#but. it really can not be overstated just how bad things are looking for them right now

[bookshelfdreams]

There's been some news articles here that the AfD wasn't kicked out of the ID for being too Neonazi, but by being too obvious about it. RN cut ties because while they do in fact agree on politics, RN is trying to appeal to more moderate conservatives. AfD is just being too overtly nazi, especially currently. So it isn't really that AfD was too far right-wing for the others, even though RN and others may say that for publicity reasons to save their image, but that they didn't have the forethought to hide it a bit more.

I mean, that's kind of true. Part of it is definitely that Krah couldn't just keep his big dumb mouth shut. That he had to go and be #notallSS. In an interview. With an Italian newspaper. Being "well, acshully" about the most notorious war criminals in European history still doesn't go over well with our neighbours who were the victims in said war crimes (like, say, literally erasing entire villages). Who would have thought. That's the line he crossed.

(Yes, he's an idiot of truly incomprehensible magnitude)

It is also correct that Le Pen and friends are distancing himself from him and the AfD in general more because of optics than any actual political stances. This is calculation, not the sudden emergence of a moral core, I agree with that.

However.

It really can not be overstated just how bad the optics are. This isn't just about a controversial quote.

This is also about the fact that the second in line after Krah, Petr Bystron, is accused of being entangled in the whole Voice of Europe affair - a misinformation network, revealed to have been controlled by the Russian state, and accused of having paid political actors to spread propaganda. Bystron is alleged to have taken 20,000€ from them. Supposedly, there's tapes of this. He denies it, of course, but there was enough evidence to lift his immunity and to issue a warrant to raid his office, so. (There's also reports that he initially complained about being paid in 200€ bills. Allegedly, he would have preferred smaller ones.)

Consequences from the party? He was advised by Krah to keep to the background during the election campaign. Other than this, nothing.

Then, of course there was Krah's employee Jian G., who was arrested on accusations of espionage for the Chinese government. Krah had no idea this was even happening, you guys, seriously! Taken aback he was. Shocked. Scandalized, even.

And there was the time chats came to light in which pro-Russia Ukrainian Oleg Voloshyn assured him that "problems" with "compensation" had been sovled and from May on, "everything will be as it was before February". Seems like he took money from Russia too, doesn't it? He denies it. He never answered the message, Voloshyn probably just wanted to invite him to the opera. or the message was meant for someone else. (No, really. That's what Krah said).

Again, consequences? From the party? For any of this? Nada.

This is the problem. The AfD is openly corrupt and incompetent, the chairs clearly have 0 control over their own members, and none of these absolute buffoons can behave like civilized people in public. This isn't even touching on all the many, many scandals the party had on a national level this year alone!

f course you can't be a far right populist and have manners or a modicum of decency, so the fact that even people like Marine le Pen find the AfD unbearable - honestly gives me a little hope? There's an election in my state this year, and the AfD is predicted to get about 30%. That's very bad.

I do not think any of the clowns in I&D are better people for excluding the AfD. I don't think any of them will take this as an opportunity to take a good long look in the mirror and examine all the hatred they have in their heart.

This is, however, another little act of self-destruction. Another brick crumbling from the foundation of the party. I hope it all comes crashing down.

[inbabylontheywept]

The Motherfucking Lizard King

No one at work trusts my boss. 

He's smart. He works hard. He's not trustworthy. He hasn't actually fucked anyone at work over, but he's ruined his last two marriages with affairs, and got dumped by his third fiance when he wouldn't sign a prenup. The fact that we all know this is just a hazard of working in a small town. 

Anyway: The thought process of the people in the lab is that if he screwed over his first wife, and his second wife, and was probably planning on screwing over his third wife, it would be insane for him not to screw us over. After all, what kind of idiot treats their employees better than their spouse? 

I dunno. His kind, I guess? He's had a few chances to fuck us over, and he hasn't taken them. Opposite really. When our parent company was doing furloughs, he stayed in the office almost a hundred hours, talking and talking and talking his way up the corporate ladder. And in the end, no one at our site got furloughed. 

He's pulled strings like that before. And it baffles me, right? Because it really does make zero sense. He'll move the heavens and the earth for us, but his wife and kids are afterthoughts. It feels like any moment, he's going to look into the mirror and realize how stupid that is. It feels like I'm betting on him making the same stupid mistake again, and again, and again - like it would be less cynical to believe he was, eventually, going to stab me in the back. But he hasn't yet, and as far as I can tell he's been making that mistake for close to fifteen years, and it's already cost him everything it can. If he was going to learn, he would have by now. 

So my position on him is that if he wanted to date someone I cared about, I'd warn them off. I don't trust him there. But I tentatively trust him to be my boss. Maybe one day he'll stick the knife in and twist, and everyone will say Ah, Babs, we warned you, but for now, I accept that he's doing a very predictable, very irrational thing, and I've made my peace with it. 

---

My job has glue traps. 

No one likes the glue traps, but we don't have a lot of options. Poison's banned by state law, spring traps are banned by company safety, and several non-lethal options tried in the past failed to work. The mouse problem can get pretty bad if it's ignored, and there's some real health hazards in that. Our site has never had a positive hantavirus test, thank God, but the big base about a half hour away has. That guy's gonna be on oxygen the rest of his life. 

If a mouse gets caught, we just euthanize it. But more than mice get stuck. Lizards can wander into those traps too, and the people working there have different feelings about the lizards. They don't pose nearly the same kind of risk mice do. They're chill little guys, and they keep the moths away, and they're just 

You know. They're friendly. There's something to be said about walking into a room, and hitting the light switch, and seeing two little guys on the wall start to do pushups as soon as they see you. 

People used to just euthanize the lizards too, but I had pet leopard geckos as a kid and I couldn't take that so I wound up googling how to free animals from glue traps. Now, when a lizard gets stuck in a trap - which happens once or twice a week - I get some vegetable oil from the breakroom, and a little plastic fork, and I'll spend fifteen to twenty minutes just kind of gently prying the little guys out. 

I have a team of technicians that help me operate one of the larger machines. They're real blue collar guys, ex-airforce, and they make me look like a little kid. Being an engineer means they'll look to me as a leader sometimes, which is a wild experience. And I started helping the lizards for my own conscience, but one of the crazier consequences of it has been that it seriously boosted my leadership cred. Because those guys see me, and they go: Hey. If he's willing to fight for a lizard, he's gotta be willing to fight for me. 

I cannot overstate how nice that is. Most engineers that want to make a change to a maintenance practice, or try an upgrade, they have to work their asses off to get the techs to buy in. But I can just ask. They already trust me to do good. They know I'm new, and they know I'm not the smartest engineer in the building, but they also know I'm the one who gets lizards out of the glue traps. 

And just because of that, they're willing to follow me. 

---

My boss has a meeting every month or two. It's typically basic house cleaning stuff - reminders about routines we've gotten lazy on, and updates on future projects. Maybe some warnings about problems coming from higher up in the company.

People are, in my opinion, a bit too cynical about the meetings. It stems from people not trusting our boss, which again, I understand, because it would make so much more sense if he wasn't trustworthy. It's a testament to the man's incredibly unhealthy priorities that he is. But as we made it to the end of the meeting, one of bullet points was: 

Do NOT mess with animals in the building. 

So I looked at my techs, and they looked at me, and when he got to the point, he was so scathing I actually just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. He said basically that he'd heard some reports about someone in the building handling animals that found their way in and got stuck, and that he just wanted to emphasize how insanely inappropriate that was, not to mention dangerous, and that if he needed to speak to anyone about it again, there would be severe consequences. 

I was willing to just take the shame and move on. I was. But one of my techs is old. Old enough he could've retired two years ago. And his actual literal goal is to one day get angry, yell at someone, and storm out. That's how he wants to retire. So instead of biting his tongue like everyone else, he stood up and said: I hate the glue traps. You hate the glue traps. We all hate glue traps. But we've all sat here for years, ignoring the little things that get stuck in them, watching them die, and then Bab's comes in, and he is the first person in decades to give enough of a shit to start pulling the lizards out. And I don't want him to stop. 

Get humane traps or shut up but we are not going back to the old way of just letting things starve. 

And my boss actually froze up. He got all wide eyed and stared at Marc, and then the other techs jumped in, and there was a very small but intense rebellion in the meeting and my boss kept trying to interrupt while getting absolutely bowled over by this gang of angry middle aged air force vets, and eventually he just went 

I will speak with Babylon about this afterwards! After! And then he will speak with everyone else, but I have more points to cover. 

So they went silent, and my boss rushed through the last five minutes, and we all adjounred. The techs really didn't like that I was going in alone - they thought our boss was going to try and shout me into compliance. Marc in particular was like, Look, if he tries bullying you, stand your ground, and if he threatens anything, just come get us, and we'll give him hell. 

So armed with that, I went to my boss's office. I sat in the chair across from him, and he kept his composure for maybe five seconds before just flopping back into his chair. 

I had no idea you were saving lizards, he said, but I'm glad you are. I always hated seeing them die in the glue.  

I wasn't expecting that. I was about to ask him what the comment from the meeting was about then, but he answered that before I even got the chance.

A snake got into the building last week, and - someone picked it up and chased a coworker around. Turns out that coworker was severely afraid of snakes, and now it's a shitshow. We're a small site, and now I can't ask those two to work together anymore, to say nothing about how the snake fared after all that. Being upset about that is a reasonable thing, right? 

