#but this time less slapdash

[misternohair]

So I'm doing a last minute Christmas project as a gift for my family-in-law, which is way more rushed than I would have liked since I had no money until payday on the 22nd. Regardless, about a year ago I ran a small one shot D&D game for the fam with my partner, their parents, their brother, and their brother's partner. They ran through the intro to Phandelver, fighting some goblins and having a goofy good time, as you do.

To commemorate that, I'm making a small diorama of their characters vs a couple gobbos. I started by ripping up some cork board and layering it on top of each other to give the impression of a cave interior. I threw some texture paste on top and let it dry

When it dried and I had plenty of texture paste on all the mini bases too, I used some slightly watered down Elmer's glue and some little battlefield rocks and cork chunks for boulders to get an idea of what it might look like when primed/painted.

Next I got the whole thing primed with black spray paint and a little bit of bone white over the top to give the whole thing a black/white contrast as if it were inside a dark cave. I primed everything with each of the player models tacked to the board so that it looked uniform (and I could remember where each of the models went after painting.) In the interest of time, I decided not to paint the goblins, with the creative decision to make it look like they were still in the dark (and definitely not cause I'm running out of time.) I also dry brushed over while slightly brightening the shades of gray to give the whole thing that uniform color. Unfortunately it also knocked loose a couple of pebbles, so I'll have to clean up a couple of spots. On the bright side, the end goal is to leave the player characters sticky tacked to the diorama so that they could be used on a battle mat if we ever play again.

Now I'm almost done and while I've rushed the paint job and not taken as much time as I might have liked, I think it's turning out pretty damn good. Most of the party is done, just one more kobold player to go

For a slapdash crazy gift, I think it still looks pretty cool, and I hope the extended family likes it. I'll update again with the final product tomorrow, since we're going up there to celebrate Christmas Eve with all of them then. Time to get some sleep so I can wake up tomorrow and finish!

[schmergo]

Today I learned a fact that kinda blew my mind, and I'm almost astonished I didn't know this before as someone whose chief interests include zoo animals, the U.S. Presidency, true crime, and D.C. history. What an opener, right? How could those topics possibly combine?

Well, buckle up and get ready to hear how negligent National Zoo leadership potentially could have killed a US President or started a local epidemic. Spoiler alert: They didn't. But only because luck was in their favor.

First, the part that I DID already know. In 2004, Lucy Spelman stepped down as the director of the National Zoo after a spate of controversial zoo incidents, including a string of unfortunate (and often preventable) animal deaths, misleading and missing zoo records, and other signs of negligence. The AZA even "tabled" renewing the National Zoo's accreditation for a year until they made some significant improvements. Spelman was also a vet and some of the cases she was accused of bungling happened at her own hands, not just under her supervision. It was a major disgrace for a zoo that was meant to represent the nation's capital.

I was in elementary school during these fraught years and I remember devouring articles about this in the newspaper, riveted with shock and dismay. Some of the deaths were just bad luck, but others were obviously negligent. The most infamous case was two red pandas killed by rat poison shallowly buried in their enclosures as a slapdash solution to the zoo's pest problem. A young zebra died of starvation and hypothermia after Spelman ordered the zebras' feed be cut in half, an orangutan was euthanized due to a recurrence of cancer that didn't exist (she actually had salmonella), a lion died after being administered over twice the usual amount of anesthetic, and more. I remember the names and details of these animals from when I first read these cases 20 years ago. But the one I'm talking about today is that of Nancy the elephant.

Nancy was a 46-year-old African elephant whose health had been steadily declining for several years. She suffered from a bone infection in her foot that seriously affected her mobility and quality of life. She had lost a lot of weight, she was fatigued, she even lay down at times. Nobody could be blamed for deciding to euthanize the obviously ill animal.

But they could be blamed for what was discovered in the necropsy after she was euthanized. While she did indeed have a diseased foot, the bone infection was only "moderate." Why, then, was she so obviously unwell? Her lungs had been destroyed by the effects of untreated tuberculosis. It was the tuberculosis, not the sore foot, that most contributed to her decline in health.

Here’s the scary part: nobody knows how long she'd had it because she hadn't been tested for tuberculosis, a known concern for zoo elephants, in TWO YEARS. All this despite the fact that it's MANDATORY for all zoo elephants to receive a tuberculosis test once per year-- and in fact, it was a National Zoo staff member who pushed for that reform in the first place. And the elephant was on Prednisone for her foot issues, which zoo staff noted in her records made her more vulnerable to illnesses like TB. In fact, none of the zoo's elephants had been tested recently, which meant any of them, including one who was pregnant, may have had tuberculosis, too.

There are documented cases of humans catching tuberculosis from elephants. Now, Nancy the elephant had bovine tuberculosis, which seems to be less contagious to humans and which elephants haven't so far spread to humans... BUT it has spread to humans from black rhinos, a fairly close relative, so it seems likely that elephants COULD spread it. It can also take a while for TB for incubate (and can also be latent without symptoms), especially for elephants, so the elephants OR keepers who were around Nancy were at serious risk for TB.

NOW HERE IS THE PART THAT I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT UNTIL TODAY:

Spelman actively tried to COVER UP the situation, potentially putting many more people at risk. The elephant house was closed to zoo guests, but they were only told it was for "renovations." (The actual renovations, incidentally, were to improve ventilation so that illness would be less likely to spread.)

A BBC news crew that came to film the elephants was asked to keep a healthy distance from the elephants for their emotional health and the crew's safety-- the explanation given was that the elephants' group dynamics had been thrown off by Nancy's death. Spelman instructed zoo staff not to mention the TB situation to the BBC crew and, if asked why Nancy died, they were to respond that it was for multiple reasons and that the official test results weren't all back yet.

And here's the most shocking part of all, the part that made me GASP out loud. Spelman still personally gave some special VIP behind-the-scenes tours of the elephant house during the months that the elephant house was closed, a time when the remaining elephant inhabitants could potentially still develop active TB.

One VIP who received an elephant house tour was PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON and five family members!!!!

BILL. CLINTON. THE GOSHDARN PRESIDENT.

While zoo staff says that the tour was deliberately distanced and nobody got close to an elephant, there are photos of Bill Clinton's nephew about a foot away from an elephant's trunk. You know, their nose. The part they can spread disease with. So, uh, definitely in the danger zone there.

Hillary Clinton's brother, Tony Rodham, was on the tour and he said that nobody in the party was warned about TB risk or asked if they had any medical conditions that might (a. make them susceptible to communicable disease, or (b. be contagious to the elephants. This is especially egregious because according to zoo guidelines, all behind-the-scenes tour participants MUST be asked these questions-- not just when there's a very real possibility of a TB outbreak at the zoo.

Fortunately, none of the zoo's other elephants OR keepers ever tested positive for tuberculosis. But it was certainly a close call! And imagine what would have happened if a US President caught TB from a close encounter with an elephant thanks to poorly managed zoo staff.

Presidents meet a lot of people. In fact, this zoo visit happened only 2 weeks before the inauguration of President George W. Bush, which Clinton attended. He very well could have started a TB outbreak there. Heck, TWO US Presidents could have been infected!

Now THAT is something I will be thinking about for a long time!

