a secret to avoid any extra unwanted attention or stress, could not be more excited -- this baby is a miracle because Erin was told years ago that pregnancy would be unlikely due to a past health issue and when their first daughter Helen arrived, they were overjoyed, and they never imagined they'd be blessed with a second -- with Erin's due date just around the corner, she and Ben are busy prepping Helen to become a big sis and they have no doubt she'll be wonderful because she's very warm and empathetic toward others and she loves to hug so the baby will be extremely loved -- after the newborn's arrival, the busy HGTV stars will take some much-needed time off and they're a team, and Ben plans to be there to support Erin and make sure she gets her needed rest, but they both love what they do, so it won't be long before they're back in front of the cameras -- while baby No. 3 chatter has already begun, the college sweethearts aren't getting ahead of themselves and Ben and Erin always dreamed of having a big family, and if they can, there will be more children, but if it doesn't happen, then they will be quite content as a foursome

Page 29: Kacey Musgraves is head over heels for her new boyfriend Gerald Onuoha, but friends are worried that she may be rushing the romance -- Kacey, who hooked up with the Nashville-based doctor after calling it quits on her three-year marriage to Ruston Kelly in July, tends to jump into things with her heart and this relationship falls into that category and Kacey, who was spotted snuggling up to her physician beau while out and about in L.A., is on cloud nine with this guy, but when she has to hit the road again it's not like he can pull up stakes and follow her -- she's not thinking straight about the future, and her friends are bracing for trouble once reality sinks in and Kacey would be wise to slow things down and not get ahead of herself

* George Clooney turned the big 6-0 on May 6, and his wife Amal Clooney is being a bit of a birthday buzzkill -- George wants a big, booze-soaked sky's-the-limit bash in an exotic locale like Mexico or Italy with his old drinking buddies like Rande Gerber, but Amal is pushing for a quiet family celebration at home with their children Alexander and Ella, and it's led to a few arguments -- George figures it's his chance to finally let off steam and that it's his choice on how to mark the milestone occasion and he wants Amal and the other wives to come and join in on the fun, but watching George get wasted certainly isn't her idea of a good time and she sees nothing wrong with a dinner at home

Page 30: Harrison Ford is finally set to start filming the new Indiana Jones movie this summer, and his wife Calista Flockhart will be keeping a close eye to make sure he stays safe on the set -- Harrison has been training hard to get in shape and is feeling great, but at his age, you can understand why Calista is concerned and protective Calista plans to accompany Harrison as he shoots the fifth Indiana Jones installment in London and other locales and he's still capable of doing his own stunts, and a lot of it is thanks to Calista, who made sure he stayed fit with weight training and proper nutrition, but Harrison's going to have the best people in the business looking out for him so he doesn't get hurt again, otherwise Calista wouldn't have given him the green light

* It's barely been three months since Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker went public with their hot and heavy romance, and they're already talking about getting engaged and pregnant, not necessarily in that order and Kourtney fully believes this isn't just a honeymoon phase, but that Travis is the man she's going to share her dreams with -- as for Travis, he's been telling everyone he's hit the jackpot with Kourtney and Travis, who has two kids of his own, has already started shopping for rings and he's planning an ultra-romantic proposal because he's big on grand gestures and he's still looking for the perfect ring, but that doesn't mean the baby-making has to wait until it's on her finger

* Love Bites -- Zac Efron and Vanessa Valladares split, Brooks Laich and CrossFit athlete Katrin Davidsdottir dating, Tan France and husband Rob are having a baby this summer

Page 32: Cover Story -- Kim Kardashian single and loving it -- ready to mingle, an unattached Kim is having fun exploring her dating options -- she did all she could with Kanye West and now she needs to steer a new course for herself -- she's been relishing her single status and feels like she can finally breathe again -- Kim may be living it up, but her four children remain her primary focus -- the eligible bachelors who've caught Kim's eye: Drake, Rege-Jean Page, Brad Pitt, Lewis Hamilton

Page 35: Jennifer Aniston's on such good terms with her old flames she still talks to ex-husbands Brad Pitt and Justin Theroux regularly and has even stayed in touch with her former beau John Mayer -- Jen and Brad have a lot of complicated history, but she's glad they reconnected and are friends again and she thinks the world of Brad, and they support each other -- Justin recently revealed he and Jen text and FaceTime, and the divorced duo will always share a special bond -- although she and John split in 2009, Jen and the musician still hang out from time to time and they flirt here and there and when John's in town, Jen's down to meet him -- but friends are urging the star to finally and firmly move on from her exes and they think she needs a fresh start, and Jen's been on a few dates with someone who isn't famous and Jen's not looking to get married again, but she'd like to have a partner to share her life with and this guy could be the one, she's just got to give the relationship a fair chance, without any distractions