And he gave me a look like he actually wanted an answer, so I said Yeah, totally, chasing a coworker around with a snake is a dick move. Especially if that coworker is already afraid of snakes. 

And he said Exactly! and then we sat there a few moments longer. He looked so incredibly tired that I did, actually, feel kind of bad for him. And then he somehow managed to sink even further into his chair, and said

Look, I know I'm not a good guy. But I'm not evil. I'm not some sort of crazy asshole that's going to demand that everyone watch lizards starve to death. When you go back downstairs, could you try to pass that on? That I'm not evil? 

I said Sure because it wasn't a hard request, and he looked relieved. I actually made it halfway out before I realized I had a question. 

Who grabbed the snake? I asked. 

Not supposed to talk about it, he said. But whoever comes to mind first is probably right. 

ThatGuy? I asked. And he looked me in the face, nodded his head yes, and said No. 

---

The techs seemed a little disappointed that they didn't get to storm the boss's office, but were otherwise in good spirits. They were actually a little bit embarrassed to hear about the snake story - apparently, it wasn't much of a secret. It'd just slipped their minds because it happened three weeks ago. 

We did maintenance after that, the same basic repairs we did every week. The meeting had been stressful and it was a relief to work with my hands. When the parts were reinstalled, everything cleaned and smooth and ready to go, Marc found me again. 

You know what the lesson of today is? he asked. And there were quite a few answers to that that I could have taken - from don't assume the worst of people to be careful with how you spend your trust - we all need it more than we think. 

But instead I said what? because I wanted to hear what his answer was going to be. 

That I got your back, he said. Then he clapped one very, very large hand on my shoulder, gave it a good squeeze, and walked back to dosimetry lab.

---

The next day, Marc gave me a package and told me to open it in my office. I was suspicious, but I followed the request.

Cardboard gave way to a small baggie, obviously full of fabric, which opened to reveal a t-shirt that read

"I Am the Motherfucking Lizard King."

I looked at it, I loved it, and then I got an idea. I went to my boss's office and knocked on the door. When he opened it, I asked him if he would be willing to allow something very unprofessional to happen for morale building purposes.

How unprofessional? he asked. I held the shirt up in answer. He gave the shirt a short look over and snorted.

You can wear it on weeks without customers, he said. Which just so happened to include that week.

I'll pass on that it came with your blessing, I replied, and he looked oddly relieved.

Thanks, he said. And then I went downstairs.

---

The techs were very, very happy to see the shirt. And while my boss's reputation remains in tatters, and probably will be until he moves (or dies), the next time there was a meeting, there was quite a bit less complaining about how mere presence. Which is, I guess, a start.

We'll see if he squanders it.

[pocket-deer-boy]

This is just a personal pet peeve of mine but i feel like a lot of online art tutorials overstate the importance of stuff like guidelines to get “correct” anatomy every single time and while those are typically really good handgrips for beginners we should also tell beginners about gesture drawing. Like maybe i’m being too animatorbrained here but being able to pump out a pose in anywhere from 15 seconds to 2 minutes and quickly move onto the next drawing without lingering on every little mistake is a really really good way at getting good at drawing people proportions quickly. If you make mistakes fast you learn from them fast. So here’s a little exercise:

Sit down, grab some reference images, draw ten poses in twenty minutes (or do ten poses in ten minutes if you’re feeling adventurous or confident) and take a step back and look at your work after the fact. Be sure to move from drawing to drawing quickly once your timer is done. Pretend you’re in a model drawing class and the model has already changed pose whenever your timer hits - finish up whatever lines you were drawing, move on to looking at what the model is doing now.

You will make a lot of shitty drawings, of course, but that’s not so bad. You only spent a minute or two making each one. Focus on the drawings you do like, and look at them as a whole.

Look at all the drawings together and how they fit together on the page. Look at little details and lines you’re proud of. Take note of things you found difficult to get right in such a short time. Take note of the things you liked doing. Do the exercise again, and focus in on the things you want to improve or explore.

Maybe you want to focus on how the torso conveys its weight on the legs. Maybe you want to focus on how shoulders and arms bend around the neck. Maybe you want to focus on how to convey depth on the torso. Maybe you can learn something more about how to draw a body if you only draw using sharp lines and angles. Maybe you can learn something more if you only draw using squiggly, overlapping lines. Maybe you can learn more about how to draw a body if you only fill out the shadows with thick, quick lines. Congratulations! You’re not just learning how to draw a body, but you’re now also exploring your tastes!

This is a fine exercise to do alone, but it’s a lot more fun to do as an activity with a small group so you get to discuss the art you made together.

[egophiliac]

Ego how do u draw the shroud bros hair? Its so hard 😔

Atp i might as well draw them bald😭🙏

I don't draw them at all consistently (let alone anywhere near on-model), so I'm not sure how helpful this will be. :') but I can share how I break it down, if that helps at all!

standard disclaimer that this is just how I draw them, take from it what you will, et cetera and so on and so forth. I really don't draw them close to canon at all, so this is sorta specific to my process, I guess? (and I am SUPER bad at putting things into words, so my apologies if this all comes off as a bunch of incomprehensible "you just, you know, ~*~*draw it*~*~" nonsense. 🫠 I can make no promises, but I'll try!)

I always start by establishing the shape of the skull and roughly where the hairline is -- the Shroudbros especially don't look anything like themselves without their hair, it's terrifying. :(

really can't overstate how much drawing hair is helped by thinking about it as different sections! even you have a less cartoony art style, it helps a LOT to start out with it as big, simplified shapes and then breaking it down more and more as you go.

the thing about their hair in particular is that the closer it is to their face, the more hair-like it is, and then it gets progressively more fire-y as it goes back. so their bangs pretty much act like regular hair! Idia has long, downward-and-outward-swooping bangs in that classic Yana M-shape, while Ortho's are shortier and spunkier (they kinda, uhhh, "lean" more to his right in general).

Idia also has these little short spiky sections that cover his ears and ring around the back of his head. these also act more like regular hair than fire.

them they have these big sections that are brushed back from their bangs and stick up -- this is where their hair really starts acting more like fire, so it doesn't have to be super consistent, just getting some nice flame-reminiscent shapes. I think of it as being in three sections: a bigger center flame, then two sections of smaller flames that kinda frame that center one. (I tend to treat this bit as being kind of flat/frond-y, although that's probably not really how it's supposed to be. ( ᐛ )

then I kinda just...fill in the back of their heads with more flame-y shapes that layer over each other. Idia does consistently have this one longer curvy bit that sticks out on his left; otherwise I just try to keep his hair feeling brushed back and with that sorta downward swoopiness he has in general, with just the little flame-ends sticking up. Ortho, meanwhile, has shorter clumps with an upward swoopiness (and note that his hair is under his headphones, so it gets a little compressed by them).

Idia's longer hair is where it gets to be, like, just pure fire, so it's all about whatever Shapes I feel like doin'! it kinda just...flows down from the back of his head, if that makes sense? sorta like a cross between water and a stream of fire. (length-wise, it goes down to either the back of his knees or down to his feet depending on which reference you're looking at...it really isn't super consistent, so I'm not either. :')

and that's how I draw their hair! I don't usually shade it beyond that just 'cause I'm lazy, but the shading does help sell the fire effect a lot -- their hair shading uses a lot of curvy and weird shapes that darkens from the center of their hair clumps out, with highlights/transparency on the tips (and just a little bit where hair highlights would normally be, to get the feeling of the curve in there).

SO yeah, hopefully you're able to get something helpful out of all this! 🙇

[lost-in-fandoms]

Daniel is stuck in a time loop.

cw: somewhat sexual content (the first sentence is how explicit it gets)

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. This part never gets old. He listens to Max's moan, half lost in the pillow pressed against his face, looks at his broad back covered in sweat. No matter how many times they do it, this is always good.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. His legs and back are sore from the crash, but he doesn't let it stop him. Max's skin is pink and soft below him, and for a second Daniel wants to lean forward and bite, hard enough to leave a mark. It wouldn't matter anyway. It would be gone when he wakes up today again.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. Max's face is angled slightly away from the pillow today, and Daniel can hear him moan his name more clearly. It makes him want to push the pillow back into place.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He hasn't stopped thinking about how Max had moaned his name, however many repetitions ago. D-ah!-niel. In this version of today, he couldn't stop thinking about it for even a second. Waking up alone. Going to the track. Driving and driving and driving. Oversteering in turn 8, crashing in the barriers. D-ah!-niel. He pulls the pillow away, wants to hear it again and again.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. Today's crash had been different. For once, it had been the car failing him, not him failing the car. The crash hadn't been quite a crash, just a slow stop. Nothing hurts today. He still feels like crying.

Daniel pushes into Max, a sharp snap of hips. Max scrambles for something to hold onto. After the crash, the thoughts of the team had been clear during the debrief. One more race like this, and he was out of a seat. And if he was out of a seat, he was going to lose Max too, this fuck buddies thing they have going on too fragile to survive the distance. Everything seems to hurt double.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He doesn't know how many times he's done this anymore, but he knows that he can get tired of everything else, but doesn't get tired of this. A part of him wants to pull out, to curl up in Max's arms and just ask to be held. He knows Max would do it, but if he has to relive this day over and over, he can at least get some good sex out of it.