[artbyblastweave]

So, the thing about Ward's worldbuilding is, it's bad on purpose. This is something I didn't catch until a relisten of the earlier parts, but the disconnect between the actual literal apocalypse that occurred two years prior and the shockingly advanced levels of infrastructure and technology is very deliberate. The entire thing is slapdash and farcical. You have people out the door of a shitty concrete hovel lining up for bad coffee. You have cars built out of random scavenged parts, "dumpsters" that Victoria can't manhandle because they're made of clumsily-welded-together scrap metal. Victoria can't reliably navigate at night because power to the city below is intermittent (and her mother Carol happens to live in one of the parts that does have consistent power; that's unexamined, make of it what you will.) The mall cluster shitshow goes down in a "mall" that, IIRC, is called out later as having been basically a dead end economically, a doomed grasp at a sense of normalcy. The patrol block uses recycled PRT gear, Dot's interlude involves the machine army jumping a bunch of bog-standard apocalypse scavengers. What you're looking at isn't a new society built up shockingly quickly; you're looking at the previously-well-supplied-and-externally-supported outpost of the recently destroyed society, and after two years they're finally chewing through the last of the head start they got. The societal equivalent of Wile. E. Coyote hanging in the air above the cliff, or of the seemingly-untouched duelist seconds away from sliding in half. Unfortunately, due to choices made about the timeframe and focus of the story, the Coyote sprouts wings. The duelist whips out a staple gun. Or to come at this from another angle- in The Walking Dead, a comic I really like, I can sort of organize the arc of the apocalypse into three-ish big chunks. For the first eight or nine months in universe, about 48 issues, things are obviously bad, right, quite a few people have died, but there's a sense among Rick and company that they might be able to ride it out, that things are on the upswing. They've got crops going, they have new births, maybe help from the government proper isn't coming the way they thought it might towards the start, but things are looking up! Then, of course, the Great Fuckening of Volume Eight occurs, and you enter the middle phase of the comic, where they're down to like a third of their group, they're food-insecure, they're constantly on the move, they're under attack from rapists and cannibals who've descended into habitual atrocity because they're totally without hope. Children are having mental breaks and killing children, the first friendly guy Rick met in the whole comic is now an insane hermit feeding dead bodies to his undead son, on and on and on and on and on. Bad times, but a comparatively short middle in the grand scheme of things. Then they find Alexandria, and the back half of the comic is spent basically on an upward trajectory with some zig-zags, there are still periodic existential threats but they're clearly past the nadir.

Ward feels like it starts midway through that first part, the you-don't-know-how-much-worse-this-can-get part, with the emphasis on the social tensions, the encroaching winter, but then it just...doesn't get much worse. I mean they have a rough three months, but then they sort of speedrun right to the hopeful future ending as soon as the titans are dealt with. There were parts that I suspect were supposed to be the dark-night-of-the-soul I'm alluding to but they didn't land as such. I feel as though the superhero genre stuff kind of subordinated the apocalypse stuff, made it less visible by virtue of whose POV we were following, and sometimes I feel that as a remedy to this, Ward should have taken place over the course of years, and it should have Just Kept Getting Worse. For example Breakthrough should have had to kill and eat Rain to survive the winter

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

This story, for which there are seven parts, is dedicated to everyone affected by Hurricane Helene. It was not written because of that, but a water-based natural disaster is part of the plot. It does not focus on it, but is a story of hope. The text of section one is under the cut. I hope to post all sections before the end of the Inklings Challenge. Despite this being my third year, this is the first I've actually posted anything other than snippets, so I hope I'm doing this right. I haven't yet written more than this, but I do have an outline for the other six parts, so hopefully that will work. @inklings-challenge

One: Admonish the Sinner

First of all it must be understood that every world is connected, as every village is. Some are just further away.

This is not a story of Earth; this is a story of a world nobody bothered to name, in a village nobody called anything other than the village. But that does not make it any less beloved—by people or by God. Sometime, a long time before this story is set, someone from Earth came to this nameless world and gave them the greatest gift of all, truth: but that is another tale entirely.

The night sky of this world is strikingly different from ours. Most prominently, two moons watch the world below, and every forty-seven years or so, flooding hits the island. They call it Big Tide, for it is the pull of the two moons combined that does this. It is regular enough, and has enough warning signs, that everyone should be perfectly ready for it.

As is common in humans (and these are humans like us, though the world is different), not everyone believes the evidence laid out in the world.

This is a story of Big Tide, specifically the one of the year three thousand, two hundred and twenty by their reckoning. This is a story of Paula McArthur.

%%%%%%%

The wattles were flowering, and it was Paula’s favourite time of year. There were several different wattles, but this was the deep gold ones she loved the best, the ones she gathered by the armful and adorned her home with. Now she only held a single sprig and enjoyed it to the full. It was too close to Big Tide to unnecessarily damage the wattle trees; they could be badly damaged by the rushing waters, and might need everything they had to survive. But one twig wasn’t going to hurt it.

The sky was a clear pale blue shot with fine clouds, a mass of them shining near the horizon with the sun gentle on them. Paula raised her face to the sunlight and closed her eyes, smiling. It was spring, and she never felt more alive than in springtime. 

She had been working all morning to prepare for Big Tide, largely transport. Her hands were tired of the precise positions needed to be held in order to hover exactly enough to transfer items in mid-air between hoverboards rather than landing to do it, which would waste time. Tide waited on no man, but Paula was skilled enough to know when she could be sloppy about hoverboarding, and enjoyed hoverboarding in a more slapdash manner than most people she knew. She had graduated earlier than most of her classmates from a controller to haptics. Tomorrow, though, she might use the controller again to make sure she was fresh enough to hover efficiently overnight during Big Tide itself. 

Presently she took out her lunch, and ate it while walking. In the distance a kookaburra laughed; Paula came to an abrupt halt as a green-blue iridescent flash clued her into the presence of a river dragon nearby. It turned and looked at her, bright blue eyes wise and calm. After a moment of silence and mutual respect, the dragon moved properly into her view and arched its sinuous back, raising its crest. Paula lifted her chin and brushed back the dark fringe to look more intimidating. The only sign the dragon gave of seeing any change was to raise its scales in a largely vain attempt to inflate its size. Abruptly it put down its scales and ran in a blaze of colour, uttering a high keening cry that faded as it retreated.

Paula turned to see who had disturbed her, smiling as she recognised the intruder. “What brings you here, Martha?”

Her friend grinned in response, lighting up her tanned sombre face. “You, actually. I came in search of you.”

Paula half gestured to herself, merrily. “Why trouble yourself?”

Martha grew serious at once. “I care about you. Aren't I allowed to?”

“Certainly, as I do.” 

Martha smiled a little incredulously. “Anyway, surely it's time to go back now?”

Paula raised a single eyebrow, then tilted her head back and assessed the position of the sun. “I guess. Why did you come to find me, Mar?”

“Oh, you know, I hardly see you now.” Her manner was evasive, which baffled Paula. “You're always out walking.”

“It's spring.” Paula waved the sprig of wattle at her. “The best time of the year. What's your favourite season?”

“Winter,” said Martha definitively. “Cold and empty and bleak.”

“Why do you like it that way?” she asked in surprise. Last time they'd talked about the seasons, she thought Martha had waxed poetic about the dying fire of autumn. 

“It's silent,” was Martha's quiet response. “Nobody bothers you.”

Paula paused to assess the time, decided they had to go back and led the way; Martha trailed her. “I thought you liked people.”

There was a short silence. “People don't tend to like me.”

