#figured i'd better be a bit more varied than thaT

[vincentbriggs]

Do you need a sewing machine to start making shirts and vests? Is hand sewing an option worth considering, or should I invest in a machine, in your opinion?

That's really a matter of personal preference!

Do you need a machine? Absolutely not! Every garment ever made before the 1840's was sewn by hand, and a lot of them after that too. I've sewn many garments completely by hand, including the early 18th century tiddy-out-violinist shirt, these bright orange breeches, and this green waistcoat.

Is it nice to have a machine? I think so, but again, individual opinions vary!

One of the costumers I follow sews everything 100% by hand because she finds it meditative and isn't interested in using a machine at all. Some people hate hand sewing and prefer to do everything by machine, with maybe a bit of hand finishing if they absolutely can't avoid it.

I do about a 50/50 split overall, maybe skewing a bit more towards hand sewing. I like to do pants, shirts, and nightgowns mostly by machine with some hand finishing, but for jackets and waistcoats I usually do considerably more hand sewing than machine, because I like 18th century tailoring techniques and think they give a nicer looking result. I do most of my buttonholes by hand, or I do them by machine first and then cover them in hand stitching.

Most people who sew do at least some of it by machine, but again, I don't know which way you prefer to work, so I'd suggest trying out both to see how you feel abut them.

For hand sewing, I suspect a lot of people hate it because they're using shitty needles and/or shitty thread, and perhaps haven't found good resources for hand sewing techniques.

Here's a post of hand sewing advice that I found quite helpful a decade ago. Use good needles because the eyes of the cheap ones have jagged edges and will ruin your thread! Use nice thread because the wrong kind will be twisty and tangly and will fray more!

Thimbles are good and useful, and typically they go on the middle finger of your dominant hand, and you use them to push the needle. I prefer metal thimbles and dislike using leather ones, but some people prefer the leather ones, or rubber ones.

The metal ones come in sizes, and I don't know how to find out your size aside from trying them on in person, but I know I'm a size 11.

One very important thing is that if you're hand sewing a garment, look for hand sewing specific instructions on how to do the construction techniques you're going for. A lot of the time when someone nowadays is trying to figure out how to hand sew a thing they'll just try and copy the machine sewn version, and a lot of the time that's inefficient and more difficult and the result looks worse, because machines and hands work very differently!

This is something I'm going to briefly discuss in the outro to the very long shirt video I'm working on, because it's so very common, and I've done it too! On several of my earlier hand sewn shirts I didn't know to turn the edge in on the front slit and do a little narrow hem, so I instead sewed on a facing for the front slit and cut and turned it, just like I'd seen on machine sewn shirts. This made it about 3x more time consuming, and the result was much bulkier and looked worse.

I've got so many more things to say about sewing but it's almost bedtime and I don't want to make this post too long.

For machine sewing, again there's a lot of personal choice. Some people like newer machines, some people like vintage or antique ones. I'm one of the ones who prefers solid metal vintage machines. I grew up using an old cast iron Singer, and the newer domestic machines just feel so plasticy and insubstantial to me. I'm used to ones that just do straight stitch and can also go backwards, but some people are perfectly happy with ones that can't even backstitch.

I do think that for a beginner the vintage machines are a better deal, because if you're patient and look around for a while you can snag one for really cheap at a thrift store, yard sale, facebook marketplace, etc. Also they're mostly metal and therefore harder to break.

I recently got a Pfaff (from I think the 1960's?) at an estate sale for 25 bucks. The zig zag mechanism is stuck and needs fixing, but I cleaned & oiled it up and it works just fine for regular straight stitching.

There are SO MANY online resources for how to clean, oil, and fix vintage sewing machines, especially the more popular brands, and a lot of the time cleaning & oiling is all they need. Read the manual and get an oil bottle with a nice long pointy thing so you can reach all the parts, and get some compressed air to whoosh out the fuzz. If it's old and hasn't been used in years, turn the hand wheel and observe every single place where metal rubs against metal, and Make It Greasy There.

(If you don't have the manual, you can often find those online too. I even found the service manual for my new-old Pfaff! I have the original users manual, but this one's for the people doing repairs.)

Oh this post is getting much too long! If you don't know yet if you like machine sewing, try seeing if you can use one without owning it, perhaps at a sewing class or in a makerspace. I know some libraries can loan out machines. A sewing class would probably be a good idea actually, if there are any available where you live!

Much like how you'll have a bad time hand sewing if you've got shitty supplies and no proper instructions on good techniques, you'll have a bad time machine sewing if it's not oiled well and if the tension is uneven.

There are so so very many things to learn about sewing and I hope I'm not making it sound too overwhelming, because I promise it's not if you take it one step at a time!