* Weeks after announcing she'd called it quits with Alex Rodriguez, Jennifer Lopez is feeling sad and disappointed and she didn't want to believe the rumors about Alex's wandering eye, but the Madison LeCroy thing was the last straw -- it's not the first time Jennifer's been fooled by a bad boy as cheating rumors plagued her romances with Sean "Diddy" Combs and Casper Smart and she's wiser now -- Jennifer's saving grace is she's got a jam-packed schedule so it won't leave too much time to be broken-hearted and she's a busy mom of two with a million projects up in the air so don't expect her to be dwelling on the past for too long

Page 36: Young and In Love -- Why wait? These stars were in their early 20s, or teens, when they tied the knot -- Olivia Wilde married an Italian prince when she was 19, Hailey Baldwin married Justin Bieber when she was 21

Page 37: Demi Moore married rocker Freddy Moore at 17, Uma Thurman married Gary Oldman when she was 20, Cher married Sonny Bono at 18, Macaulay Culkin married actress Rachel Miner when he was 18

Page 38: Jessica Simpson married Nick Lachey at age 22, Kate Hudson married rocker Chris Robinson when she was 21, Drew Barrymore married when she was 19 for only 19 days

Page 39: Janet Jackson married R&B singer James DeBarge when she was 18, Kim Kardashian eloped with a music producer when she was 19, Solange Knowles married and a baby at 18, LeAnn Rimes married a backup dancer at 19

Page 40: Interview -- Anya Taylor-Joy thrilled to pieces -- The Queen's Gambit star is still processing her phenomenal success

Page 42: Role Models -- like mother, like daughter -- these stars are inspiring their kids to stay healthy and fit -- Brooke Burke, Gisele Bundchen

Page 43: Cindy Crawford and Kaia Gerber, Christie Brinkley and Sailor Brinkley-Cook, Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba

Page 46: Style Week -- Saweetie has a new sunglasses collaboration with Quay

Page 48: What's Hot Right Now -- stand out with a statement piece from the 8 Other Reasons x Draya Michele capsule collection

Page 49: Make Me Blush -- follow spring 2021's hottest beauty trend and create a flush with a pop of peach, pastel pink or terracotta -- Mindy Kaling

Page 50: Mother's Day Gift Guide -- Molly Sims

Page 54: Entertainment

Page 55: Reality Check -- your small screen guilty pleasures are back and here are all the details -- Bar Rescue, The Real Housewives of New York City, Teen Mom 2, Million Dollar Listing New York

Page 58: Buzz -- The ACM Awards in Nashville -- Carrie Underwood and CeCe Winans, Keith Urban and fellow emcee Mickey Guyton, Kenny Chesney and Kelsea Ballerini

Page 59: Blake Shelton, Chris Young and Kane Brown, Miranda Lambert and Elle King, Jimmie Allen and Brad Paisley, Maren Morris and husband Ryan Hurd

Page 60: Sound Bites -- Jessica Alba on not being afraid to complain, Justin Theroux on dating, Jodie Turner-Smith on her and Joshua Jackson being perfect partners, Rob McElhenney on expectations of men in Hollywood

Page 61: Chrissy Teigen on her break from Twitter, Courteney Cox showing off her extremely organized kitchen on Instagram, Lance Bass on the basic thing in his past he'd like to move on from, Amanda Seyfried on confiding to the Mank costume designer about her pregnancy, John Stamos on getting together with wife Caitlin, Eiza Gonzalez on developing body confidence

Page 62: Horoscope -- Taurus Henry Cavill turned 38 on May 5

Page 64: By the Numbers -- Rege-Jean Page

[mlobsters]

take 2. Mom, I'm tired // Can I sleep in your house tonight?

SAM Listen, I know this is gonna sound crazy to you. I don't even necessarily need you to understand. But...you need to know. I didn't just drop out, Dean. I found something. Something I've... never had all my life. DEAN Yeah, what was her name?

i don't understand why they're doing this with sam. i'm again trying to give dean some leeway due to the roaring ptsd but.

