#cut post

[ladykf-writes]

So Idk if any of you play Wajas but

I'm in the mood to design things for people. 4.5 mil WC (the price of one CWP) or 1 CWP, or 100 junk, 100 LP, requested dyes/muts -- I'm flexible.

And if you want a simple hex code swatch for a breeding pair I'll do that for free. If you want to see some of my designs check out @katdesignswajas where... yeah you see my Waja designs XD. There's a couple that may be being bought, obviously not a problem if it's a separate design special to you.

And if you want to get started with Wajas, my referral code is CMRGGGP and you get a 50% off discount of a design because I get neat things for you joining and it's only fair.

*Wajas is a virtual pet breeding game, like Flight Rising but with doggos and it existed before Flight Rising. It's utterly fantastic and I will tell you why (but under a read more because we all know when I'm enthusiastic I get wordy XD)

You can really make them your own with hundreds of design features, and an unlimited color palette (seriously, you can drag around a color wheel to choose, no pre-designated colors though there are specialty design "brush" patterns)

You can mate your doggos regardless of their breed, and there's breed dominance to determine which is most likely to present in the pups.

There are SO MANY BREEDS, look at this:

Two newest at the bottom.

You don't have to feed them, but there are a ton of minigames

RE: minigames, they're open to everybody, earn you waja credits (WC) and you can use that WC to buy Crazy Waja Points -- CWP (the kind you buy with a credit card) -- I have never bought CWP, but I have earned it by buying it through player shops

RE: also there's a "mining" minigame where you randomly pick up items that you can sell or use, and there's a subplot which I won't spoil but is EXCELLENT

You can dress them up! Backgrounds, clothes, accessories, the works! I'm not great at this but some people make it an art.

Forum fun! You can form guilds (clubs) for legit anything but like, hostile (bigoted, racist, etc) or 18+ content and there's also just places to talk about Wajas.

Open to casuals, regulars, and hard core players; easy to learn, some parts are harder to master. There is no penalty to only playing when you remember you have an account.

Also you can have two accounts, which is great for like, one is where you hoard collect your favorite Wajas and one is for like, storing things for trade, doing dye projects (designing how your Wajas appear), contests, breeding projects or even just sales -- because yes, you can sell Wajas to other users, or even put things up for auctions. It's fun.

Just... the whole thing is so fun to me, and I like sharing things I think are good things with people. SO. If you wanna join me, wanna have a design, I will 110% do the thing for you.

[calamitys-child]

What's everyone's favourite flowers that aren't like. The normal ones. Like everyone's a fan of roses and sunflowers what's a more niche one. One you don't get in gift sets. Mine's sweet peas

[gallusrostromegalus]

Move To A Darker Place

This is a story of Man Vs. Machine.

---

Last March, my father attempted to file his Taxes.

My beloved father is a Boomer. Unlike most Boomers, my father is rather handy with technology because he was one of the people that had a not-insignificant hand in Developing a hell of a lot of it. He was studying Computer Science at Cal Poly before the computer science degree existed. I have many fond childhood memories of skipping through the aisles of various electronic and computer part warehouses while Dad described something that either terrified the staff or made them worship him as a God.  He taught himself how to use his smartphone.  Internationally.

So when he saw the option to file digitally with the IRS through the “ID.me” program, he leapt at the chance to celebrate the Federal Government finally entering the Digital Age.

It was all going swimmingly for about six hours, until he was ready to file and the system told him that it needed to verify his identity. 

“Very Well.” said my father, a man unafraid of talking to himself and getting something out of the conversation. “It wouldn’t do for me to get someone else’s return.”

The System told him that it needed him to take a “Digital Image ID”.

a.k.a: A Selfie.

“A-ha!” Dad beams. Dad is very good at taking selfies. He immediately pulled out his phone, snapped one, and tried to upload it.

Please log into your Id.me Account and use the provided app to submit your Digital Image ID. The System clarified.

“Oh. You should have said so.”  Dad pouted, but used his phone to log onto the ID.me account, do the six security verification steps and double-checked that the filing looked the same as it did on the desktop, gave the IRS like nine permissions on his phone, and held up the camera to take his Federal Privacy Invasion Selfie.

Please align your face to the indicated grid. Said The System, pulling up a futuristic green-web-of-polygons approximation.