“That's nonsense,” she responded immediately. Martha smiled, sad and sarcastic. 

“I don't tend to like me.”

Her calmness bothered Paula, and she sped up slightly. “Well, I do. You're fun, conversational and well read.”

“Which is why you disappear alone for hours.” She caught up and shot Paula a sidelong look, as if to say, I know your secrets. Except there were no secrets to know. 

“I like spring. It feels so alive and fresh, like all the past year's mistakes are washed away and there's new growth instead.”

“Very poetic.” Instead of amusement, Martha's tone was sour. She dodged past Paula and trotted quickstep the whole way back.

%%%%%%%

“I don't know what I did wrong,” finished Paula, twisting her hands nervously. “She got mad and I don't know why.”

Her mother glanced hurriedly across to check the next load wasn't ready, then turned to Paula again. “When people aren't happy it can be a temptation to take it out on others, especially those who are.”

“She said she was worried, and then she just changed and didn't want to talk to me.”

“Rebecca!” The shout made her mother focus on her own work; Paula moved her hoverboard closer to her father so he could load it up. This one was three bags of flour, heavy on the back and requiring stabilisation, which Paula remained still for while her father adjusted the controls. When it was done, he gave her a thumbs up and she gestured with her gloves, rising away from the site and on the journey to higher ground. It wasn't as easy to handle the unbalanced board; she would have done a lot more, and easier, with a transport hoverboard rather than the jury-rigged family board, but it was more economical and the decree had been that fuel, not time, was of the essence, since they'd planned well in advance. Indeed, today being the day before Big Tide, they had expected to have no more transport to do apart from the people, but someone had been digging too enthusiastically in their garden and cracked an underground storage container, so all of that had to be moved. 

She was most of the way there, wind in her face, when a fast personal hoverboard raced up beside her, village elder crouched to stave off the wind. He matched her speed, then unwound and said, “I'll take over from here. Take my board and go back—we need you to persuade people to go.”

“What?” She was already moving, assessing how to swap boards without any risk of either of them tumbling into the trees below while stepping across. “Why?”

He grimaced. “Turns out there are people who haven't prepared and don't want elders coming to help. Your dad suggested you could try and help instead.”

She started to shuck the gloves, then changed her mind and pressed buttons, keying them to the elder's hoverboard instead. As ownership switched, both boards lurched violently, and Paula barely held her position. The elder was wearing magnetic boots and so didn't run the risk of falling. Once she had stabilised it, she said, “So where do I start?”

“Ask your dad when you get back.” His expression was calm and focused as he adjusted the settings to accommodate for his weight. “For now, just get going. Time is of the essence. Big Tide waits for no man.”

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Would you mind sharing your planning process of the comic? I'm starting to brainstorm a fiction idea and right now the ideas are very messy and I wanted to know if you could show how you plan what happens on a season and on an episode, maybe with an example of a season episode you already published, so I can learn how to organize myself?

I really, REALLY appreciate you coming to ask me for help with this. It's awesome to hear that you respect my writing enough to seek me out as an authority on such things, or at least enough to ask for advice.

But I'm gonna be real with you - what you're asking for is not a quick slapdash reply that I can whip up in my free time. What you're asking for is an hour long video essay (with examples) on the level of an educational creative writing online course.

And I--I don't know if I have it in me to do that right now. Not with everything else I'm trying to do. (Sorry.)

BUT.

What I can give you instead is a basic rundown, and maybe some recommendations for where to this stuff.

To be absolutely brief: For me, the best way to visualize how I plan would be to make a flowchart.

Keep in mind that....... I don't ever actually.......MAKE. A flowchart.

Mostly, I am just using this as a visual representation of how my ideas flow from and to each other in a coherent way. The reality is that this skill is something you have to develop until it becomes second nature.

As an example, let's take the episode(s) where I introduced Seaglass.

This little arc was planned in season 3, but really started to come into play in Season 4.

To make it happen, I started with the obvious main idea: SEAGLASS.

I then broke it down into multiple smaller ideas:

If you notice, the main plot of this doesn't even start when the Seaglass exposition does. Steven makes Seaglass back in season 3, but doesn't know about it. But these ideas are still important to acknowledge as being a part of the main plot.

I then fill in MORE space between these larger ideas.

This whole set of steps is just a logical progression of me playing 'how do we get there'. I make up plot points and say 'what happens to get from A to B?'

And keep in mind - this may seem kinda obvious. That's because... it should be! But that's how the planning happens.

Realistically, it's just a bunch of asking myself questions. The same exact questions I refuse to answer in asks.

"What happens next? What would happen if....?" "Why doesn't Steven know about ....?"

"How would Steven find Seaglass if he doesn't know she exists?"

Well she's small and green, kinda like Peridot. So he goes looking for Peridot and mistakes Seaglass for her.

BAM! You've got yourself a plot point. That's a plan, baybee!

And then just kinda rinse and repeat.

And eventually, you want to make sure that you have some sort of connection back to the main plot point. In this case, it's the realization that Steven CREATED LIFE.

Again, I want to stress - I don't actually........plan.... by writing this down.

I do this process in my head. Often, multiple times per chapter, writing and editing to make it make more and more sense. The important part is about asking yourself questions. The same questions your readers should be asking.

"Why is this character doing this?" "Why is this event happening NOW?" "How will A find out when they realize what B has done?" "What is the BEST time for B to find out...? What is the WORST time?"

All of this takes imagination. It isn't about organization. It's moreso about learning to tetris plot events into their most snug spaces. It's about thinking of events as a staircase, which eventually leads to a larger staircase of plot arcs.

And as a final note, I will say that someday, when I'm less busy, I may make a video about plot. But it will take more time and effort, and for now, please just watch videos by other creators! I'm sure they're just as good at it as I am.

[lindsay00000008]

Ghost x Fem!Reader

DownBad!Simon Ghost Riley x JustAFriend!Reader

A little worldbuilding for ya. Enjoy! Maybe next will be a how-they-met drabble.

Part 3 (Prev)

CW: cursing, reference to solo hanky panky

“Beer?”

“Beer.”

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

So it turns out a honey glaze can catch fire in the air fryer. Who knew?

The Thursday Dinner Experiment dissolves into a slapdash affair of side veggies (sautéed onions, broccoli and peppers) with frozen beef and bean burritos as the main course. You and Simon settle on a movie to offset the stress of dousing the flames, have a couple more beers on the couch, and talk about the project Simon wants to complete before his next gig.

“Built-ins.”

“Incredible. Love a good built-in.”

His fixer-upper has been the highlight of his time off, it seems. Not a distraction, per se. You get the feeling he likes the act of creation, healing the house and seeing the effect of his work in measurable ways. He says he intends to sell it for profit, but those times you see him at work it’s a bit hard to believe.

“The roof is all fixed then?”

“Mm,” he gives a more-or-less wave of his hand, and you snicker.

“Remind me not to sleep over. Or would you hold an umbrella for me?”

He huffs and takes a swig of his drink.

“Oh, hey have you heard from Johnny lately?”

He gives you a look that seems to say o‘course I have, and you continue.

“Ok yeah, I just meant I haven’t been able to get ahold of him in a bit.”

“Some’n you need?”

“Um, it’s more like I owe him,” you chuckle. “He told me I could buy him dinner but he’s been slippery.”

Simon snorts, covering his mouth and nose before beer can spout forth.