Daniel doesn't push into Max. He lays on his chest and sobs, knowing the tears will never have existed tomorrow.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He doesn't know if he wants to get out of the loop anymore. Sure, crashing every day is exhausting, and having to go to the subsequent debrief is horrible, but how will he be able to go back to his life after this? How will he go back to being friends with Max, to only touching him from time to time, when every day one more piece of his heart gets stuck to him?

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He tries to be aware of every twitch of Max's muscles, every sound he makes, every shift in his half hidden expression. Just in case he never gets to see it again, just in case he wakes up tomorrow. He doesn't believe in it anymore, knows he'll wake up today again, but one never knows. Or maybe he just wants to have it all. He's getting really bad at lying to himself.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He still wants to make it good, just like the first day. He's no longer thinking what if this one is the one that sticks, he just wants Max to feel good, in every iteration of today. If it was possible, he'd want it in every tomorrow too.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He doesn't stop himself from letting all the words fall from his lips, doesn't dare looking at Max's reaction to them. He doesn't want to know if Max will say them back. They will be gone in the morning.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. The air feels different, not quite as stale. He finished p11 today, not quite points, but the first time in a hundred and more races he finished at all. He didn't wait for Max to come to him, walked to his room himself. He's looking down into his blue eyes, open, soft. Trusting. He knows he'd look the same in Max's place, but he's had hundreds of night to work up to it. He understands now that if this had been the first and only night, Max would have looked at him the same, it had been just Daniel who had never wanted to see. Now he can't stop looking. He leans down to kiss him, just barely stops himself from saying the words he's not hiding from himself anymore.

He'll say them tomorrow.

[dukeofankh]

Almost everybody has at least a *little* bit of a point.

Yeah. Even them. And being wrong about everything else doesn't actually change that. They might not know how that point should actually be interpreted, they might come to foolish or even actively harmful conclusions from that point. They might radically overstate how prevalent or important the point is. But don't fall into the trap of refusing to acknowledge things that are true just because a bad person says them.

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen someone from a group I belong to dunking on someone from some outgroup, even a very harmful outgroup, and in doing so, denying basically true things that we would absolutely agree with if we were talking about them in private.

I dunno. Maybe it bugs me for neurodivergent reasons. Maybe I'm a pedantic ass.

The other day I got into a massive fight online with a guy in a feminist group because he was squabbling with a bit of a dipshit who pointed out that men are under a lot of pressure to become financially successful, and that's why they do stupid shit like get into crypto.

And like... rather than say "yeah, men are still expected under hegemonic masculinity to be breadwinners, despite the advances of women into the workforce, the economy being in shambles and the middle class having been whittled to a toothpick at this point. We need to work as feminists to challenge that gendered expectation, and as leftists to rebuild the power of labour to allow everyone, both men and women, to have a living wage that can allow for a family and a dignified life." This other feminist guy decided instead that, since the concept of men being pressured to be economic providers was being used in a way that sounded like it was suggesting that women only want to date rich men, it was redpill propaganda and, therefore, fascist misinformation. He went with, "what are you talking about, Gen X killed the concept of corporate success as marker of personal worth, everyone agrees that being a workaholic is bad and unattractive now. The idea that you think you'll be judged for being poor is a lie spread by the right to radicalize you into hating women." He did not react well when I pointed out that he was just as wrong as the other guy was. More wrong, actually.

And like...you can build multiple arguments from the same data point. Some are well reasoned, some aren't. Someone can feel pressure and assume it's much more widespread than it is, or that it takes a much more extreme form than it really does. But if you're going to coherently argue against an idea, you have to honestly appraise the situation and figure out what grains of truth it has in it. You have to acknowledge that core root of truth and show them how it means something else.

If, instead of doing that, you just deny the true thing because the other person's argument is built on it and you want to stamp it out? Because, hey, they interpreted it wrong, it's not like they really believe something true? You act as though a fact used to support a lie is also a lie. And if you do that, and argue against the facts because their conclusions are stupid, you construct a little world where, in refusing to accept both their flawed argument AND the fact it's based on, you become more wrong than they are. And you make the deeply foolish choice of picking a fight in that world. And if it's on the internet, that little world can become pretty big. Tactically, it's about the dumbest thing you could do. It ensures that they will keep fighting you because...you're fucking obviously wrong? It radicalizes people, because suddenly the only people who will acknowledge the truth on this thing they care about are other terrible people. It makes your side look dogmatic and ignorant. And apart from all of that...it gets things completely backwards.

Your principles are what you want to use to change the world for the better. You believe them because you honestly believe that following your principles improves things, because they are based on a solid grasp of how the world works. Your beliefs follow from what is true. If you flip it so that whether something is true is based on whether it supports your beliefs...that's a bad road to go down.

[qsycomplainsalot]

Re: Pervertin or how German Supersoldiers High on Crack travelled through Space and Time Buy my Book

I came across a post on the bird site yesterday calling into attention the use of pervitin, more or less adderall, among German troops during WW2. For context pervitin tablets were indeed issued to a lot of military personnel back in those days, specifically to aircraft pilot and sometimes tank crews on long missions. The drug as some of you may have heard keeps you awake and alert, along with a slew of side effects and a non negligible chance of addiction. In a discussion that brought to view just how willing people are to buy into Nazi propaganda in the year of our f*cking lord 2023, I pointed out a few things, uphill and having to indulge a lot of sidetracking. The use of pervitin has always been a little overstated ever since it came to the internet's attention, and I certainly would never call it a key component of the Blitzkrieg when, in the theaters of war where actual Blitzkrieg was employed, its success was more due to a combination of innovative doctrines, intact fuel supplies and a big fat helping of dumb luck. It was a bold move highly relying on capturing enemy fuel depots with fast, surprise deep strikes supported by a lot of armored and air forces, and it was only sustainable in neighboring, industrialized countries. One can argue if the USSR was industrialized at the time, but it stopped mattering when the Russians removed their entire industry from the West to beyond the Ural mountains. The Blitz stalled there.

"But if it didn't work, then why did the Nazis do it so often ?" Well the answer to that is twofold. The first, longer answer is that Nazis were a bunch of f*cking morons. Maybe not one by one, but as a government in charge of military procurement, they were one bunch of goofy motherf*ckers. Gaggle of functional shit-for-brains really. The Nazis gave every one of their tanks in the middle of the war two coats of anti-magnetic paint, which took almost a full day to cure, despite being the only major nation to use magnetic antitank mines. The Nazis kept using slave labor drawn from their prisoners of war, including in the manufacturing of their overengineered armored vehicles, resulting in poor quality products or, you know, a few rivets in your magnificent Tiger tank being replaced by a cigarette butt. The Nazis spent more than half the cost of a strategic bomber on every V2 rocket, not including design costs, for less than half the payload. It ended up killing more Germans and slave workers than British people in London, for literally no strategic or tactical result with 0.4 person killed per every rocket. The second, shorter answer is that pervitin was not used that much. A lot of the arguments trying to boost its importance come from a single book, "Blitzed" by Norman Ohler, now available in twenty languages apparently, where grand claims are made by a historian who was probably more than a little tired of seeing Buzzfeed rack in the big bucks instead of him.

End note; I was called out by a bird siter after the conversation that inspired this post for even beginning to fact-check this, which they considered, and I quote, "fangirling over nazi stats". I cannot stress this enough, learning the 'bad' parts of history does not make you bad person, it is how you interact with the resulting knowledge. Unlike what they implied, I had to look for those supporting evidence. I had a hunch that such a grabbing headline about super-drugs would be fake, I knew offhand that V2 rockets killed more blues than reds, but when I had to research all that jazz about Nazis and their superweapons it was to dunk on them, not make another History Channel documentary about a time-travelling bell. Stay critical, fascists can eat shit.

[asksythe]

I want to write an LB6 Oberon x Gudako x PHH Vortigern story.

The other day, I told @erimies that I wanted to try my hand at writing a dark romance story.

I don't often write romance, and even when I do, I view it less as shipping and romance and more as the continuation of characterization. So, if I feel this is how this character would behave or potentially change in a certain direction, I would follow that logic to its conclusion no matter how I personally feel about it.

But the thing is... despite how Oberon Vortigern would like to portray himself, I don't personally think of him as a truly evil kind of character. You see it in the way he conducts himself in canon LB6. There was a lot of things he didn't have to do, but he did (like teaching young Castoria and giving her a short time of respite from her loneliness and ostracization).

There were also a lot of things he could have done were he truly evil, but he never did. I'm talking about his relationship with Riri during the early part of the Lostbelt. Almost every night in the early part of the story, they were alone with each other. Almost every night. Whether it was him climbing in through the window of her room in Mike's tavern, or when he sent Castoria away to gather woods or create a bounded field, leaving him to sit alone with Riri by the fireside. They didn't do anything. They just talked.

I don't think it's possible to overstate how emotionally vulnerable Riri was at that time before she met Mash again in Norwich. Someone as smart and socially savvy as Oberon should have been able to twist Riri's heart and mind like a pretzel in that situation. He might not have been able to pull the wools over her eyes for long, but he absolutely could have done devastating damage or primed her in a way that would benefit him more. I'm fairly sure there are some kinky hentai doujins out there that explored this very scenario. But the fact that Oberon never even tried spoke volume.

Then there's his wet sock of a fight at the end of LB6. Like, sir, can you be more half-assed in your big villain speech and fight?

Summer 2023 on JP server more or less cinched the deal. Oberon is just... a wet cat... and really really really (embarrassingly) down bad for Riri.

Hah!