DEAN So, what, you, uh, you dropped your peanut butter in her chocolate? How'd it happen?

weirdly vulgar expression i've never heard before

so dean is also grumpy because he misses killin stuff with his purgatory boyfriend i guess?

so that really awful conversation and next we're... doing the funky upbeat music walk and talk with fucked up orange faces

i like how every once in a while they pull out the old demon throat slitting cup o'blood to make a phone call thing. we didn't forget! was she calling crowley to give him the gossip? (again what is his meatsuit up to when he's away)

oh my god sam is gonna have a weepy dog flashback??? the other weird thing with the lighting/coloring they've been doing the past few seasons is it makes blood look too bright, verging on pinkish

that whole thing. sorry. i laughed

DEAN Sweet mother of God. It's for me? Seriously?

a thoughtful kindness and food after the year of terror (nevermind the logistics, did he need to eat in purgatory? if so, what? uck). it's fine, they're gonna make me do the work and extrapolate and feel sad

his flowing locks have been covering his ears most of the time but those are some somewhat tamed sideburns!! one good thing

kevin looking good in the new haircut

another bad and very obvious adr/dub! wtf - the "killed jess" of this is badly dubbed

DEAN I can't believe what I'm hearing. Sam, we have an opportunity to wipe the slate clean. We take Kevin to the tablet, he tells us the spell, we send every demon back to hell – forever. Every single bastard that destroyed our lives, killed our mother, killed Jess. And you're not sure?

and this feels like sam goes to apologize to kevin because of his talk with dean. sam would be apologizing straight away of his own volition, no? it's all fucking aggravating though because i don't believe sam would have dropped the ball to begin with!

SAM Yeah. It sucks right now. I know that. Um, it might suck for a lot longer, but... trust me on this – it gets better. KEVIN You know I'm not gay, right?

blergh.

CROWLEY Dean. You're looking... well, let's just say Purgatory didn't do you any favors. Where's your angel? DEAN Ask your mother. CROWLEY There's that grade-school zip. Missed it. I really did. [to SAM] Moose. Still with the pork chops. I admire that.

is this about his sideburns??? are small mutton chops pork chops 😂

DEAN (on phone) Yeah, I hear that. Listen, Benny, not to beat a dead horse. What we did down there is what we had to do. Now, I don't regret it for a second. But... you know, maybe until we both adjust, it's best we don't talk for a while. BENNY (on phone) There it is. DEAN (on phone) One day at a time, just like we talked about, right?

benny's accent is all over the place. why do they make characters have these things and then not give the actors enough time/resources to execute them properly

BENNY (on phone) I think you had it right, bud. DEAN (on phone) What's that? BENNY (on phone) Purgatory was pure. I'm kind of wishin' I had appreciated it more. You know? Like you. DEAN (on phone) Listen, you got an emergency, you call me, you understand? BENNY (on phone) I hear you. You keep your nose clean, too, brother. DEAN (on phone) Yeah.

well. this is a lot. are they gonna have to kill benny because he's been eating people since he got back? rife with drama. will dean get his own madison moment???

supernatural s8e1 we need to talk about kevin (w. jeremy carver)

new season, new me. *silent wish goes up for smaller sideburns*

of course they had to include "dick is coming" in the recap. we can't let the opportunity for a dick joke slip out of our hands

very xfiles

okay i threw this in lightroom real quick to make it less dark because what is going on here? it's very... strike a pose, for feral!dean. and the kids are like from a painting. it's very dramatic. maybe i will paint it some day.

well the infamous benny appears. i also didn't realize purgatory was gonna be a time jump like hell. read something not too long ago that was fairly evocative of the environment of purgatory so i was thinking some of the show happened there (though i suppose flashbacks are also a possibility).

lol i'm already upset, broad strokes know how this goes with their reunion emotionally.

this is so ridiculous. i was just complaining how i felt so blah with the end of s7. well here we go, let's hurt my feelings with brother conflict stress and i'm gonna be upset about it? make up your mind

okay so some fics i've read are like "sam didn't look for dean while he was in purgatory" but i did not pick up that for all intents and purposes, sam had no reason to assume he wasn't dead.

there's a lot going on in this scene. like the semi dodging the cas questions, how he got out, etc.

SAM Yeah. Yeah, I – you were gone... Dean. Cas was gone, Bobby was dead. I mean, Crowley even shipped off Kevin and Meg to parts unknown. DEAN So you just turned tail on the family business.

are you kidding me right now, dean? like he should carry on hunting because it's the family business??? i'll chalk this up to being mad and fucked up for being hunted for a year.