“What?” You smile, bewildered at his sudden humor.

“Hmm. Johnny... yeah, you could say he’s slippery.”

“Is this a sex thing? Cause I remember that story Johnny told at the bar and it really-“

“Nah,” Simon can’t hold in his laugh this time, “Nah it’s not a sex thing. It's a... work thing. Inside joke.”

"Oh, haha..." You laugh faintly, that familiar, outside-looking-in feeling creeping up. You're not exactly sure what Simon does for work. You've been friends for two years now, and see him constantly for those periods of time when he's home, but there's still so much you're in the dark about. You don't need to know these things to enjoy your time together. And Simon seems comfortable separating his work from his daily life. Besides his attachment to his coworker Johnny, of course, the two closer than brothers.

Sometime you think they're in some kind of international mafia. Simon shows up after a month away looking like he's been steamrolled and blown up, with trinkets and treats from places far away. Specialty coffee, a tiny stained glass lamp, an ocarina engraved with a lily. The military maybe - but you've had friends in the military, a cousin who joined the marines even, and this feels very different.

Simon rubs his mouth, slotting the bridge between his thumb and forefinger beneath his nose, an action you've noticed seems to sooth him. Perhaps he's thinking the same things, feeling the secrets between you. You want to pull him away from the thought, show him you're fine with however much he can give you. Your friendship is all that matters.

"So he's good yeah? Just busy, then?"

"Hm. Bloke's fine, probably just joined a knittin' club or sum'in. I'll ask 'im."

"Hah. Well like I said, it's repayment, for that time he spotted me at Hooligan's. Don't want to be a bother."

Simon levels you with a serious look.

"He'd be a big idiot to turn down your offer."

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

"Why are you avoiding her, ya big idiot?" Simon accuses Johnny when he phones him later that night.

"Oh 'am the idiot? Yer the one who can't see 'am tryin' to give ye room to make a move on the lass."

"Fuck righ' off Soap, we're just friends. Thought the two o' you were friends too, but you're making her wonder."

"She'll ge' over it. But you won't ge' over it if she goes out with me and falls for my charms, no' will ya?"

"Gimme a break."

"Look. I like her. Which is why I'm backin' off. It's no' so rare for me to have a wee crush. But the second I saw you makin' goo-goo eyes-"

"I do not make-"

"Hush it, LT. 'Am just tryin'a give ye yer best shot. She's the first thing ye think of when comin' off deployment, yeah? 'Ah know, I see it in ye every time. One day you'll thank me."

"Look, just..." Simon speaks through a raging blush, his voice a grumble that sounds grumpier than he really feels, "call her back, would ya? Go grab a coffee or something. I'm not pressed. If she likes you... I'll deal. Don't count on it though. She's too smart for you."

"Sure LT. I'll do it for you, alright? Kisses,"

"Soap..."

"Yeah, LT?"

"Fuck off."

"'Night, LT."

"G'night."

Simon tosses the phone to the floor beside the bed and curses up at the ceiling, rubbing his hot face. His mind turns back to the wrestling that afternoon. The way he "accidentally" fell atop you when you tripped, how you were enveloped perfectly beneath his body, the way your eyes widened and cheeks flushed when you both looked at the salacious packaging spilling out of the nondescript cardboard box. Oh, how he wanted to tease you relentlessly. Give in to the desire to drag your pure, ladylike demeanor through the mud and then lick it all off. If he said the things he was itching to say, would you cover your ears, or laugh? Would you bite back? What would happen then, on that couch, if you hadn't scurried away when you did? The images take him away.

It's a long time before he finds sleep, his hands too rough and knowledgable to truly satisfy.

He can't go on like this. Not forever. But what else can he do?

Taglist:

If you've given me love in the comments or reblogs I've added you too! Thanks for the support! Lmk to add/remove.

@littleghostbride, @cmbghost, @anotherrickinthewall, @etherealinthewoods

P.S. About Simon's mask

My sister told me she was confused as to why Simon doesn't have a mask in these drabbles. I have the idea that he keeps his civilian life so entirely separate from work that he can't wear a mask all the time for fear people might make that connection. People know him in the field as the guy who always wears the mask, right? He has two identities. With the mask, and without. Ghost, and Simon. He does still wear a plain black KN95 on errands, citing health awareness (it's really his anxiety). But when he's comfortable at home or with friends (even at his favorite bar, sometimes), he takes it off. That's my headcannon, anyway.

[lillified]

regarding your piece “outlaws” is it intended to be like an apartment or a spaceship? until corrected, and probably still after, i’m choosing to believe that swindle is doing the equivalent of living in his van

that being said, where *do* the other (they don’t let him inside 💔) decepticons live? I don’t think it’s been shown thus far

hey, that’s a great question!

the “outlaws” piece you see is from an earlier point in the war, and the location is Swindle’s passenger ship, The Knave. It isn’t meant to be a living space, but he’s converted it and uses it a bit like an RV/motor home. Since he spent most of his time (and kept a lot of his stuff) in there, it was one of his prized possessions. In the Outlaws pic he has it parked in a mostly Autobot occupied part of downtown Protihex, where he operates it like a caravan to sell weapons and things to patrolling soldiers.

This actually brings up a great opportunity to talk a bit more about locations, specifically airships and spaceships (I promise it’s relevant to the main Cons);

So, there are many different types of aircraft (beyond the Bots who can physically fly, obviously). On the smallest side you get tactical drones and fighter craft, which are either remotely manned or manned by one Bot, who physically controls the ship by hooking up to a sensory chamber-style pod. These are much less ideal than having a flightforme, but were developed out of necessity, given the central Cybertronian government and fliers have tended to be on opposite sides at different points of history (this trend remains true for the Autobots, who are at a severe deficiency).

Next up are scout ships, which fit a small squadron of Cybertronians (think the size of the X wing in starwars).

After that you get into passenger ship territory, where aircraft have multiple rooms. Swindle’s ship fits this category. They aren’t intended as mobile residences and moreso exist to carry large quantities of ‘Bots over a longer distance, like a train or a cruise ship with basic amenities, but as the war progressed it was hard not to find different uses for them.

Passenger ships can be very specialized, and the only major difference between the larger varieties and true warships is that passenger ships aren’t outfitted with guns or any other involved defenses. Ferry ships are extremely massive passenger ships designed in Nova’s expansion era with the intent of carrying nearly a city’s worth of people across space, to populate new colonies. As suggested, most of these ships were built well before the war, so their defense capabilities weren’t geared for conflict.

The last category, as suggested, are warships. Most warships were manufactured during the war, but there are some that were recovered from pre-Quintesson era. These can range in size from the capacity of a small hotel to an entire military base, or even a city. Their scope is only limited by the ability to fuel them, and many warships were designed to act as mobile camps in the event of crisis and exodus.

As of the current day, the Decepticons have essentially been exiled. The last major conflict on Cybertron put the Autobots in control of most major territories and left both sides materially decimated. Until they can regroup and establish resource control again, the only real strategy the Decepticons have is to lay low and survive.

This leaves Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Lockdown, Ravage, and Knockout on the Determination, which is a small scale warship. Like many slapdash offensive craft, it is flimsy and unreliable, but currently their only real option.

You haven’t seen most of it, but I can give you some sneak peeks:

you’ll see what these are for very soon…

As of right now, that’s all I have for you on spacecraft! I hope that answered your question :) thanks!