My point is, I don't think regular Oberon cuts it for a truly dark romance kind of story. Not against someone whose heart is so resilient like Riri. So I thought of exploring the Vortigern side.

As it so happened, I acquired the novella Garden of Avalon, in which PHH Vortigern is featured as the villain.

Having read it, I... have thoughts. PHH Vortigern seems to exhibit the same kind of put-upon, enforced evil as LB Oberon. Again, his actions gave him away. He usurped his brother Uther's throne via violence... and yet let Uther go with his life and limbs fully in tact. And that's how we arrived at the canon Artoria, who is a dragon in human form... because Uther took one look at Vortigern's dragon aspect and thought. I would like me a big freakin gun just like that and he went on to do really skeevy-sounding human experimentation (via way of Merlin), resulting in Arotia....

...Bruh...

And people wonder why Artoria felt so inhuman as king... Well, if her purpose of existence was only to defeat Vortigern and never to succeed Uther as King, then it kinda makes sense, doesn't it?

Even when he was defeated, Vortigern still worried about the fate of the world and his own niece (in the usual tsundere snarky way).

Well, I guess Oberon really is an alternate version of PHH Vortigern. There's a good bit of similarities between them. Implied and not. In any case, that's where the PHH Vortigern x Riri comes in. Because I thought, there are things worth exploring here.

....

Nineveh 2461

... is the name I gave this story idea.

...

On the eve when the two brothers, splintered now in blood and heart, part from one another, the aggrieved people of Albion proclaim. 

We do not want to be fought over by either dragons or wyrms, for whichever one prevails, the little men will lose regardless. 

And so a plan is hatched alongside Uther’s dream to birth a dragon in human form. Is it not customary to proffer a greedy dragon with a virgin? A tribute shall be gifted to Vile King Vortigern, so that he would be sufficiently distracted and thus turn the worst of his evils from them. This shall be no ordinary virgin. Nothing that the Vile King himself could clutch from the populace. 

No. 

This one shall be crafted to specifications. A vessel shall be made. A ritual shall be enacted to call forth that which he desires but may not touch. 

One who can withstand his savagery. One whose burning hurt will endure even the Vile King’s frozen embrace. 

...

Ritsuka is summoned into a ‘vessel’ during the Arthurian cycle in PHH, singularity style!

Core story is a flip on the classical wicked dragon and imprisoned princess tale. 

An exploration of what book Vortigern means by a ‘dark paradise where humans cannot step foot on.’

It’s less that Ritsuka is imprisoned and more that she’s enjoying domestic life, taking care of cantankerous dragon man Vortigern.

This tragic, weirdly domestic romance is doomed because, regardless of how she feels, she has to resolve this singularity and return to Chaldea.

The climax is Ritsuka’s servants aiding the local Artoria and coming to her rescue. 

Oberon Vortigern is among the rescue team, spearheading it. 

Final battle involves Oberon Vortigern against himself. PHH Vortigern against a version of himself. 

[intertexts]

OKAY BECAUSE I HAVE STILL NOT WRITTEN DOWN ALL OF MY THOUGHTS AND THEYRE JUST KIND OF FLOATING AROUND VAGUELY IN MY BRAIN SOUP.... holds out my hands like a starving victorian child. tell me about your william first death thoughts <3 what the hell sent that boy over a cliff edge. how long did he stay at the bottom. what was his first glimpse of the spirit world like. etc etc etc !!!!!!

GOD. WIWI TIME. you KNOW this is going to be an indecipherable soup of thoughts. if i was saying this all in person u know i would have like. pages of notes with a billion little paragraphs going a billion directions & arrows pointing all over the place. but. let's see what we've got. i love being normal about william wisp!!!

you know my thoughts on those damn wisps. first off. like before i even get started i cannot overstate how "something alien that loves you and wants you but doesn't have any conception of how humans work or how their affection hurts the thing they want " they are to me. they are a little kid who's trying to catch a lightning bug and crushing it in their hands, except they want to crush it and they don't get how killing a lightning bug is bad. they are going oh we like this kid he's nosy and curious (and he also wants to be dead? hey, we're dead! awesome! i see no problem with this!) we want him dead :)

the thing that i guess has slowly solidified in my head as to how the hell that boy went over a cliff......... god this is going to be so incoherent. you're in for it.

i do really love the folklore of will-o-the-wisps-- hypnotically leading you astray and off paths and down places you'll never return from. i think also that the wisps actively tugging him in that direction in some form resonates in a really painful way with the "haha! william wisp everybody wants to manipulate and use you for their own goals and you keep falling victim to wanting to trust people and getting fucking hurt by it (said in the haha jonathan you are banging my daughter cadence)" thing. how many of the pivotal choices in will's life were made because *he* wanted them. how much of what's happened to him is him getting tossed around from person to person!!

simultaneously: god you know he fucking killed himself man. you know he did. i'm not even-- staring at u with a hopeless expression and my hands in my hair. like. obviously he did. william wisp boy scout. william wisp always prepared with 1 million useful tools. william wisp grew up running around in the woods. william wisp who loved hiking and was always outside. you don't do that accidentally, unless you're an absolute idiot in a very precarious situation, neither of which i think apply to him. he still... chose to follow the wisps. i think. like, that decision Was His. he wasn't hypnotized out of his gourd or something. in my mind maybe it was a bit less of a "this time i'm really gonna do it" and more of a "this is interesting and beautiful and compelling and i honestly don't really give a shit if i die? maybe that's what this means. maybe that's what the woods are telling me that i'm right and i shouldn't be here after all." actually yeah no i just arrived at this conclusion myself and im fucking. yeah. kemuri voice if you weren't a coward you'd have killed yourself already. wisps voice yeah you know how you think about bleeding out sometimes? yeah you should do that. that would be good. that's all you've good for. it would be the best thing you possibly could do right now (to them it IS. they want him dead so they can have him!!!!). yeah c'mere come this way yeah keep following me. look at that drop. look at how pretty it is.

so. i guess. there's your answer to what i think happened there!!!!! regardless of being influenced the choice was his, ultimately. i think it takes away frm his whole narrative if it was not an intentional decision. to do that. & also i think his parents & the people around him Know That. stares at his dynamic with his parents. staring at it. (also just. william wisp clinical depression. he's just fucked up that way even with good parents even outside the deadwood horrors. he's just like that. important to me. passively suicidal long b4 he fell in the deeply miserable high schooler way. god he must have been like.. fourteen fifteen? sophmore when it happened? but GOD the deadwood horrors also. growing up being absolutely alienated from everyone around u except a handful of people.....)

I HAVE NOT ACTUALLY LIKE. thought about how long he was there for very much. but i think it was quick for him and long, like, objectively. in my head i have been thinking that it just. happened while he was alone and he came back alone but i don't know if he would tell his parents. would he tell his parents? i don't know if he'd danny phantom it or if he'd come back limping and pale and brown with dried blood and go hey mom? in a choked wobbly trying to hold back tears voice & accidentally phase through her arms when she tried to hug him.

either that or i think he should come back while the cops are crouched over his body. early morning freezing cold his parents crying a couple yards away no paramedics because they couldn't make it through the forest and there's no nearby safe helicopter landing space. just open his eyes laura palmer style. the like,,,, finality of it to everyone around him. they Knew He Was Dead. not that laura palmer did that but i'm picturing that opening scene of them finding her washed up body u know.

regardless: i don't think he saw the spirit world until... god. when's the first time he did in canon. his second death? i don't think he knew Anything. i don't think the wisps gave him shit!!!! he just woke up no heartbeat no breath falling through floors and phasing through people nobody to ask about it. his parents didn't know anything he didn't either!! anyway. leaving you with this.

[dozyisdead]

Low downforce isn't necessarily a bad thing! Teams are constantly adjusting their levels based on tracks (ex. McLaren last year during Las Vegas), but Williams does seem car more suited for low downforce tracks. The thing I find kinda interesting, is that in theory a low downforce setup would actually be better for Alex who prefers oversteer--- which also means that Max could probably do very well in that Williams if they shave off the extra weights that's quite literally weighing them down. Carlos is almost notorious throughout the Ferrari fans for liking understeer better than oversteer (because Charles is wildly known as preferring a car on the nose, or more oversteer like Max and Alex). This kinda makes you wonder what that will entail for Carlos' run in William's! So to me, Carlos and Alex will be essentially like Carlos and Charles where they both prefer different things which could end up being a slight issue for Williams. I'm also pretty sure that the Williams past few cars have been oversteery, which brings me to Logan!

On Logan's end, I honesty don't know what he prefers? I've watched Prema videos of him explicitly answering it as he prefers oversteer in general ( he also said he'd rather have understeer during an actual race, but turns back on that statement later saying he prefers over). I get confused though, when some people are saying that he looks like he prefers understeering now though! So, Logan's situation is a bit funky to me. In the Prema video though, Oscar basically says that Logan likes to "send the car" which to me, sounds like he would perform well in a oversteery/low downforce car? Keep in mind, that this is from F3 and around 4 years ago, so Logan's preferences could definitely have changed by now.

I honestly don't really know which teams are more low/high downforce prone, but I do know the extremes of the two which are Williams (low) and Aston Martin (high). Just in Silverstone, Aston Martin had the highest downforce configuration out of all the teams! Which is wild compared to the other lead contender's (Ferrari, McLaren, Red bull, Mercedes) who chose to go more neutral to even low downforce set ups!