Also, when someone who's been sewing for a long time says "You may think you can ignore (piece of sewing advice), but actually that's bad and you will regret it", they're usually right. Oh, how I regret not learning to use a thimble years earlier than I did...

Sorry this post is so long, I hope it's helpful!

Basically, there's no one best way to sew anything, and you should try different stuff and see what works best for you, because everyone has different preferences.

[ckret2]

Chapter 29 of human Bill Cipher will find a way out of being the Pines' prisoner or so help him, featuring:

Summerween!!!!

and also:

Henchmaniacs.

Kryptos doesn't actually talk like that, it's just how he's currently feeling.

####

January 1, 1982

"You're late," Bill said, a bit reproachfully.

Ford gave him a surprised look. "Did we have an appointment?" He didn't remember one. He was pretty sure he'd remember an appointment with his muse, even if he'd made it in a dream.

"Pfff, appointments are for people without an eternity of time! No, I'm just used to you dreaming by midnight. It's weird for you to stay up past two when you aren't working on a project."

"I suppose it is." Ford was flattered Bill was paying close enough attention to notice his sleep habits. "I thought I'd stay up late to bring in the new year."

"The what?"

"The... new year?" What wasn't registering. How do you explain New Year's to an alien/angelic messenger? "It's when—"

"Oh, oh right." Bill waved off the rest of Ford's explanation. Several calendars and clocks spiraled in the air like a Ferris wheel in front of Bill, "Between trying to figure out whether you meant it was 0 Pop or Tishrei 1, I completely forgot about Chaos 1. You guys have too many calendars!"

And he'd skipped over January entirely. Wryly, Ford said, "The next time somebody asks for my input, I'll let them know you want us to use a few less."

Bill laughed. "Smart aleck." The calendars and clocks vanished. "And all you did to celebrate was stay up a little later than usual? No parties? Okay, I know you don't know anyone throwing a party—but you didn't even celebrate at a bar?" Bill ruffled his hair. "All work and no play makes Ford a dull boy!"

Ford endured the ruffling. He wasn't quite sure whether Bill was scolding him for staying up celebrating, or for not celebrating enough. "I... suppose I could celebrate in here?"

"What do you want, a fireworks show?" In the distance in Ford's mindscape, a single large firework exploded. It shifted colors, purple to yellow to green to red, before fading. "I don't think so! If you wanted fireworks, you should've gone to the show on the lake. I've got some prophecies to pass on, and I'd rather get to them this REM cycle."

By "prophecies" he probably meant a random assortment of warnings about Ford's upcoming week, which historically had varied in severity from "don't visit the lake Tuesday evening or you'll get caught in a snowstorm and die of hypothermia" to "you'd better get groceries in the morning before they sell out of your toothpaste brand." And Ford was always grateful for such messages—but now he wished he could see what sort of fantastical color-changing dream fireworks show his muse could put on. "I take it it's not a new year on your calendar."

"I don't keep track of that stuff. When you're as ancient as me, celebrating the new year is like celebrating a new hour."

Bill had so easily brushed off the implicit invitation to discuss "his" calendar. Ford wasn't surprised. Over the years of sporadic meetings with his muse, Ford had noted that Bill never shared information about where he'd come from or how he filled his time when he wasn't bestowing his wisdom—as if Bill was a thing that simply is, a muse that offered inspiration because it was made to inspire, with no history or identity outside of its role in service to humanity. He always dodged the questions gracefully.

But he never seemed bothered that Ford had asked. In fact, as long as Ford didn't pry into Bill's history and kept his inquiries comfortably shallow, Bill always seemed happy to receive personal questions. Ford had found that even when Bill talked like he was in a hurry, it was very easy to get him off track (and consequently extend his visit to two or three more dreams) by asking him about himself.

Ford wondered why that was. Was it a part of his duty—was he compelled to answer his chosen students' questions, to enlighten them on the mysteries of the universe, to help tug back the curtain of reality to reveal wonders unknown—wonders that included Bill himself? Or perhaps Bill was used to students seeing him as a source of knowledge without seeing him. Perhaps he was grateful that somebody was interested in him enough to ask.

Whatever the case—Bill clearly liked being asked about himself, and Ford liked getting his muse to stick around a little longer than planned. So rather than letting Bill get on to the prophecies he'd promised, Ford asked, "Do you ever... participate in any human holidays? After all, you've offered so much to humanity. I'm sure any of your prior protégés would have been honored to invite you as a guest to our celebrations. I would be honored." And Ford wouldn't mind having friendly company on the holidays that he'd gotten in the habit of ignoring until they shrank to nothing but a square on a calendar.