[racefortheironthrone]

Now you mentioned i, I am a bit surprised Smallville is prominently and consistently in Kansas? It's Smallville, Kansas. There might be others and certainly cities located vaguely within a real region, but it's definitely the first fictional town or city of D.C. in a real-world American state to come to mind.

So this gets to the weirdness of D.C geography. When Superman was first established, there was much less of a cohesive "universe," so if Siegel and Shuster wanted Superman to specifically be raised in Kansas, that's where he was from and the rest of the geography would have to work itself out.

IMO, this early slapdash approach to world-building has (over time) led to some things that just don't make sense to me as a student of urban history and urban studies:

Metropolis shouldn't be in Delaware. It doesn't make sense in terms of urbanization, given the context of an already-crowded Northeastern Corridor - Delaware simply does not have the capacity to sustain a city of 11 million people, and you wouldn't get a municipality of that size right next door to New York City (as well as D.C's other fictional cities in the area). The whole idea of Metropolis and Gotham being across the river/bay from each other has never really worked for me; you can still do Superman/Batman team-up stories no matter where they are, because Superman can fly and Batman has his own personal fighter jets.

More importantly, it doesn't make sense in terms of historic patterns of urban migration. Moving to the big city in search of the American Dream is a big part of the Clark Kent story, but historically people moving from rural to urban areas overwhelmingly go to the nearest large city, depending on how transportation networks are arranged, whether we're talking about train lines or direct flights or highways or bus routes. There is a reason we can track regional movements of black communities during the Great Migration, because who went where depended on which train lines ran through which states:

This is why I've always felt that, while Metropolis has aesthetically been associated with New York City, it logically should be Chicago. It is the biggest city in the Midwest, one very much associated with robber baron industrialists and corruption at the highest levels, and absolutely stuffed with art deco architecture for Superman to pose on top of. Up until the Tribune Company began to strip it for parts, it's also been a major newspaper town with a long tradition of muck-raking investigative journalism that would inspire a starry-eyed cub reporter like Clark. As one of the original transit hubs and the U.S' own "nature's metropolis," it is precisely the place that a Kansas farm boy would hop a train to, because all trains go to Chicago. Also, culturally I like it better that Clark Kent represents the City of Wide Shoulders whereas Bruce Wayne is the typical Tri-State Area Type-A personality.

Going back to D.C's bizarro Northeast geography, I likewise have an issue with Gotham being in New Jersey...if New York City is also supposed to be a major metropolitan area in the D.C universe. Just as Delaware would struggle to support a city of 11 million people, it would be very difficult to grow Gotham into a city of 10 million people so close to the gravity well of the Greater New York Metro Area. New Jersey is a pretty urbanized state, but its biggest cities tend to range in population from 300,000 to 100,000 - which works very well for a place like Blüdhaven, which is supposed to have something of an inferiority complex vis-a-vis Gotham - because a lot of the population tends to gravitate to NYC for work and eventually housing as well.

I've already said my piece about the lack of cultural specificity of D.C's Midwest.

As far as the West Coast goes, I've always found it a bit odd that Star City isn't where Seattle is supposed to be. Let's face it, the only place where Oliver Queen's facial hair would go unnoticed is Seattle. Also, Coast City is often depicted too far north on the map - if it's supposed to be a half-hour away from Edwards Air Force Base, it should be significantly more southern, down by Kern County and San Bernadino County, not practically up in San Francisco.

[insane-control-room]

Some things are meant to be remembered; for the right reasons.

i've posted this review on steam, but i think that i want to say it here, too.

Here is my review of the 'promotional' material (according to steam) Secrets of the Machine

What I liked: the art appeared to be a true return to form; the style had its original charm with updated lighting techniques and slightly better optimization than previous games in the Bendy series. The audio design was also nice, with good ambiance and nice composition.

And now, the jank.

The game handles reasonably well; but it is clearly slapdashed together and is missing important components. There is no starting menu. There are no loading screens; and it is very jarring. There are no options in the game menu - you cannot minimize the game, you cannot brighten the game, you cannot make the game run any better on your computer, and it is incredibly laggy. If you have a potato laptop? Nah, get out. No game for you. There are no subtitles that you can enable, and voices are very muffled. Additionally, the game is very dark, and as mentioned, you cannot adjust that in the settings of the game, nor in steam settings. You have to do so from your computer.

Controls are extremely janky, as you cannot run, you cannot jump, and there is no indication for interaction with any objects. There are no control settings for remapping, and you cannot even see which keys do what.

Puzzles are boring and confusing; with no guidance. There were no hints, no rhyme or reason. There was more puzzle in the BATIM chapter 1 demo release. This thing is very confusing, especially when you cannot see anything at all. You will spend a long time walking back and forth between two rooms, wondering how you can progress, because you've done everything you could: you smashed cutouts; you hit targets; you opened and closed hands; you found posters for future games, but nothing that could move forward the one you were playing at the time. If you look at the community page, you will see that most people simply spent their time clicking on the soup can dispenser to see how many cans they could get.

If you have epilepsy, nah get out. Oh? I didn't mention the flashing lights? Well the developers did not either. Not only did they not mention the flashing lights, not in the game nor in steam, but they included TWO car crashes without warning - one audio based, and another that was directed at players. This is not only rude, but it is dangerous. Warnings exist so that people can make educated choices whether or not to interact with content that may be sensitive to them. Warn people appropriately. This 'game' did not take any measure to protect its players. There are many instances of sudden loud noises, flashing lights, and jarring location switches (not to mention the car crashes).

The story was lacking, and has nothing to do with the puzzles that a player is faced with. It feels like three disjointed tracks, and none of them align, all of them crashing together in a discordant, unsatisfying, confusing mess. It brought in more new characters that had nothing to do with the original story nor interested players, and had content that went against previously established material. It was (as you can tell, from a writer's perspective) a bad story.

It was less of a demo, less of a playable trailer, more like a tech demo with a few morsels for fans to pick apart and wish there was more of, wish there was more effort put into, wish there was more love and care for them, the players who arguably were the foundation of this game. There were teasers for games that, honestly, lacked the soul that the very first game had, and here's a point to prove it: there was an easter egg that if you clicked something 414 times (very funny.) it would rise in the air and then fall down without further ado. In the game files, the name for that sound effect? Sting. Yeah. It did. Games are a collaborative work; between the creators and the players. Blatant disregard and flippancy towards half of the collaboration is not acceptable behavior. This is a development team that mocks those who once loved them most, those who poured over their coding and carefully crafted world to marvel at what they had made, and coaxed in others with the rich promise of a delightful story that anyone could engage with on any level. The spite the creators have shown for the individuals who, essentially, had given rise to their stature in the first place, is painful.

Finally, by the time that I got a chance to sit down and actually play the game- I personally could not. The developers, by constantly updating a clearly unfinished game, had made their final update - that of a wood board blocking the actual place where gameplay takes place. You cannot go to any of the places shown in the screenshots, because the game is locked on the opening area. I've seen many people complaining of it; hoping that they can play the game.

Now, in the fashion we've seen common of JDS, they have rescinded their terrible design choice - but without notifying players that it is now possible to play the game; without telling players that this was purposeful; without telling players anything aside from a big old screw you. It is entirely possible that the only reason they put the game back into a playable state was the torrent of negative reviews that spawned after their. interesting. choice. regardless, those who care about their playerbase would have informed those who complained that it was a temporary gesture for storytelling reasons. They, however, did not, and there are a multitude of reviews marking the game as unplayable.