Oh great! Thank you again for more information!

So, you mentioned that Carlos prefers an understeer set up, which is kind of the opposite of what Williams has right now? I agree that it's going to be interesting to see what happens if the car is still on the oversteer heavy side, like it seems to be this year. I'm not sure if it's been like this in the past, but that is really interesting to know! I think with Logan's situation it is really tricky, but I believe someone mentioned that he goes over how the car feels and the data a lot, so maybe he's slowly been finding his balance? I can't imagine that it's been very easy to do so in the Williams, but if we look at his progress this year, I feel like he's been getting there. Like I said before, if they had a better car to figure out which why they prefeed, I think it would be a good view of their skills and abilities as drivers. Alex has his set up figured out it feels like, and the good thing is that the Williams car is really suited for him, being low downforce and somewhat oversteer. if we also take into account that Max like the car oversteer, I feel like that means Alex was doing a lot better at Red Bull than people think. Again, I despise the teams, love the drivers, yk?

Also, the fact that Willaims and Aston Martin are the polar extremes makes a lot of sense! I know people joke about cars being tractors or lawnmowers, but Williams really feels like an actual tractor sometimes. And I want to say that the reason Logan has been kind of switching about is maybe he is as close as we can get to a true neutral preference when it comes to over vs. under steer? I know that F1 cars are extremely customizable, for example Michael Schumacher's configuration was nearly painful for anyone else to drive because it was so tailored. I think Logan is a bit of an odd one out in that aspect, he prefers possibly a very neutral or as close to basic set up? I believe the only difference is that maybe his set up is more left handed leaning in the car? I heard something along those lines.

Thank you for all the information, it has been very fun to learn about and extremely interesting!

[polyhexian]

Okay. SO. Full trip report on the cat show, WITH tea:

We left Friday at like one because it was about a two hour drive to the hotel near the show. Drive there was mostly fine, but at one point Palomita started complaining a lot and I was worried she needed to go to the bathroom, and kitty bladders are delicate and it can be really bad for them to hold it. We pulled into a rest stop for just a minute and I took her out on the leash to walk a bit but she truly hated it and got back in without going potty. She was also very cold from even just the brief stop and was shaking so she went back into the carrier to get wrapped in blankets until she was warmed up again. We got set up in the hotel room and Palomita slunk right under a couch... And then popped back up two minutes later and spent the entire night running around the hotel room exploring and adventuring. I cannot overstate how much she loved the hotel room. Both nights she was there she absolutely would not settle down.

First day of the show. We wake up at seven. I stuff my face with hotel waffles. Time to find the show.

So here's the thing. The show starts at ten. We are here early because we have been told there is a first time attendee orientation. We are not the only new people this month! So we arrive and we ask where our spot is and what we need to check in and blabla. Get that taken care of. Then follow the directions and can Not find it. We try twice, then just go down every aisle and finally I go back and say I'm sorry I seriously cannot find it. Someone takes us there and it's absolutely not where they were describing. But we are here. We get set up as quickly as we can because we don't want to be late for orientation! We get her little cat house up- it's like a little tent! Like a big soft carrier! Lots of space honestly. And everyone has one. So all the cats are in their spots. And then we are like okay let's find the orientation! So we go back to the front and ask and are told "oh I don't know that's not my thing, go ask x person over there" and we are like uhhh okay so we ask them and they say check the schedule and we do and it's in ring 1, so we go to ring 1 and ask the judge setting up there if she's doing this orientation...? And she's like what. Uh. If I am no one told me. And we are like uh. Okay. Well. Let's just go back to the cat so she isn't alone. And we do. And wait for like. Something. But nothing happens and eventually it's ten o'clock and the show starts lol

So I have. No idea what's going on. Everything is confusing, not explained, and unclear. And like. We have WATCHED shows on YouTube. We researched. We thought we were ready. We were not.

So this is what was going on even if we didn't understand it at the time:

There are six "rings." A ring is a judging station. Each station keeps the same judge all day. There are several categories that do not compete together. So, kittens, cats, and spayed/neutered cats are three different competitions. And then there are smaller and smaller categories there. All the cats are numbered. So there's like. Short haired cats as the class. And then there's breed within that, and then division (markings) and colour (colour). So, a red cat only competes against other red cats, and a striped cat only competes against other striped cats.

There were three altered (spayed/neutered) Bengals at this show. Palomita, who is a seal silver mink marbled tabby. Then this woman and her teenage daughter who have brought two Bengals. One is the traditional brown with rosettes. The other is a spotted tabby, meaning it's not rosettes, it's just spots. The rosetted one is a deep red-brown with bright white spectacles and a longer face. The other has a squashed face I have a bit of concern might indicate inbreeding, and it's a more muddy yellow brown. For some reason THIS one is getting every class and division win over the nicer looking one. It's baffling to me. One of the breed standards for a Bengal is a face longer than it is wide, and he did NOT have it.

So like. They're red, and spots and rosettes are considered the same division. So they both are sharing first and second place for colour and division. And they compete against Palomita for breed. And then the three of them compete against all short haired cats for... Specialty? Word I don't remember, and then against all altered cats for class. So multiple kinds of judgements. And every judge does every cat. Cats earn points based on their placements in each of these categories. Except, for some unfathomable reason, best of breed, which is meaningless.

Palomita is the only mink silver or smoke present, which means she automatically takes first place for colour class, and the other two are spots while she is marbled, so she is ALSO the only one in her division. Each of those first places earn her 25 points, from each ring. There are six rings day one, and six rings day two. Which means 50 points per ring. Meaning she gets 600 points just for SHOWING UP. That's crazy.

So the way it works is you get a ribbon at the beginning of the show and with wins in the whole class per judge you get a placement and a sticker that gets added to the ribbon. So there's two specialty rings, which is judging all the long and short hair cats separately, and then the other ten are all breed. So at the end, placements for top tens in either of those ring types gets you more points. She places 5th in a specialty ring, and that's another 110 points! She gets three more wins in all breed rings, which are 5th, 8th, and 10th. All breed wins are worth more points, all of these are like 150+ or something. So with all the points she's earned, we left the show with 1,100+ points!

Okay. So. The thing points are for are titles. Palomita's show name is 2B Gliterati Minky. That means the cattery that bred her is 2B Gliterati. Now, champion was 500 points, and she GOT 500 points and a win in any ring, which means she earns Champion rank! That means once the numbers are updated in their database and website, her new name will be CH 2B Gliterati Minky. Champion seems like it's not actually super hard to get, you just need to go to a few shows and win top ten in at least one thing. But after that it's a big jump to like, real titles. The next up is grand champion and it needs 1000 points and SIX wins, with either three of them needing to be top five in specialty rings, or just top ten in all breed. She got the reqs, all except two more wins in any ring. She has the points and the right placements. So next time ash brings her to a show, I think it's super likely she can get those two top tens and then: BAM! grand champion.

and to top that off: if a queen (breeding cat) has five offspring make grand champion, or a king has fifteen, then they get a NEW title at the END of their name, DS and DD for distinguished sire and distinguished dam. And palomita's parents are at 4 and 14!!! Two of her siblings from her litter are ALREADY grand champions. So like. Her breeder is im sure SUPER excited to earn that haha. So close!

After that it's like, double grand champion, triple gc, quad gc, and I think the next one is supreme. And then also at the end of each season, which last for a period of months, there is a leaderboard for points, and the one with the highest point in every breed is.... Surprise.... Best in breed! Palomita's big early jump actually has her- where the rankings are right now, but I'm advised theyre delayed three weeks so they've changed since last updated- she's #20 out of 46 for Bengals. Whoa! Nyoom. So wouldn't it be amazing if she got to like legitimately rank lol? So cool.

Now. The fucking ribbon. Turns out you are supposed to pick up a ribbon when you enter the show. It's on the front table. You put your awards ON the ribbon. No one told us this despite the fact they knew we were new and I went to the front table three times asking for help. Oh well I guess. We in fact LEFT our first sticker at a judges ring because I didn't know we were supposed to take it. So finally we realize we are supposed to have one. I go ask for it.

They are out of ribbons.

Uh. Hello?

This is a show you had to preregister for. They knew exactly how many people and how many cats would be present. They knew we did not know all the rules. Why the hell are they out of ribbons?

The whole first day passes with no ribbon. We're basically told we are shit out of luck.

Our neighbor was INCREDIBLY helpful the entire weekend. She basically walked us through everything. Bless her. But she tells us that actually a lot of people leave their rosettes behind if they don't actually win any stickers to put on them. And she has been right about everything else she has told us and so I'm trusting she is right that there will definitely be one left at the end. Second day I go ask about ribbons at the start because some people only come for day one, and I thought maybe there could be one. It takes awhile because a lot of people just seem to not know anything about what's going on or who to ask or anything. It takes awhile but no, theres not. Sometime after lunch apparently someone took initiative to go around and ask if anyone wanted to donate their ribbon to one of the new people (not just us) who hadn't gotten one. A few people do, and bam! We have a ribbon!!!! Hooray!!! Finally. What a mess. I was like. Genuinely. If we don't get a ribbon. I'm gonna start emailing people when we get home.