“Ooh, very Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry would HATE this!” Dad said cheerfully, aligning his face to the grid.  My father is a bit… cavalier, when it comes to matters of personal information and federal government, because he’s been on FBI watchlists since the late 60’s when he was protesting The Vietnam War and Ronald Regan before he’d broken containment. Alas.

Anyway, there is very little information the federal government does not have on him already, but he’s as good at stalking the FBI as they are at stalking him, and had worked out a solution:  He has something approaching a friendship with the local Federal Agent (Some guy named “Larry”. Allegedly), and got Larry hooked on Alternative Histories and Dad’s collection of carefully-researched “there is very likely buried treasure here” stories, and Larry is loath to bother his favorite Historical Fanfiction author too much.

But I digress.

After thinking for a minute, The System came back with an Error Message. Please remove glasses or other facial obstructions.

And here is where the real trouble began.

See, my father wears glasses that do substantially warp the appearance of his face, because he is so nearsighted that he is legally blind without them. His natural focal point is about 4 inches in front of his nose.  While Dad can still take a selfie because he (approximately) knows where his phone is if it’s in his hand, he cannot see the alignment grid.

He should ask someone to take it for him! I hear the audience say. Yes, that would be the sane and reasonable thing to do, but Dad was attempting to do taxes at his residence in Fort Collins, while his immediate family was respectively in Denver, Texas and Canada.  He tried calling our neighbors, who turned out to be in Uganda.

He looked down at the dog, Arwen, and her little criminal paws that can open doorknobs, but not operate cell phones.

She looked back at him, and farted.

“Well, I’ll give it a try, but if it gives me too much trouble, I’ll call Larry, and Larry can call the IRS about it.” Dad told her. 

She continued to watch him. Arwen is an Australian Kelpie (a type of cattle-herding dog), going on 14 years old, deaf as a post and suffering from canine dementia now, but she still retains her natural instinct to Micromanage. She was also trained as a therapy dog, and even if she can’t hear my dad, still recognizes the body language of a man setting himself up for catastrophe.

So, squinting in the late afternoon light next to the back door, Dad attempted to line his face up with a grid he could only sort-of see, and took A Federal Selfie.

The System thought about it for a few moments.

Image Capture Failed: Insufficient Contrast. The System replied. Please move to a darker place.

“...Huh.” Dad frowned. “Alright.”

He moved to the middle of his office, away from the back door, lit only by the house lighting and indirect sunlight, and tried again.

Image Capture Failed. Please move to a darker place.

“What?” Dad asked the universe in general.

“Whuff.” Arwen warned him against sunk costs.

Dad ignored her and went into the bathroom, the natural habitat of the selfie. Surely, only being lit by a light fixture that hadn’t been changed since Dad was attempting to warn everyone about Regan would be suitably insufficient lighting for The System.  It took some negotiating, because that bathroom is “Standing Room Only” not “Standing And Holding Your Arms Out In Front Of You Room”.  He ended up taking the selfie in the shower stall.

As The System mulled over the latest attempt, Arwen shuffled over and kicked open the door to watch.

Image Capture Failed. Please Move to a Darker Place.

“Do you mean Spiritually?” Dad demanded.

“Whuff.” Arwen cautioned him again.

Determined to succeed, or at least get a different error message that may give him more information, Dad entered The Downstairs Guest Room.  It is the darkest room in the house, as it is in the basement, and only has one legally-mandated-fire-escape window, which has blinds.  Dad drew those blinds, turned off the lights and tried AGAIN.

Image Capture Failed. Please Move To A Darker Place.

“DO YOU WANT ME TO PHOTOGRAPH MYSELF INSIDE OF A CAVE??” Dad howled. 

“WHUFF!” Arwen reprimanded him from under the pull-out bed in the room. It’s where she attempts to herd everyone when it’s thundering outside, so the space is called her ‘Safety Cave’.

Dad frowned at the large blurry shape that was The Safety Cave.

“Why not?” he asked, the prelude to many a Terrible Plan.  With no small amount of spiteful and manic glee, Dad got down onto the floor, and army-crawled under the bed with Arwen to try One Last Time. Now in near-total darkness, he rolled on his side to be able to stretch his arms out, Arwen slobber-panting in his ear, and waited for the vague green blob of the Facial grid to appear.