No matter what, the bottom line is this: This is not okay.

I'm not sure how much more eloquently I can put the fact that I'm heartbroken. This game, unlike any other, shows how much scorn that a developer can have for their own fans and playerbase. I am glad that there are people who enjoyed it, but I wonder - what did you really like about it?

Is it the memories?

[natequarter]

sorryyy i think about four vs five and adric all the time like. basically all of four's companions choose to leave him. sarah and romana have slightly less freedom than, say, leela, but fundamentally all of his companions walk away from him except adric. and from leela in particular onwards, the dynamic is often that of a mentor/student. except the doctor isn't a very good mentor, and is pretty slapdash and inconsistent and contradictory with what he "teaches" leela (sometimes he encourages her to use violence, other times he expressly forbids it) or romana because life doesn't make sense and he makes even less. and both of them outgrow him - leela was never especially reliant on the doctor in the first place, and romana becomes a true equal to the doctor in a way rarely seen with other companions. but adric doesn't leave the doctor, and he's reliant on him. he can't outgrow the doctor that quickly, because he's a literal child. and for i think the first time in this incarnation, the doctor, just this once, does attempt to look after him. the problem is that he then immediately dies and his priorities immediately shift back to sulking and avoiding his problems just as he did at the start of this life, and this time, he counts adric amongst his problems.

[nadiajustbe]

Don't think I'm finished on "Movie is how Howl tells the story..." statement. Because it's fundamentally wrong.

Look, I get it when you want to say that the hmc movie is its own story with an original plot — because it is, mostly, the only things that remain are the concept and some hits given here in there that lead to nowhere. However, movie is absolutely not how Howl would tell the story. It is, in fact, pretty opposite of it in some aspects.

Even when talking about Howl self-image, wich started it all, I think people keep forgetting how self-aware Howl can be. He knows he's vain and cowardly and an absolute loser and he doesn't want to be respectful whatsoever. He even tells Michael that, quote

“I know I’m slapdash, but there's no need for you to copy me"

And the whole ending sequence is just him being honest with Sophie and telling her the truth about who he thinks he is and his weaknesses. He pretty much states all he flanks are weak — he knows it, and it is true. Would he try to make it all more romantic and cool and so he would make himself seem less of a loser? Yes, absolutely. Would he make it by erasing absolutely everything about his character being unique and standing out turning it into a whole-blown "love peace not war" story? Absolutely not.

He may not mention him getting with another women every week, that's true. But he wouldn't leave out his stupidly-"romantic" nature while he was doing so, and he would not leave the guitar courting stuff out just because it's connected to it, gosh, he thinks it's cool.

Yes, he is quoting Shakespeare and John Dohn and he is poetic and sometimes overly romantise thinks to make it more dramatic, but that does not mean he's gonna achieve it by leaving out all his shenanigans whatsoever. Also, note, he does not want to be seen perfect by everyone, just by ones he thinks is important to him or his life or his stupid decisions. After all, he was the one who started the rumors about Wizard Howl being a heart-eater. He was the one to ask Sophie to blaken his name — to show him in the worst light possible.

"He wants to be seen perfect by everyone" is such a... mediocre analysis of his character, honestly, it might work with appearance, in Ingary at least, but personality wise. He want to be seen so only when it benefits him and people he thinks highly of. When he thinks that too high thoughts about him would bring him into trouble, give him unwanted attention or make him actually works, that his last wish ever. That's the whole subplot of the book — Howl does not want to be seen too good by the king because it's gonna lead him somewhere he doesn't want to be. Hell, he even denies doing something just because he wanted to help, saying that he "did it for money".

(it doesn't mean he wants people to see him as someone great, it's just that's pretty selective and his "perfect" persona is as fake as his "horrible wizard one)

Movie!Howl might be Book!Howl propaganda, but definitely not ALL of him. Some parts, some scenes, some moments might work (and that's actually the most accurate thing out of all statement), but I don't personally think this is the EXACT way Howl would tell his character.

Him telling about Sophie is the whole other thing. He LOVES Sophie for how crazy and stubborn and nosy and moody she can be — there's NO WAY he's not gonna give weed killer a half an hour or screen time just to talk about what haos of a woman his wife is. Yes, some of them might not fit into his "perfect picture" but he loves Sophie, and he loves what she does with this "perfect picture" and he's gonna give another hour on them bantering just because Sophie is being Sophie. He's NOT gonna leave out everything he loves about Sophie making her kind-hearted quiet protagonist with one mean line, the ones she was supposed to be the opposite, the caricature of.

There's also no way he would make Michael into a... white about six years old child? He may see him younger than Sophie does due to them growing up in a different environments, true, but 1) not that much 2) the whole thing about Michael is that he's the most responsible adult-like person in the whole Castle, despite being the youngest of all them, and Howl also KNOWS that. Also there's no need to change his skin or hair colour, as well as making him having no role in the story. I don't think he'll mention Michael trying to catch a star because of his nephew's homework — this is embarrassing, after all, but there's so MUCH more of Michael than that.

He's not gonna may ms. Pentstemmon a villain of any kind. Letting alone mixing her with Ben for some reason (who to hell is ms. Suliman, seriously?? W H Y). He highly respects her, to the point he's ready to attend her funeral even If it's gonna make him dead. If anything, he's gonna show her figure even more heroic than she is, maybe adding a whole sequence with her heroicly fighting with WoTW and loosing with an epic SGI. But making her a villain? No. Just not. There's no reason for that.

There's also no WAY he wouldn't mention Wales. He LOVES his country, he outright states it with "I love Wales but Wales doesn't love me" quote. Yes, there's jokes about Megan being a war metaphor, but Wales is not just Megan — it's also Mari, Niel, his old rugby team, his childhood and teen years, his memories and his experience. He would not make that portal If there was no things he wants to go back for — it's such an obvious weakness of his that WoTW notices it right away. He may not mention getting drunk before a fight, but he's gonna mention Wales.

(also I think people exaggerate Howl's hate for Megan. Yes, their relationship are far from perfect, but they still talk, she lest him go into her house announced and her family is what triggers him to fight with his evil ex in the first place. They may not be on a good terms but they DIDN'T cut off their connection. And "hate" is def not the word for that. Don't forget his first reaction to Sophie being in danger in CITA is "send her to Wales to his sister". He sees Wales as safe and reliable place, this is his first solution for dangerous situations. Even when he's not the biggest fan of his sister herself.)

He's also not gonna leave the sister subplot simply cause it was funny. He may change WoTW because he doesn't like her but he's not gonna make her live with them and feed her with a spoon, for the God's sake, that's disgusting. Him making himself Ingarian is the last thing he would do. He would NEVER.

(he's also not gonna leave out Shakespeare quoting in the sake of "romantise sequence you guys are talking about.)

Also, he could not care less about the war. I've seen a war with my own eyes, and... this is really, eh, too optimistic image of it I might say. Somehow realistic in showing it, but not by the way it provides solution, honestly. "Let's all just create love and King's gonna cancel war" IT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS. NO.

When he did attend war in CITA, he literally have won it by bringing IBUPROFEN onto the war field. Ibuprofen and bandages. What a "all-giving" reckless hero, really.