And then there are the judges. Hooooooly shit were some of them slow. Supposedly the show closes at four. Apparently it's not unusual for THAT show to run over until EIGHT. But like. What can we do? We haven't gone to every ring yet. But we are tired and Palomita is tired and clearly started to get stressed from being here so long. Then we discover that actually as long as you have finished round one you can leave. Because there's two rounds, they judge the cats and then if you are in the top ten you get called back for the awards. But if you leave the event before the finals you don't get it. You forfeit. UNLESS it's after four, in which case they will hold it until the following day for you. Learned that at like 5:30. We were immediately gone. Palomita was VERY happy to be back in the room.

The judges were also like. They just do whatever sometimes???? Like breed standards are supposed to be the rubric. Not like. Personal opinion. And there's one judge who just like. She picks up the other Bengals first and inspects them and points out several features like the ears and belly spots. Then she picks up Palomita and is like. See this is a marble. Now, her pattern is inconsistent, it's not symmetrical on both sides unfortunately. And she doesn't have spots on her belly. Tsk tsk. And I'm like. ???? It's marble??? The breed standard is that it SHOULDNT be symmetrical. Or it would just look like a mackerel tabby. It is explicitly NOT supposed to be symmetrical and she should NOT have spots on her belly. ???? So she just like. Decided to just ignore the rubric. Which is apparently. Like. Something they can just do. Okay

And then. Holy shit.

So I'm sitting in a ring. That morning ash dropped me and Palomita off to set up before running to the store to grab more tube treats and some snacks. So the first ring gets called before ash arrives and it's just me sitting next to the woman who has the daughter and the other two Bengals. And she says to another person there. They're like chatting about her daughter and I'm already frowning because she's like oh she wants this cat over there, but only if her dad says yes because I'm not getting it for her, she's been a problem lately like she's saying stuff like "you tricked me into signing custody papers" like, you don't get to ask me for a favour after being so manipulative. And I'm already like. Hm. Well. That's a really specific thing to say. There is almost certainly some kind of truth to it. But it's none of my business and it's probably more complicated than that.

And then she drops. Like. Out of nowhere.

"She's actually in big trouble right now. She got targeted and stalked by a pedophile online. Said he was fifteen and he was actually twenty-five. It wouldn't have happened if she wasn't posting the kind of stuff she was posting on tiktok"

And I'm flabbergasted. I'm shocked. Perhaps the only thing that prevented me from saying "that's a horrible thing to say??" Was that I was so caught off guard it took me a full two seconds to process what i'd just heard. To remind you: this girl is HERE at the event. She wasn't there at that moment but she is HERE. And she just announced to a group of strangers that her daughter was targeted and STALKED by a PEDOPHILE, and she's in trouble for it! How could you say something like that?? She's your child! Someone took advantage of her and you're saying it's her fault? You PUNISHED her for being targeted by a pedophile???? You're teaching her that she should never ask for help if someone tries to hurt her again because she will get in trouble! Your daughter was targeted by a pedophile and you not only blame her but want everyone else to KNOW she fell victim to a pedophile stalker because she was Posting Those Things on Tiktok when. She's there!!! She's there!!! How could you do something like that? How could you be so horrible?

I held my tongue because I'd only cause a scene and it certainly wouldn't help her daughter. But that immediately shut down any interest in civility. We aren't friends or colleagues. Please stay over there, I don't want to talk to you.

Now even the previous day ash had asked me if I thought they were giving us dirty looks when they walked by us. And I was like no, I'm sure they're not, maybe they're just stressed about something and it's not about us at all. Or maybe they're just frustrated that they're not doing as well as they hoped, like, if we weren't here they would be sweeping Bengal stuff! I can see why that would be disappointing.

But no. I was too generous. She really was just totally nasty. Because after THAT, a thing I chose to not tell ash about until after the show because like. It's inappropriate! I don't want to talk about that here! Ash is up at the judges ring and collecting Palomita from the cage to go back to our table, and she's just beaten both of hers for best in breed, and, right there, within earshot, she says, referring to Palomita "fuck that cat." Like. Hello?????? Hello???? It's a cat??????? You can't just say that about someone's cat, especially when you know they can hear you!!!

So we are talking about this in utter shock back at our table and our very helpful neighbor is asking us what we are talking about so we tell her about the fuck that cat comment, and I say that she was also talking really inappropriately about her daughter earlier and I really got rancid vibes. And she's like hang on. Which people are they. And we flip through the catalogue- oh god wait I haven't talked about the catalogue yet- and find the names and she's like OH. That explains it. Those are problem people. They are nasty like that to everyone and constantly make problems. And theyre not actually the owner of the cats! They are here because the person they're representing was BANNED from tica, the entire organization!!! For just causing SO many issues, including, apparently, once calling the sheriff to come SERVE SOMEONE PAPERS AT A SHOW! it seems really hard to get banned from tica! Like! Wow! Okay! So, yeah! They really are nasty!

So like. We were there for fun. The competition itself isn't that important. It's fun winning stuff but like, I get to see and pet all these cute kitties! I'm happy when anybody wins!

Only. Like. I'm now really happy for the times we trounced her lol. Like one time we got called for finals and they showed up HOLDING their cats only to realize their number wasn't up. And they had to walk of shame back to their spot. They were SO confident. It was retroactively incredibly satisfying. I am so glad we ruined their plans of a Bengal sweep. Fuck u lady. You're mean

Okay. The CATALOGUE.

So the website says there's a physical catalogue for $10 (it's pretty huge actually) and a digital one. And so ash is obviously like, well, I don't need the physical one, so I'll just download it and be good.

No. This is incorrect.

Turns out you do need the catalogue! Because the digital and physical catalogues are DIFFERENT and all the important stuff is only in the physical one!!!!!! So then we are like ???? This was not explained. Well. Can we buy one now?? No! You had to preorder it! They don't HAVE any on site!!

God bless, our neighbor was able to find us one. I think someone may have donated it. We weren't asked for money. This show was run like absolutely horseshit, but the people there (mostly) were all SO nice and so happy to talk to you and answer questions.

And so the part of the paper catalogue we needed lets me track her wins and her points. Very useful. Extremely complicated to understand with no guidance at first. Ugh. The learning curve on this stuff is SO high. It's all really simple once it clicks! But holy shit it took a lot to get it to click.

Oh, and then at one point they just get on announcer and are like also the show starts at nine tomorrow. Even though it. Says it starts at ten on the website. Okay. I guess we are just starting early now. Sure. I sure hope everyone heard that.

So this show was like. Crazy poorly run. It ran over time by HOURS with no indication anywhere that this was even possible, they didn't order enough ribbons and didn't even tell us we needed to take one, no one knew where our spot was, there was no map for tables, no one knew where we were ever supposed to be or what was going on, newbie orientation just didn't exist, it never happened, the catalogue was not explained at all, the show randomly changed opening times, judges would just ignore the rules sometimes, no one ever knew who they were supposed to send me to if they didn't have an answer for me, and everything was just a complete shit show. I work as a vendor at conventions with my boyfriend. I've worked at well over a hundred events and conventions by now. I know a show like this should look like, I know how things should be organized, and NONE of this is normal. IMHO this level of incompetent organization is unacceptable. This is an event with animals present, and also primarily attended by older people, many of whom have health needs. The show HAS to start and end on time. If it doesn't it should absolutely not be something they just accept as okay and normal. If a judge is paid to come and do a job, and they are unable to complete that job, they aren't doing their job. Maybe that sounds obvious, but apparently it bears repeating! Like if you can't finish this job before 8pm- and one judge at least DID finish before 4- then you just can't do that job! That's unacceptable performance! No one knows who in charge, they asked on pa frequently if anyone wanted to just come up and do a job, no one knew what was going on. It's just so poorly run. Even first time events are usually better organized than this.

And this show happens every other month!! What the hell!!

Not only that. Wanna guess what this COST?

Entry was $125 per table and $85 per cat. That is over TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS for a ticket. It's crazy when I have to pay $60+ for an event! It better be a big one! Nycc tickets are less than this event! That's insane! I in fact sat up that night running numbers on what the take must have been with the amount of cats present and table costs, then I ran through as many costs of operation as I could. I looked up the venues rental prices, I looked up the payment scale for tica judges, club members, event organizers, accounted generously for hotel and travel fees for everyone involved, food costs, miscellaneous costs (Windex, tablecloths, trash can liners and more), the price of ordering bulk ribbons, bulk stickers, even bulk catalogues which you would have needed to pay extra for. I found a sample sheet for breaking down costs of an event ON tica's website and I ran every possible number I could and I STILL could only account for 2/3 of the amount of money the event made from entrance fees. What. The. Fuck. Even looking at other shows, bigger shows, they ALL cost SIGNIFICANTLY less than this show.

And yet it was run like THIS.

So, yeah. No excuse. Completely unacceptable. Absolutely insane.

Despite that tho- despite the investment of time and money, despite the nasty people, despite the shit show organization- it was still SO much fun. I got to hang out with the babycat all day. I got to meet so many kitties and pet them. People were so happy to let me pet their cats. I got to talk to lots of cool people and watching my cat get judged was SO tense and exciting. And getting awards was SO satisfying. When we realized how close we were to grand champion we could NOT stop squealing!

So. Would go again? Totally. To that show specifically? Uh... I don't want to, but there's not a lot of options in this area. Obviously I live in New Jersey and Palomita is not technically my cat. Ironically some of the biggest and best organized shows are IN jersey. Palomita would sweep. Lol.