"Ha, I know you would! But no, not really," Bill said. "Don't get me wrong, it's not that I look down on your cute little local festivals. They just don't have any relevance to me! A celebration of a bountiful harvest, a prayer to get through the winter, the veneration of a local long-dead celebrity... I come from a timeless realm of divinity, sublimity, color and light! Most of your planet's holidays are about issues that don't matter to me."

"Ah. I see," Ford said. "Are there any human holidays you care about?"

Bill mulled over the question. "Maybe one or two."

####

June 22, 2013

Bill thundered down the stairs, charged into the kitchen, and announced to the Pines, "If I don't get to wear a Summerween costume I will literally die."

Without looking up from the morning paper, Ford said, "Then die."

####

It took ten minutes for Bill to bargain Ford up from "death" to permission to wear a costume—provided that it was free; that Bill agree to stay inside for the holiday without complaint (WITHOUT COMPLAINT) no matter what fun activities he heard happening outside; that Ford didn't have to do anything to help Bill obtain said costume; and that Bill take a dang shower.

Bill groaned. "Another shower already?"

"You wouldn't need so many if you didn't insist on running around in an acrylic sweater and polyester leggings in summer."

Bill knew that. That was one of the reasons he did it. It was useful for the humans to think the showers were their idea.

Bill agreed to all terms, and even volunteered to get the dang shower over with now so they could both get on with the rest of their days.

He'd never admit it, but Bill had been wanting a shower. Not for the hygiene, but for the privacy. This was the first time he'd had a door between himself and the Pines since he'd broken the shack's unicorn hair barrier.

Time to call in reinforcements.

Bill covered the mirrors, turned on the shower, undressed, stuck his head under the shower stream so that if anyone barged in on him he could use his wet hair as proof he'd been showering, and squinted through the wooden door to confirm there weren't any humans lurking nearby. Coast was clear—but wow, it hurt to bend his eye that way. He rubbed at it irritably as he set up his ring of candles again, and wasn't surprised when his fingertips came away bloody. He thought it hurt more than it had last time. He wondered how many more times he could glance into higher dimensions before this body's eyeballs gave out on him. Hopefully he wouldn't need them that long.

He drew Kryptos on the floor, lit the candles, and started muttering the chant to summon him. "Rhombus sapphirinus. Fraternitas, caritas..."

The steamy air went chill, the water pattering in the tub grew muffled, the whole world slowed and paused. For weeks, Bill's every attempt to break into the mindscape had been a futile strain; but now, instead, the mindscape surged up and swallowed him into its gray twilight, like evening embracing the land on the heels of sunlight's departure. Bill knew he wasn't awake anymore. It was working.

A force outside of Bill borrowed his throat to speak the last of the ritual—it worked!—and before his eyes, a diamond window opened into the Nightmare Realm.

####

Standing at the edge of one of the Quadrangle of Qonfusion's many perpendicular floors, arms crossed, scowling deeply, Pyronica glared at a neon-acidic cotton candy nebula light years away. "Guys," she said, "it's doing the thing again."

8 Ball, Keyhole, and Zanthar glanced away from their video game toward the nebula. Amorphous Shape peeled a few squares off a column to peer at it with Hectorgon.

"Look at this." Pyronica clapped her hands.

In the nebula, crackles of lightning-like bolts of light millions of miles long shot through the starry clouds. A noise like thunder boomed from it, rattling the Quadrangle. An ugly statue fell off a column-shaped pedestal and landed on a wall.

She clapped twice more—each time, eliciting more lightning—then gestured emphatically at the nebula. "How am I doing that!"

"Can't be you controlling it," Amorphous Shape said. "That nebula's over a dozen light years away. That light had to have happened years ago, we're just seeing it now."

Already turned back to his video game and determinedly trying to murder Keyhole, 8 Ball said, "Maybe the nebula's controlling you."

Pryonica said flatly, "You think a bunch of stars is making me clap."

"Eh. Like astrology or something."

Hectorgon said, "Could be a time loop thing."

"Could be," Amorphous Shape said thoughtfully.

Pyronica threw up her hands, which made the distant nebula's colors shift slightly. "If it's not weird butterfly effects or faster-than-light light, it's time loops. I hate this place. All it'd take is a hard sneeze to knock the whole dimension down."

She'd been saying things to such effect for the past few months. Consequently, nobody really paid much attention to the latest round of griping about the Nightmare Realm's poor maintenance, until she said, "I'm bailing on the Quadrangle. Soon as I can find a decent rock in some other dimension. Who else is coming?"

8 Ball glanced down at Pyronica from the floor with their gaming setup. "Hold on, are you serious?" He quickly had to look away as Zanthar took advantage of the distraction to attack.