Book!Howl is a caricature to everything Movie! Howl is, and otherwise would not tell the story providing cliches he himself is the opposite of. He's a loser and an idiot and we love him for that.

It's two completely different stories. There's no need to connect them. Please.

[strange-and-off-putting]

Don't love this, but I'm couch bound with Covid, and this was something I had been tossing around in my head since last spring. If I was to do a full deck, I would have to work way faster than normal -- this was like, two hours work, where most of my art is at least 12 or 16. So -- greatly simplified the art, less time to prep references, etc. But I might try the whole deck if I decide I'm happy-ish with this one. ....I would spend more time making a "real" border, too. This border was hella slapdash, lol.

"To see the The Fool generally means a beginning of a new journey, one where you will be filled with optimism and freedom from the usual constraints in life. When we meet him, he approaches each day as an adventure, in an almost childish way. He believes that anything can happen in life and there are many opportunities that are lying out there, in the world, waiting to be explored and developed. He leads a simple life, having no worries, and does not seem troubled by the fact that he cannot tell what he will encounter ahead." X

[brb-on-a-quest]

It's December 31, I should make reading goals but I'll be honest the only reason I read as much as I did is bc 48 hour train ride in the last week of December. I am running off sleep deprivation and too much caffeine but I don't wanna forget soooo it will be slapdash

@ramblings-of-lola if you were curious (did I miss yours going up? I'm so sorry it's been chaotic)

Death note vol 4 3/5- honestly struggling since L got offed. Like I still like it but the main dynamic I was interested in got burst and everything has been off from there. However, still overall enjoying the series and interested to see how stuff go down

The language of thorns - 5/5 grims fairy tale  perfect fun times. Upon reflection I think my particular favorites were kujo, gingerbread witch, and ulla.

Illuminae- this was more of a book that belongs in an art museum than in my house. Got it for dirt cheap at a library book sale at some booktubers recommendations (idr if it was positive or not, I think it was just different and I was excited for that). And it was very different (it's told through case reports, DMs, some diary entries, so not typical story format, however everything is still informal so it's not constant space jargon) and really refreshing wouldn't reread again, do want to try similar format. I apparently don't typically read a lot of sci-fi (still working through the Amish one) so good to have something diff.

Lockwood and Co the screaming staircase 2.5/5. I didn't want to give things this rating but as much as I loved all the worldbuilding the characters being so dumb really annoyed the hell out of me, even giving allowances due to age - if they have been professionally working with ghosts extermination I feel like a lot of things should've been avoided. Debating whether I continue reading the series or not bc on the one hand I want more ghostly worldbuilding stuffs on the other hand I don't care to read more with those protagonists.

Rebecca of sunnybrook farm (reread) 2.5/5. I wanted Anne of green gables vibes but didn't bring my copy with me so I chose this on kindle cuz free and this was AOGG you have in ur fridge when ur mom says you have AOGG at home. In some ways it literally was the same vibes which is what I wanted but overall characters were less compelling and seemingly had no life outside of Rebecca which I found distressingly annoying. Also everytime I read this I find the relationship arc between Adam Ladd and Rebecca to be extremely...eh(?/bad) bc I couldn't tell if author wants ppl to ship them together romantically or not. Either way def a product of its time, not my personal choice anymore AOGG supremacy.

[uboat53]

I think I've figured out what's behind all the calls for Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, it's panic, and not the kind you think. It's all in their actions. Let me explain.

There's a few things I've noted about the calls for Biden to drop out. First, that many of them seem overly sanguine about what it looks like to change candidates. Running a national race means putting in place a huge ground game, particularly in the swing states, a massive fund-raising organization, and introducing yourself to tens of millions of people. Someone who ran a primary that stretched over a year in order to get the nomination will have that, or at least a strong start on it, but whoever replaces Biden won't.

I mean, sure, some of Biden's ground game and fundraising could be transferred to them, but there's a lot of stuff they're going to have to get in place very quickly and, of the proposed alternatives I've seen (Harris, Buttigieg, Newsome, and Whitmer), only two of them have even run in a primary before. There will likely be a lot of kinks to work out and not a lot of time to do it.

(The old adage that X amount of time is a lot time in politics gets thrown about a lot, but this is pretty much only true about media coverage and messaging. All the other stuff takes a long time to put in place and four months is barely enough to slapdash it.)

The second thing I've noticed is that none of the calls for Biden to withdraw have acknowledged the inherent risk in elevating a new candidate (at any point in the race, much less this point). None of the other candidates are as well known as Biden and, while that leaves room for them to go up as people hear their message, it also leaves a lot of room for them to go down as the opposition trains its fire on them. Unknowns have the potential to explode in popularity like Obama, but they also have the potential to crater like Palin. It's much more of a risk than most of those calling for Biden to withdraw seem to have acknowledged.

Finally, one thing I've noticed about most of the calls for Biden to withdraw is that they come coupled with a demand that, if he doesn't withdraw, he should provide some proof of his ability to win. That's not an insane ask, but what kind of proof are they demanding? If they demand proof that he can win, fivethirtyeight's model (which has a pretty solid track record) shows the race between Biden and Trump dead even which sounds winnable to me. There's also the public polling which, despite all the negative news about Biden over the last two weeks, still shows the race between Trump and Biden at a dead heat.

More to the point, no poll so far has shown any other candidate dramatically outperforming Biden against Trump. Sure, there's the occasional outlier poll that shows someone far outside of politics like Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton ahead, but the challenges they would face entering the race are even greater than what established politicians like the other options would.

In other words, it would be very difficult for someone entering the race today to build the infrastructure necessary to run a national campaign, every alternative faces at least as much (if not more) downside risk than upside risk, and at this point there's no evidence that any candidate can actually do better than Biden at all.

So why the calls for him to withdraw? As I said, panic.

Go back to what I said about the polling, how Biden is in a dead heat with Trump. Most Democrats, liberals, progressives, whatever you want to call them, view a possible Trump second term as a catastrophe with many even arguing that it could be the end of democracy in the United States. If that's your view of the situation, a dead heat isn't good enough, you need to be winning and doing so by a landslide!

So a lot of Democrats saw Biden's debate performance, which wasn't great, and panicked. Every incumbent president I could find stories about flubbed their first debate and then improved later, but being in line with former incumbents isn't good enough if you're staring down the literal apocalypse.

And that's the thing, people in a panic don't think clearly. They're not thinking about the difficulty that a new candidate would face in building a campaign or getting their message out and they're not thinking about how other candidates do in the polls; all they can see right now is an incumbent president who is in a dead heat with Satan and didn't come out of the gate roaring to victory.

I'll admit, I'm worried about a second Trump term too, at the very least, it'll mean a lot of harm to a lot of vulnerable people, but I'm not convinced that we're so far gone that democracy could end in the space of a single presidential term. It's also the case that, while this is a common view in democratic/liberal/progressive circles, most of the country simply doesn't view it that way and, in order to win, you either have to convince them that he is dangerous or give them a better reason to vote for your guy. Not an easy task when the political media seems determined to repeat 2016 by strictly scrutinizing and investigating the Democratic candidate while largely ignoring or waving off any of Trump's issues as "old news"; but that's not something that would get better with a new candidate. Arguably it would probably get worse since they'd need to get up to speed on the new candidate leaving even less time and energy for anything else.