I would never show ember, because she's old and she would hate it. She doesn't like being handled, she doesn't really like strangers, she hate hate hates carriers, she has arthritis- I would never show her. Even though they have a household class, which is just for pets, no pedigree! But I did have fun and I'd kind of like to do it myself with my own cat... There was actually a cat there I was totally obsessed with, that squirrel cat?? Her name is Sonara and she's like, a year old or less. She's a blue ticked somali. And she's going to be a queen, but like. They really only breed a queen two, maybe three times, because they're not like backyard breeders using cats as baby machines. So in three to five years she will probably get retired, spayed, and likely rehomed.

Ember is 8-10 years old. She can't have another cat in the house. She did NOT do well with nosey when I was cat sitting him. So I have no plans to get another cat until she passes away. But because I would be sad without a cat, I would of course get another after her. That's always been the plan. There's a thought in my mind that possibly... If I spoke to the breeder about it, maybe I could sort of... Reserve her? For when she retires? It feels a bit weird or rude... But I spoke to a few of my neighbors and all of them were hobby breeders and said that talking to breeders four years in advance isn't crazy, that they have waiting lists for reasons, like, if they didn't have a waiting list of homes then they wouldn't be breeding cats with nowhere to go, sometimes. And that often if you want like, a blue ticked, it might take several litters before they have the thing you're waiting for. So like... Speaking to them seems normal. But I don't know if it would be rude or inappropriate to inquire about waiting for the queen to retire.... Kittens for basically any breed are pricey, like, usually $1000-$5000 and I saw on their website a lot of their somalies are like $2500. But also retired queens are significantly cheaper than kittens, usually a few hundred. Ive seen places with $3000 kittens and $800 four year old queens. That's the cost of a couple vet visits. I paid $500 for steroids for my dog once.

So. I don't know. I don't know how much time left I have with ember either. I want to have her for another ten years, that would be amazing. But also, she is Dennis's baby and his emotional support and he is her favourite and I would NEVER take her from him. And if my living arrangements ever change like we stop being roommates- well, she can only go with one of us. And it's going to be him because he needs her. So do I think I will still be living with him in five years? Again, I don't know. I have alternate plans I would like if possible.

So. Like. I can't garuntee it. But I also would really really like to bring it up. But that might be... Like... Inappropriate? Rude? I don't know! I don't know the etiquette here wahhhh!

But anyway. Cat show fun. Great time.

EDIT OH MY GOD I FORGOT

on the way home from the convention we were clipping in a pet seatbelt to the backseat so she could snuggle in blankets instead of her carrier, and because the door was open and it was very cold I picked her up and held her to keep her warm. She wanted back in her carrier though but I really really didn't want to let her, she was shivering, so I was like shh shh and zipped up my jacket over her and she just. Like. Stopped. I thought something was WRONG with her. But no. She just curled up in my jacket, tucked her face away, and fell asleep. I checked on her multiple times to see if she was okay or wanted out but now. She stayed in my jacket for two while hours. She was EXHAUSTED. But also: holy shit. That's so cute I want to straight up die

[importantgalaxyrunaway]

The investigation- chapter 4 Colby x y/n 🧸

CONTENTS: more y/n Lore, tw⚠️ Scratches and blood, fluff, bit of angst, implied sex, cliffhanger

AUTHOURS NOTE: ITS NOT AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS OKAY I’m definitely overstating the angst part and please like and let me know how you feel I worked hard on this. Sorry it took a while to make. I think I might put it on wattpad but if I do I won’t stop posting it here I will post it one both. Ty for reading

Skip to later in the tour

we were in the kitchen and the medium was explaining about the satanic panic that happened for a while witch I found absolutely fascinating.

“They can also form themselves are other entities, like a youthful energy” Colby said

“yes they can desguise themselves” she answered

“and one of the popular theories is that sallie is not just a little girl” Sam added

-skip a bit bc the thing didn’t go off on Colby’s forhead bc he had the necklace-

As we went up the stairs and through the rooms. I felt a strange presence like someone was watching us. They weren’t hostile but they were curious “there’s a woman’s presence here” said the medium reading my mind. Colby put his hand in mine

“is it like..hostile or?” sam asked

“ she just observeing by us” the black pendulum said waving the equipment over the closet “and tall”

“she’s like, ‘whatcha guys looking at?’” We all chuckled at sams joke

-skip to the investigation

While the others set up and checked the equipment seth pulled you out into the hallway for a conversation

“so uh..you have fun last night?” He asked jokeinly

“Uhh what” I say

“your hickeys” he said pointing at you neck

“oh OH OH. Seth I’m so sorry I didn’t even realize” I replied turning bright red with blush

“Lemme guess it was Colby?” He laughed

“how did you know?” I smiled

“y/n” he looked at me sarcastically “ I’m not blind it’s obvious to literally everyone”

(Colby’s pov)

I go over to get y/n and Seth for the investigation and see them laughing together

was Seth flirting with her! That was the first thought that crossed My mind mind. but I needed to calm myself I was jumping to conclusions.

“Time for the investigation” I said a little firm

“okay” y/n said cheerily as she walked into the investigation room but Seth stayed back and whispered in my ear

“ next time you two have ‘fun’ don’t leave such obvious marks on her”

I blushed heavily as we all went back into the investigation room. It’s funny how both Sam and Seth told me to try and keep my hands off y/n. Sam said that I should at least wait till we get back to the hotel before making out together in a haunted house. But it sure was hard she is so beautiful.

(end of Colby’s pov)

When we all got back into the room i see Sam standing over a rem pod with sallie toys all around it almost immediately the rem pod started going off in a very strange and specific pattern. It looked like the ghost was walking around the pod in circles. Obviously everyone freaked out a little bit because the rem pod had never gone off this way before.

“ wait what was that?” Sam said in a whisper we all quickly went over to see it and set up the music box. At first the music box was calibrating but then it started to go off. “Woahh” everyone reacted. For some reason I got bad chills and I was the only person who got this.

Ghosts had always been targeting me in particular more than anyone else. They would seek me out and touch me. They would say my name in the Estes method and would prefer to speak with me more than anyone else. I suppose this is because of my gifts and my connection with the afterlife. From now on I decided that I would try and honor my grandma’s legacy and tap into my abilities.

for majority the investigation went on well but I got this weird feeling as we went on. Like someone or more likely SOMETHING was trying to take hold of me. before we were about to do the Estes method I got this horrible feeling. Like my back was suddenly hot. Really hot. It felt like a burning pain

“ahh” I cried out as I fumbled from the pain

“What’s wrong?” Colby asked catching me

“y/n are you okay” sam said concerned

“ it’s - burning like — hurts so ba- cut” I stutter crying a bit into Colby’s arms.

he looked down “ oh my god” he exclaimed as he took the camera to show a long bleeding scratch all the way down my back. At this point I was crying because of the pain.

Sam and Seth went out to have a discussion about weather they should end the investigation here. They decided to leave me and Colby alone together.

And I collapsed into Colby’s arms as he comforted me “shh it’s okay baby” I cried even harder I felt weak for crying but I was so scared “I love you” I managed out in a shakeup voice he pulled me even closer. The blood had soaked through my white shirt at this point. “I love you too” he said trying to be strong for me but seeing her cry really broke his heart

little did I know thing were about to get a whole lot worse.

[phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing]

I do understand that of course bullying is bad because bullying is not criticism as the bully does not want the person to improve and instead just takes joy in the suffering of others so it really just helps no one not even the bully because it throws all the reasons behind the actions that might have made them right had they not bullied down the drain. I do however think that there is a limit even in fiction, because there are people who draw sexual artwork of canon minors which is illegal in a lot of countries as well as I do not like when people ship straight up abuse or invalidate explicitly canon sexualities, but I guess if it is actually bad I can just report it and let admins decide. What do you think?

I think you need to look at yourself in a mirror and say that again out loud. Who are you to make yourself judge of what others enjoy? You can not like it, but taking actions to stop a random shipper when they’re totally unrelated to you?

You’re not their mom, you’re not a cop (or at least if you are this isn’t your jurisdiction), you are overstating the degree of “illegality” that has occurred by making generalizations, and you are equating legality with morality when queer people are illegal in plenty of places too. They are not the same thing; some laws are immoral (ex. anti-sodomy laws), and some morals require you break laws (ex. letting poor parents shoplift baby formula).

Furthermore, since we’re on Dudu specifically, by claiming art of fictional anime girls is equivalent to a crime that causes human children real-life suffering, you’re also weaponizing the pain of victims to make people shut up about ships you don’t like, so you’re also being inconsiderate and petty.

Strangers online owe you nothing, leave them alone. Don’t bother reporting someone if you can’t actually pinpoint an actual wrong they’ve committed against someone, just block them if you don’t vibe.

If you witness a user go after a real minor, asking them for intimate details about their lives, if you see someone try to isolate a kid by claiming they’re the only one that can be trusted, if someone is sharing porn with minors (yes even to say “look at how morally terrible it is”)…

THAT is what you report. That is dangerous and can be a sign of real harm, and it should be investigated further by relevant authorities. You can also try to warn the kid (do not control them, give them the facts), or share educational resources on protecting oneself online.

Nobody cares about anime. Reporting that is just wasting everyone’s time.

[xerith-42]

I decided to watch Void Paradox

I'm about five minutes into the first episode and I'm still not entirely sure if this is a good idea or not, but Laurance has already spoken like three lines of dialogue and I felt my heart wrench at just one of them, so clearly I'm in too deep now.