SAM Nothing says "family" quite like the whole family being dead. DEAN I wasn't dead. In fact, I was knee-deep in God's armpit killing monsters, which, I thought, is what we actually do. SAM Yes, Dean. And far as I knew, what we do is the thing that got every single member of my family killed. I had no one – no one. And for the first time in my life, I was completely alone. And, honestly, I-I didn't exactly have a roadmap. So, yeah, I-I fixed up the Impala, and I just... drove.

💔

DEAN After you looked for me. Did you look for me, Sam? [SAM looks away.] Good. That's good. Now, we – we... always told each other not to look for each other. That's smart. Good for you. Of course, we always ignored that because of our deep, abiding love for each other, but not this time, right, Sammy?

well i can see now why fics harp on this point. so i'm assuming sam thought dean was in heaven. would dean expect sam to try to get him back from there too? tucking 'deep and abiding love' into my pocket

okay right i've talked about this before too, how sam is always the fuckup begging for forgiveness and dean is the righteous man. and i'm tired of it! this thing with the voicemails from kevin tran is just... cruel. i don't like the point they're making.

real life, anyone in sam's situation would be a fucking mess. i still don't really think sam would flake on the phones with kevin like that.

whoa whole new desktop. so long untitled 1 and 2

oh we get urls now in the new web browser! and look at that, already an invalid web url http://www.searchtheweb/main missing your tld, friend 😔 1 out of 2, at least

lying about the dog in the car too. all right

okay, purgatory flashback after all. umm. what happens when you die in purgatory? respawn there? or is that the way to the big empty i've heard about

DEAN Hmm. So what was it, hmm? What could possibly make you stop just like that? A girl? Was there a girl? SAM The girl had nothing to do with it. DEAN There was a girl. SAM Yeah. There was. And then there wasn't. Any more questions?

*heavy sigh*

not getting through this episode tonight. reconvene tomorrow

[cardhouseandthecage]

I actually am wondering about the Star recruitment process, Denizen-Star communication, and the interface between our reality and Faerie with regard to all this. Like if you or I was to get sucked into the Star process, what would it be like in terms of ordinary logistics? How would they first reach out to us? What if we tried something like getting other people involved who legit believed in all this but the Cardhouse really didn't want them involved? Apologies if this can't really be answered!

an EXCELLENT QUESTION, friend, and incidentally a subject of ongoing investigation on my part. THE subject of ongoing investigation. My whole life. Which is to say: I can’t give you a complete answer—I can’t even necessarily give you a correct answer—but you have absolutely come to the right place. You wont get any kind of answer anywhere else. Here’s what I’ve pieced together from my research, thus far:I. The first thing you need to know about Stars is that they don’t actually believe in fairies. Not Literally. Not necessarily. 

You are familiar, I assume, with the Moment of Magical Proof™? You’ll find it with most stories that begin in the mundane. Our protagonist might want to believe in magic, but they can’t—magic is fake and everyone knows it—so they’ll rationalize for as long as they can. Then something happens. Magic intrudes upon their lived experience in a way they can no longer deny. YER A WIZARD, HARRY. Magic is real, and will continue to be real for the duration of the narrative.

That moment never happens.

There is no first contact for a Star, no revelation, no paradigm shift: it’s only ever a slow fade. And that little voice of in the back of their heads, the one that knows none of this could ever be real? It never goes away. That’s important. It’s part of what splits them—and without a split there is no harvest.

The Cardmaster settled upon this business model for a reason. Certainly he could present the Cardhouse more literally, but he’d be working against dominant trends: most people don’t believe in fairies literally, and our beliefs govern the channels through which fairies can contact us. So if you don’t really believe that some fairy bitch could pup up in your window and approach you with the deal of a lifetime, they’re going to have a really difficult time making that happen.* It’s much more cost-effective to build on a pre-existing system of belief than to overturn it. 

II. But what’s all this nonsense about the power of belief, HQ? Are you really going to sit there behind your screen and tell me that you subscribe to Magical Thinking? Who exactly is funding this study???

AHAHAHAHAHA NO ONE, naturally, but also: no. No, of course not! I may not be funded but I take myself very seriously here: I’m not arguing that our beliefs can change reality directly. Antoine was absolutely right about the tree root: that’s a thing in the physical universe and it’s going to go on existing regardless of what we think about it—outside of what we think of it. Oxygen doesn’t care about my feelings! There’s a side of things won’t budge, no matter what I believe (I know this; I’ve tried). Even if I clapped my hands and dreamed with every fibre of my being, it wouldn’t wouldn’t make a fairy into something I could bring into a lab and prove.