Look, don't get me wrong, it's totally fine if you have concerns about Biden's age, he's old (although I will side-eye you if you have questions about Biden but not Trump), but he's done dozens of events and multiple interviews since the debate and shown no major repeat of the issues we saw in the debate. At this point I think it's on the people who are calling on him to withdraw to make a positive case for it instead of relying on the negative; if you can't show me that someone else can build a national organization, make themselves known in a positive way, and perform better than Biden can in the race, then I'm thinking it's a good idea to just stick with the old guy who's passed the most progressive legislative agenda since the 1960s.

Anything else is just a panic reaction and those don't tend to lead to positive outcomes.

[duskstargazer]

[2014]

Stepney was soon running a local train back to Tidmouth. He stopped at Kellsthorpe station on his way back.

Stepney was enjoying his time on Sodor, he really was, but the dour conversations had left a heavy atmosphere with the diminutive tank engine. Although he tried not to, he couldn't help but feel some envy towards the engines that never had to struggle to find work, or sit in their sheds waiting decades for their next overhaul. He had a feeling Baxter, Cromford, and Bluebell probably felt a similar way.

A blue tank engine strode up to the platform a moment later.

“I take it you're that visiting engine?” He asked.

“I am. I'm Stepney.”

“I'm Victor.” The engine replied. “I named myself after the man that saved me.”

Another conversation about preservation.

“You're preserved… on Sodor?”

“Oh, no. I meant the man that bought me from the scrapyard I was being sent to.”

“That was nice of him.”

“I think it was more out of convenience. 'Least I made good playground equipment.” Victor chuckled.

“What?!”

“Yeah, he bought me for use in a playground. In fairness, I did more or less crash into it.”

Stepney could only stare.

“It certainly beat the scrapyard, and the slapdash blue they painted me up in was cute. Though I can confidently say working on this railway beats them both.”

“I… I guess.” Stepney said, slowly. “How long were you in the playground for?”

“Oh… about fifty-seven years.”

“…”

“Well!” Victor said, abruptly. “I ought to go top off on coal and water for the journey back down the branch line. Goodbye, Stepney. Enjoy the rest of your time here!”

Stepney watched Victor leave, with no idea what to make of what the bigger tank engine had said.

[naumin]

2024 retrospective and 2025 goals

this is the censored version of this post. for full images, check out the full free post on subscribestar!

hi :)

i'm really happy with everything i achieved in 2024. it was my first year illustrating full time, meaning no school and no salaried job on the side (believe me i tried to get one) and i'm happy to report i did not die! fuck yes. i even illustrated for 7 (i think) art books, designed merch for 2 and organised my first collab fanbook.

from top left clockwise: michael deforge, anna haifisch, Michel Esselbrügge, CLAMP, saul bass, jon whitcomb, rene gruau, paul rand, molly fairhurst

at the beginning of 2024 i made this moodboard for influences i wanted to incorporate into my work more, they are pretty much the same faves ive had for years but i just wanted to have them in front of me and start deliberately choosing elements to ape.

i'd say i basically want to incorporate more 2D cartoon graphic elements combined with detailed, realistic, delicately rendered characters, more theatric background design and props... features like borders etc. the thing about a moodboard is unless you print it out and put it up by your desk it will sort of slide to the back of your mind which is what i think happened w mine LOL. cuz looking at this now im like well i didnt really hit all these ideas but i did inch closer.

the first pic here is sth i drew immediately after making the board and i like it but it does feel like a slightly clumsy attempt at mashing stuff together... i wouldn't say that it shows i dont understand whats appealing about the work i was referencing (even though thats how it looks), its more like the picture goes in an unexpected direction while making it LOL. but that's part of the fun. whereas in my mind the 2nd pic spiritually embodies the ideas of the ppl i'm trying to copy. even tho visually it's still a ways off. its probably my favourite thing i drew all year? :) though that's hard to say bcus i'm so pleased w so many other pieces especially those u can see on my summary pic!!!

i have a few more artists i wanna add to my board and then i will definitely print it this time so i can look at it every day instead of just twice a year LOL.

another thing im really pleased about is the number of comics i drew in 2024. i have this odd relationship with comics where i do draw them and have for years and im more or less decent at them but i act like drawing them mortally wounds me. like im so dramatic... i do partially believe the only way ill ever be able to complete a longform comic is through abusing stimulants but you know ill also never find out if i keep crawling off to die after inking a page. i see a lot of illustrators suffering when approaching comics from the illustration mindset of making beautiful pictures instead of the comics mindset of making finished pictures, but u know, im extremely slapdash as an illustrator and im also proud enough to believe im a guy that can do both, so its really time i act like it... basically just shut up and draw. i want to apply this especially to perspective drawing/panel backgrounds, which im, like, fine at. honestly fine at. i do think i trip myself up because i want to be the next dostoevsky or beyonce or whatever, i want to be great, but have to remember the most anyone can do is aspire to express something from your inner world. everything else is secondary.

one thing i learned the hard way is how hard it is to have work life balance when you work from your bedroom and 'monestise your hobby'... you know, the thing everyone has been warning each other about for years. turns out its real. its super confusing when so many elements of your work bleed into your social life, physical health, leisure time etc -- like i go online for fun, and also to promote myself. so wheres the distinction? i watch movies for entertainment but also for research... ive definitely felt like ive been working around the clock or my job has consumed my life at points. but i think being stricter with my work hours is the way forward. it truly is shaytan at the wheel when u answer an email at 3AM... no more of this!

and tied into this is being realistic about what i can achieve in a day and not feeling ashamed or that i need to do more... i get stuck in this silly loop that's like... 'i believe everyone should work 4 hours a day, but because other people are stuck working 40 hours a week i should also be making myself do that' and then i work myself into a flare up and wreck my work ethic and enjoyment. u can laugh... i know it doesnt make sense. well i wont do it any more. because i CANT... because i will DIE... some days i work 4 hours. some days i work 6. some days i work half an hour... it doesnt matter as long as stuff gets done.. and it does.

also want to talk about my chronic pain and hypermobility... after a year of lifting weights i am stunned to let u know ive actually improved. unfortunately i dont look anything like the rock and i still cant do a real push up but im stronger and have more stamina and suffer from way less zaps and aches and numbness, which was unthinkable before. i only really noticed after taking a trip and doing different activities (painting walls) that i can physically do a lot more than i usually do at home. but also my house is fucking cold so its hard to do anything for anyone. hoping for warmer days and big muscles to come.

some of my other art goals are to work more on paper whenever i can. i used to have a huge stack of newsprint on my drawing board underneath my ipad and id doodle and test ideas on that paper before drawing it digitally. i wanna do that again. many people find its easier to 'think' on paper and im the same. whenever i have an idea i wanna go 'what would this look like on paper?' and then find out.

i want to be thinking about composition and storytelling more in my illustrations, as in, think cinematic, movie posters, communicating big ideas. even if that idea is only as big as 'this blue looks great with this orange'... i want to make more stuff that looks like promotional material for my stories. of course behind every movie poster is 100,000 thumbnails and sketches and half-finished ideas. i want to remember that and not be hard on myself for drawing girl in profile #997.

i want to draw more autobio comics, just to be drawing more comics and also to look back on and know what i was doing that day. nothing fancy. a lot of people are doing that gentle comics habit this year and i fear my competitive nature may get me into it too.

i have more books i wanna create which ive talked about at length in my last diary entry and for now i think that's enough goals thank you very much. thank you for reading this far and for all your support. happy new year! love you x