This post serves as my live tweeting/mental break down that I am currently having as we speak. It is very incomprehensible because it is literally just my thoughts as they happen, and given how much I have to say, I'll probably make proper posts out of a lot of these points once I finish the series.

This mess is just giving you a taste of the madness I truly posses.

I am only three minutes in before I have to pause and feel the urge to scream about how bad the dialogue in Aphmau series can be. Like this series is fairly okay, especially based on the standard set by her other shows but man... something is just not working here. The whole thing feels very clunky and while I can get the gist of what Jess is going for, the execution of said gist is leaving a lot to be desired.

[Laurance shows up]

nevermind Laurance is on screen and fully voice acted everything is better

Literally nobody talk to me I need to scream about Laurance Zvahl because he is EVERYTHING in this series. The way he very softly says Aph's name when he sees her, the immediate instinct to hug her because he's so relieved to see her, the fact that you can hear the smile in his voice the minute he registers that she's there and alive!! AUGH I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!

And I literally screamed when he revealed that he was transported to this AU right at the end of season 1. Oh my Irene, I screamed. I collapsed. I was truly defeated by a single line of dialogue. I don't know where this series is going to go but I am here for it. And the fact that he knows Garroth did it and hid it from her???

I can't overstate how genuinely healing it is to hear Laurance fully voice acted. I know Sebastian Todd is retired from voice acting, but when he retired, he took down all his posts, including what I considered to be a comfort video. That video of him reading iconic Laurance lines from before he was in mcd/lines he just didn't act? That video was my everything when I was trying to hold onto this version of the character I knew I loved who was different to what Jess made him. When that video got taken down it was a major cowabummer bc there's so little properly voice acted Laurance content that isn't mcd Season 3 or My Street stuff (and I can't stand My Street like 80% of the time)

Hearing his voice, hearing him get to be properly expressive, it's just doing things to me man. I missed this character a lot. I've mostly been enjoying him through fan content or my own work. It's nice to say I enjoy a piece of canon content involving him, at least so far.

Still not sure how I feel about literally anything else. The whole relationship between Aph and Tommy feels very... weird. She describes herself as "basically his mother" after she's left with him, and treats him like it in the opening scene. But then when he's mocking her for being attracted to Laurance (so relatable), it seems really weird for a [checks wiki] 14 year old kid to be calling out his mom for finding someone hot. Feels a lot more like sibling dialogue to me? Which I guess they could be seen as siblings, but the series explicitly stated that she views it like motherhood??? But I don't think Jess is even thinking that deeply about it, I just over analyze her work for fun at this point.

Okay what the actual fuck is going on with the inside of this house???

Why is the color scheme purple and yellow? And not in any kind of flattering way which is possible with opposite colors, it just has both of them. The wallpaper changes when you get into the living room except not entirely on the windows, and in an earlier scene it looked like it wasn't even put onto all of the walls. And the wood that she used as supports just does not compliment either of these colors as they are. Just make it all purple, you know you want to Jess.

Also is the texture on the table and the glass the same??? I don't know a damn thing about modding or making texture/data packs for minecraft but that just seems. odd.

Laurance: mentions the nether Me: [screams just a little]

Tommy: shows up and gives a random ass lore dump Aph: Kay thanks go back to your room

"I don't know what I can do to help."

"Just be there for me. I just need someone to ground me right now."

I literally want to shake Laurance around like a rag doll and give him a stupid kiss on his stupid fucking face UGH why can't I be normal about this block man and his stupid feelings?!?! The way his voice breaks as despair sets in?? The fact that he's no doubt pieced together that Garroth probably stole the amulet and plans to use it to hurt Aph and he can't do anything about it?? I'm literally losing it.

How did I not watch this series before.

Literally about to cry over him just calling Aph "M'lady" out of pure instinct. He didn't consciously do that. He just misses her that much.

oh no spooky evil alternate Laurance or whatever--

MAN I'm so happy I decided to watch this series. This was probably a mistake though :)

[verdemoun]

hi!!! i absolutely adore the rdr2 timewarp au. it is EVERYTHING

so if i remember correctly you had a post a while back where you mentioned that arthur is super paranoid about his health in the modern era which is so real after everything. but it got me thinking, he can’t stay perfectly healthy 100% of the time, that’s not how the world works. so like, how does he (and everyone else) handle the first time he gets ill post warp? bc i’m guessing not well 😭😭😭

also i’d just love to hear more about how everyone’s deaths affected them, if you’re willing, bc most of them were obviously incredibly traumatic 💔

i apologize if someone’s asked this already 😫

thank you!! 🫶

hello hello and thank you so much!! and yes indeed i did and i love a chance to talk some angst: to the second point first! most of the gang had relatively quick deaths.

dutch gets vertigo. maybe it's the meds, maybe it's the distant memory of plummeting to his death

lenny gets really bad heartburn/phantom chest pains. sometimes it's just uncomfortably close to the pain and shortness of breath of being shot in the chest, and he will need someone to sit with him until it passes.

cannot overstate how much trauma kieran has related to his death. one thing that the gang would absolutely bully him for IF they didn't know why, is that Kieran sleeps with a nightlight. if he wakes up in the dark he will panic. Kieran remembers having his eyes gouged out: passing out because of the pain only to wake up to darkness. So he gets a nightlight because waking up to Kieran Duffy screaming is not good for anyone's mental health.

but arthur morgan hypochondriac queen

being that he lives with hosea, bessie, kieran, lenny and sean: none of them saw arthur get sick. sure, arthur can tell them he died of tb, but after timewarping the ravages of tb have simply been erased. he looks as healthy as chapter 2 arthur. so the fact he coughs, something as innocent as a cough, and gets a wild, terrified look in his eyes, throws all of them off

bessie just sighs because despite her best efforts and getting them all vaccinated asap and seen by a gp, the fact is viruses have evolved a lot faster than humanity in 100 years and they almost all end up with at least the common cold shortly after they timewarp. part of not leaving the house too much at first is as much about their immune system adapting as it is about learning modern era slowly.

and it's really hard to watch because as the cough worsens and a low fever takes hold, arthur is a wreck. coughs hard, pauses, only to turn pale and sprint to the bathroom before throwing up more in distress than illness. it just doesn't seem like arthur morgan, the invincible enforcer and boogeyman of the VDL gang.

hosea has seen arthur through many a cold, so he knows arthur isn't usually like this. usually it's a mission in itself to get arthur to lay down when he's sick. instead, arthur is completely fixed to the bed, shaking more violently than his temperature would suggest. his eyes squeeze shut at the mention of food, panting like the room's running out of air. confesses late into the second night of that he thinks he's dying.

hosea would've believed it if he hadn't seen sean macguire through food poisoning already. tries to assure him he's fine, it's just a cold. he'll be over it in a few days. it has been a long time since he's seen arthur this - needy. he really is more like that young boy he and dutch found cowering on the streets than the man he raised. which hosea doesn't entirely mind, even if it just seems dramatic

arthur proceeded to recover and act like nothing weird happened at all and he was fine the entire time. the whole gang side-eyed this response, and the side-eye suspicion next time arthur got a cold and once again became terrified - convinced he was dying.

when arthur moved out, hosea would still need to stay several nights whenever arthur got a cold because he will get trauma-justified man flu. this later becomes charles's job to take care of when he timewarps and becomes arthur's u-haul lesbian speed husband. admittedly sometimes charles has to call hosea because as someone who did see arthur get tb, he also gets upset seeing arthur sick

if you have had a cold in the past 48 hours arthur morgan will not go near you. he starts his morning with every immunity-boosting over the counter pill he can find and always starts the morning with a disgusting glass of homemade orange ginger turmeric juice he swears by.

[cuephrase]

On the subject of data crunching related to the Robins, a couple months ago I compared the numbers of people following the tumblr tag of different Batman characters to the number of ao3 works tagged with the characters, and while the ao3 results were a decently consistent slope the top tumblr tag follow characters were magnitudes larger than the rest and it was kind of wild (there are of course things the numbers don't fully capture, such as tumblr tagging not accounting for multiple tags being used for one character, and ao3 not really accounting for how central the tagged characters are to the fic, but it was still interesting to see)

omg that is INSANE.

Tim Drake feels like such a strange combination of popular and obscure at the same time and it is bizarre.

he really does and you are so right it is so bizarre. and i totally get what you mean by obscure, which at first glance sounds contradictory to popular, but like...how i do phrase this.

you hear about him/his fans a ton. (i feel like this either tends to fall into complaining or like stuff that leans more fanon.) but also i don't personally tend to see a lot of people talking about tim the way dick/jason/damian stans do, in that he is rarely the sole/primary focus of a meta dissertation/character analysis/content in that vein. which full transparency- this could be me not being super tumblr-savvy, such blogs probs exists i just have yet to stumble across a lot of them. (i cannot overstate how Bad i am at tumblr/socmed in general)

so it's kind of like, you hear that he has fans but...where are they? i even wonder if it has like some kind of correlation to like comics!tim stans being more likely to also really enjoy other characters vs. other stans being more likely to have a laser focus on a Single Blorbo. which is not a critique, by any means!!

bc like, taking myself as an example, i'd say i love all the boy robins equally, but if you put a gun to my head i will say tim is my fave. however. there is no gun to my head. so i can love freely. like if you were to just look at my ao3, you'd probs assume dick was my fave bc so far he's been in every batfam fic i've written lmao

man, the difference between tumblr and ao3 tags tho, even keeping skews in mind, is crazy. it would be so fun to go mucking around in that data