This time, when he tapped the button, the flash cctivated.

“GOD DAMN IT!” Dad shouted, dropping the phone and rubbing his eyes and cursing to alleviate the pain of accidentally flash-banging himself. Arwen shuffled away from him under the bed, huffing sarcastically at him.

Image Capture Failed. Please move to a darker place.

“MOTHERFU- hang on.” Dad squinted.  The System sounded strange. Distant and slightly muffled.

Dad squinted really hard, and saw the movement of Arwen crawling out from under the bed along the phone’s last known trajectory.

“ARWEN!” Dad shouted, awkwardly reverse-army crawling out from under the bed, using it to get to his feet and searching for his glasses, which had fallen out of his pocket under the bed, so by the time he was sighted again, Arwen had had ample time to remove The Offending Device.

He found her out in the middle of the back yard, the satisfied look of a Job Well Done on her face. She did not have the phone. 

“Arwen.” Dad glared. It’s a very good glare. Dad was a teacher for many years and used it to keep his class in order with sheer telepathically induced embarrassment, and his father once glared a peach tree into fecundity.  

Arwen regarded him with the casual interest a hurricane might regard a sailboat tumbling out of its wake. She is a force of nature unto herself and not about to be intimidated by a half-blind house ape.  She also has cataracts and might not be able to make out the glare.

“I GIVE UP!” Dad shouted, throwing his hands in the air and returning to the office to write to the IRS that their selfie software sucks ass. Pleased that she had gotten her desired result, Arwen followed him in.

To Dad’s immense surprise, the computer cheerfully informed him that his Federally Secure Selfie had been accepted, and that they had received and were now processing his return!

“What the FUCK?” Dad glared. “Oh well. If I’ve screwed it up, Larry can call me.”

---

I bring this up because recently, Dad received an interesting piece of mail.

It was a letter from the IRS, addressed to him, a nerve-wracking thing to recessive at the best of times.  Instead of a complaint about Dad’s Selfie Skills, it was a letter congratulating him on using the new ID.me System.  It thanked him for his help and expressed hopes he would use it again next year, and included the selfie that The System had finally decided to accept.

“You know, my dad used to complain about automation.” Dad sighed, staring at the image. “Incidentals my boy!  My secretary saves the state of California millions of dollars a year catching small errors before they become massive ones! He’d say. Fought the human resources board about her pay every year.  I used to think he was overestimating how bad machines were and underestimating human error, but you know? He was right.”

He handed me the image.

My father was, technically, in the image.  A significant amount of the bottom right corner is taken up by the top of his forehead and silver hair.  Most of the image, the part with the facial-recognition markers on it, was composed of Arwen’s Alarmed and Disgusted Doggy face.

“Oh no!” I cackled. “Crap, does this mean you have to call the IRS and tell them you’re not a dog?”

“Probably.” Dad sighed. “I know who I’m gonna bother first though.” he said, taking out his phone (Dad did find his phone a few hours after Arwen absconded with it when mom called and the early spinach started ringing). 

“Hey Larry!” Dad announced to the local federal agent. “You’re never gonna believe this. My dog filed my taxes!”

Larry considered this for a moment. “Is this the dog that stole my sandwich? Out of my locked  car?” he asked suspiciously.

“The very same.” Dad grinned.

“Hm. Clever Girl.” Federal Agent Larry sighed. “I figured it was only a matter of time before she got into tax fraud.”

---

I'm a disabled artist making my living writing these stories. If you enjoy my stories, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi or Pre-ordering my Family Lore Book on Patreon. Thank you!

[psych-is-the-name]

[waywardstation]

Look for anything (or anyone) that could be familiar

For part two:

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🔁 70 reblogs

Reblog with the hashtag:

🔼 for Ingo to find Emmet

🔽 for Emmet to find Ingo

[fixing-bad-posts]

hey, literally don't fuck if you're not intO that I support you

[samble-moved]

post itself

false flags

trans/adjacent tags

accessibility features

tumblr live post (thanks for the link, @problemnyatic)

flashing / strobing / lights

unblockable flashing ad

buying ad free

staff @/macmanx guilt trip

list of staff + more issues

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

his therapist woulda had a field day at their next appointment

[bergoop]

Road Files: Trans-Allegheny Asylum

[bamsara]

COTL / TROD AU Reference Sheets and OC refs that I made a few months ago and have been using but forgot to post. The cloaks on Narinder and Lamb, and heights and clothing of the bishops are semi-outdated, but the OC height sheet is accurate.