But my belief would change something. It would change the Faerie-Reality interface. If I believed fairies were real, they’d be real to me. It would change how they exist in the extra-dimensional space in my head. And that space in my head—in all of our heads—that’s the dimension of things that connects up with Faerie. That’s what empties into Faerie, perpetually, without our volition or consent. I’m fooling myself if I think I’m in control of that space just because my thoughts effect it: I didn’t choose most of my beliefs any more than I chose my body. There’s a whole world of thought that I inherited, and correspondingly a whole landscape of Faerie that’s built up in connection to Reality over time. By this mechanism, then, our beliefs can alter reality: indirectly. Reality generates Faerie, but Faerie is incessantly fucking with us in return, and the ways in which it fucks with us influence the actions we take in Reality. III. Any agency behind such fuckery I term “a fairy.” 

Fairies “live” in the backworld (they’re made of the same stuff it is) and can manipulate the residue that accumulates there: they’re not real by any means, but they do exist. It is worth noting that fairies, by this definition, don’t give a damn whether we believe in them. This may first strike you as counter-intuitive: if they’re made of our thoughts, then surely our belief means a great deal to them? To which I answer: yes, it does. Absolutely. Just not in the way that you’d think. I’m guessing you’ve probably encountered some version theory of belief-dependancy and the Decline of the Mythical? It’s related to a lot of things (many of which are true, see: placebo effect), but generally it asserts that the vitality of imaginary beings has diminished in direct proportion to our diminishing “belief” in them, and consequently there has been a great falling off in the power of gods and fairies and the like as we have entered the modern era. My findings suggest the otherwise. I say we still believe in plenty of “unreal” things, and as strongly as ever we did. Even our science feeds into the Faerie: it’s made of our thought! We use science to describe reality, but it itself is not fully “real.” Besides which, it’s not as if fairies are limited to drawing upon our literal beliefs. We don’t generally think of fiction as real, and yet it shapes us. And a desire can be every bit as potent as a belief. Fairies don’t care whether we believe in them: all they require is that we want to. They’ll play our beliefs against our desires and catch us between them, bring us to our knees before the impossible; we’ll yield our sacrifice readily enough, god or no god.  All they require is that we dream. 

So no, I don’t think we’ve impoverished fairies at all by sorting fact from fiction as we have. I think we’ve blinded ourselves to their power, locked the door and thrown away the key only to have them catch it. I think we’ve given them everything. I think we’ve spoiled them.

IV. But I digress. You asked me about the logistics of Star recruitment and Denizen-Star communication. 

It starts, traditionally enough, with a fairy ring.

Not a literal ring, generally (that’s very retro), but the there are certain channels of interface—certain ‘meta-forums’—that the Cardhouse keeps open as traps for potential candidates. For a while now, the internet has been the best “place” to set up such a forum, so they frequently overlay or branch off from real online sites. But they could be anywhere. Any work of fiction can easily serve as a jumping off point (provided it’s fantastical enough), or else game of make-believe, or even a good old-fashioned glade or a shopping centre or an abandoned house. If you’re intrepid enough you might find your way to to one through pure whimsy: it’s only a matter of stumbling into the right headspace.

Unfortunately, there’s no clear indicator for when such a stumbling has transpired. The meta-forums interface so seamlessly with what we think of as plausible that we don’t recognise them when we see them and we can’t tell once we’re in.** You can’t necessarily tell when someone else is in one either. It just looks like preoccupation—an obliviousness to the “real world.” But it also looks perfectly realistic, especially from the standpoint of the Star. Because fiction exists, and games exist, and there are all kinds of things you can get obsessed with on the internet and none of them especially challenge the laws of physics. They way you engage with the meta-forum doesn’t look different from how you’d engage with any other imaginary thing. Generally, it starts out as a game or an RP or a kind of choose-your-own-adventure story through which you get to know the characters and the basic setup. That setup presents itself very differently depending on what you’re into, but you’re usually given to understand that the Cardhouse produces very special magical items, and that you can help the Cardmaster gather ingredients for these items by undertaking quests or solving puzzles or making certain offerings or blending the perfect tea or getting your two favourite denizens to make kiss or doing whatever it is you’re doing that is “playing the game”. One denizen in particular serves as your primary contact and guide. You might also be given to understand that Cardhouse products are all a part of the ongoing effort to Fight The Encroaching Darkness. It’s a very all-consuming obsession, and while you’re immersed in you often ‘forget’ it isn’t real, but never in a way that raises any suspicion. For the most part, you know it’s just a game. And for some people that’s all it ever is, and they move on.