+ Joon, Grekimar, and Jayen refs. There's character lore and relationship info for them under the cut, I'll get to the rest of them eventually:

Character lore, mainly for artfight purposes but putting it here too. Some of this character lore is already established in fic or on here, but may contain spoilers for Trod later on.

😺Joon (They/Them):

Born and raised in the Lamb's flock with little outside wordly experience, the Yellow Cat aka 'Joon' is the best farmer in the flock with an upbeat attitude and a easy-going, casual outlook on life. They're a hard worker and a harder napper, which lands them in a particular situation when a accidental nap inside a barn leads to them witnessing the Leader drag in a bloody, confused, volatile worm The Lamb shakily says was rescued from Darkwood, before reluctantly leaving them to the yellow cat's care. Which is fine, because if the leader says it's fine, then it's fine. Totally.

With their accidental involvement, Joon is assigned to be Leshy's 'caretaker', or really just a supervisor to make sure the worm doesn't do anything terrible and to report to the Lamb if he does anything weird, all without ever being truly told of the worm's true nature.

🐷Grekimar (He/Him):

Originally a heretic in Anura, Grekimar is a 'relatively' new cultist to the Lamb's Flock ('New' being a few years, but still not as long as other flock members.) Although the pig used to conduct violence and sacrifices in the God of Famine's name, he was welcomed to the Flock as a new member after he began to question the strength of the rule of dead god and was exiled. His arrival was met with scrutiny but was eventually welcomed as he's a hard worker, and surprisingly (due to his gruff demeanor), cares for his new home and it's peaceful rules over his prior home, including it's inhabitants.

When a three eyed cat arrives and threatens the saftey of his fellow flock, Grekimar becomes a dissenter and questions the Leader's decision, joining alliance with The Lamb's highest disciple, Tyren, to scheme and kill the cat in order to protect the flock.

🐻Jayen (He/Him):

A kindhearted and rather soft-spoken soul, Jayen is 'gentle giant' archtype character. Brought to the cult as a cub, Jayen is an anxious 'left-over' type, with no particular skills or qualities that are seemingly 'useful' to the flock or it's Leader, and he is very self-consious about this. Switching inbetween jobs and struggling to find his place among the cult's growing number, Jayen is decayed and killed by a furious Narinder in an attempt to pull him off of The Lamb when the cat's dramatic initial arrival happened. He is later revived, now traumatized and with a heightened fear of death.

Although his murderer walks free, the same cat had revived him as well, so Jayen holds no ill will and would rather simply leave it all behind and not think about it all. However, he is roped into a scheme to kill Narinder by Tyren and Grekimar, with the former using the bear's fears of death to pressure him into helping.

Tyren's, Grekimar's, and Jayen's relationships:

-While Tyren is a loyal disciple and Grekimar a regular dissenter, both found common ground in wanting to Kill Narinder, though their reasonings differ. Tyren wants to kill Narinder being an obstacle to the Lamb, while Grekimar wants to rid of him for concerns to protect the cult. While they can put aside their differences to achieve their goal, Tyren's methods will make Grekimar reconsider his alliance with the dog.

-Tyren pressures Jayen into working with him and Grekimar under the guise that if they do not kill Narinder, then the cat will eventually kill him again. If that tactic does not work, Tyren will subtly imply that he will use his status in the cult to undermine Jayen, and possibly exile him for being 'useless.'

-Grekimar thinks Jayen a coward, and while he'll pressure the bear to do as he is told, the pig is conflicted about getting the bear involved.

[hinamie]

noir

[sanctus-ingenium]

VIII Strength redraw

[ink-the-artist]

Rabbits

Some bonus art, I initially started making this in a totally different art style but changed my mind about halfway through lmao, here are the parts I finished

[artkaninchenbau]

People keep on asking for more Baby Robin and Papadile so here is more Baby Robin and Papadile. Now never ask anything from me ever again

[nikoisme]

bones in the ocean

[egophiliac]

HAPPY HALLOWEEN here's some seasonal guys! 🎃