If you are destined to become a Star, however, at some point the game will change. One day, your denizen approaches you in great distress: the threat of the Encroaching Darkness, they say, is much worse than they had previously let on. The game might end, as if it had never been! You may well never see us again, in which case… farewell in advance! It will be a very moving performance, and naturally you, the potential Star, will be deeply upset by this news. If you’re right for the job you will offer up your assistance on the spot, unprompted. You will say the magic words. Is there anything you can do to help?

…Funny You Should Ask.

And now the denizen will lay it out: there is, in fact, a way. You may not know this, but you happen to be a very special sort of person: a Star sleeps within you—a great power—but its light is not for the human world. If you were to promise to fight on our behalf, we could help you unlock that power on the other side. You would swear fealty to the Cardmaster, pledging your light to the cause and security of our House, and help us to beat back the darkness. But be warned! It is no task for the faint of heart. You would be asked to undertake missions in the depths of the Wild Lands, where evils reign free. You would be placed in grave danger. So yes, you really could save us, but we would never ask anyone to accept such a burden! If however you should choose to do so….well. You would be richly rewarded.

If it’s gotten to this point, the potential Star (feeling very heroic) almost always accepts.They are assigned to a team and presented with a “cage” to help concentrate their powers and serve as a holding space for any magical items they’re give in Faerie. The cage exists between realms and the Star can access it from either side. Generally, the more they use their powers as a Star, the more it fills up with light for them to draw upon. Doing certain things in the Mundane however can cause that light to diminish or spill out, so they learn to avoid doing those things. Yet insofar as they are human, the Star still regards this all as a kind of fantasy. Insofar as they’re a fairy, however, it is very real. How any given Star rationalizes the paradox will vary, but at no point does the human fully “believe” that what’s happening is real. So a fissure develops between the two selves, and the more and more the Star invests in their fae identity, the deeper it splits them.

And here is the difficult part—the part no one understands. People often ask me what a Star’s human self is doing when they are a fairy. Are they sleeping? Unconscious? Physically elsewhere? Mentally dead? Sitting behind a computer screen as in hypnosis? All of those, possibly. None of those, necessarily. The trouble is that there’s not a one-to-one correspondence between time spent in Faerie and time spent in Reality, so it never maps on perfectly. It’s very difficult to make it add up: I don’t have a working model for this part at all.

But I do know this. When a Star is harvested, they are harvested whole. No one notices them go, and there is no body to find. Everything that ought to have been real about them has been redirected to the other side. They make ghosts of themselves. They split off without a trace.

——

*Oh, you might say, well if it’s as easy as believing…—no. Believing is far from easy, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not convinced? Then try! As an experiment: just try to alter your basic beliefs in what’s possible and what’s not. Tell yourself you might wake up in a flower tomorrow morning. It’s possible! Tell yourself the earth of flat (come on, really in vogue). Or tell yourself I’m right! Tell yourself believing makes any difference. COME ON JUST BELIEVE IN YOURSELF,,,YOU CAN DO IT!! Ha. Of course you can’t. 

**This may appear to stand in contrast to more traditional fairy-lore, but I think it’s actually very much in line (and it’s one of the many reason I’ve chosen to call these creatures fairies). Sure, in those stories, the human usually knows that they’ve crossed into some kind of Other Realm and accepts the fairies as real, but none of that especially shocks them. They’re not experiencing any major paradigm shift: either they’re in an altered state or this encounter still falls well within their understanding of “plausible.” But their conceptions of plausibility will only stretch so far: they don’t understand that time is passing differently in the other realm, that a very alien set of “rules” governs the very fabric of it. The shock only comes when the person tries to leave Faerie as they would leave a party at someone’s house, and finds that they can’t. And it’s the same with Stars. Our notions of plausible versus implausible have shifted a little, so the trick happens at a different level, but it’s the same trick. The human has passed into foreign territory, but they’re still processing it in mundane terms, and consequently they won’t pick up on the most “unrealistic” aspects of the encounter (if ever) until it’s too late.