"Yeah, I'm serious. I don't wanna break up the gang, but I'm sick of this dump."

Huddled on a nearby wall like an unemployed gargoyle, Paci-Fire said solemnly, "I will stay, Mother. The Quadrangle of Qonfusion is the only home I have ever known."

"Probably one of my worst life decisions," Pyronica muttered. "The Quadrangle isn't our home, it was Bill's. We're just... just..."

Ducking in from between two columns that seemed to lead to a purple-shadowed nighttime meadow, Teeth said, "Eternal couch-surfers."

"Ha! Yeah, that. Hey, where you been the past week?"

"Took a wrong turn to the bathroom. I ended up in that pocket dimension Bill grounded the electrical wiring into."

"Again?"

"I never know how many times to cross that one infinitely looping hallway!"

Pyronica gestured at Teeth. "See, this place is a complete mess. We'd be better off moving to any other dimension. And you'd like living in a real dimension if you gave it a shot, Paci!"

"No." Paci-Fire crossed his arms. "I do not want to."

"At least think about it. Wouldn't you like to live somewhere that has moons? Instead of going on a road trip to another dimension every time you want to drive a civilization to extinction?"

Keyhole muttered, "I hate those stupid road trips. They're always a zillion light years long and we never do anything fun."

"Hey!" Pyronica pointed at Keyhole. "Watch it! My kid's a lunarcide prodigy, he gets to go on as many moon-destroying trips as he wants!"

Keyhole cringed. "Right, right, sorry." 8 Ball muttered something disparaging about Keyhole's intellect, right before blowing him up for the second time.

Paci-Fire asked, "And say we were to move to a dimension with more moons. What would we do when the authorities follow us home after another successful slaughter?" A side-effect of growing up in the Henchmaniacs was that Paci-Fire regarded The Authorities as a nebulous bogeyman that was personally out to get him and all his family and friends. "Are we to lock the door and cower from them like—like cowards? Or constantly flee from one dimension to the next? No, Mother. I do not wish to live like a pariah in the dark corners of—" his lower mouth sneered around his pacifier, "civilized dimensions. There is nowhere safer for us than the Nightmare Realm."

"Sweetie, you don't have to be afraid of the authorities in other dimensions—"

"Mother! I know no fear." Paci-Fire's eyes flared a bright, dangerous red.

Pyronica playfully tugged one of his horn. "We can find a dimension as primitive as 46'\ without any interstellar cops. Like—which dimension were you from, Teeth, it doesn't even have any organized space authorities, does it?"

"Oh, yeah, pretty much every world in my galaxy was still ground bound when Bill recruited me." Teeth stepped on a column, slid off, and shuffled around it, trying to remember which side doubled as a walkway to the kitchen. "I don't really mind staying here, though. I mean yeah, we don't have a roof, or consistent walls, and the wiring's a mess. But the rent's really reasonable for a place this size in this part of the Nightmare Realm."

Hectorgon processed that. "Hold on." He lay on a wall and slid up it until he was mouth level with Teeth. "You've been paying rent?"

Teeth paused mid-column. "Wh—yeah? What's that supposed to mean?"

Pyronica bit her lip to keep from laughing, elbowed Paci-Fire, and hissed, "I thought Bill was joking about charging Teeth rent!"

Paci-Fire murmured, "Bill Cipher was always a most droll prankster."

"Who are you paying it to?" Hectorgon asked.

"I mean—I was paying it to Bill. But I dunno who took that over, so I guess, kinda... no one?"

With a mildly offended tone, Hectorgon lied, "You were supposed to give it to me now."

"Oh." Teeth shifted awkwardly. "Uh... sorry, Hect, no one told me. I don't think I've got enough on hand to cover all the..."

"It's fine, everything's been topsy-turvy since... the last few months. Just give me what you have and pay back the rest as soon as you can, okay?"

"Sure, sure, no problem. Thanks, man."

Pyronica bit her lip to keep from laughing. "All right, so Teeth is stupid enough to stay here."

"Hey!"

"But I don't see why the rest of us should be." She looked up at the trio playing games below her, then tried to remember which stupid paradox staircase led to that level. She hesitantly headed up one that looked promising. "Moving out would be worth it just to be somewhere with consistent physics!"

"I am contented with the inconsistent physics," Paci-Fire said.

"It took you fifty years longer than most kids to learn how to walk," Pyronica said. "I know you're my little genius! It's this dimension that's holding you down!" 

"Boo," Paci-Fire said sulkily.

"Paci, you don't even like the Quadrangle. Nobody does."

Amorphous Shape let out a chorus of sharp gasps. They slid around a corner and reappeared sliding from the underside of the staircase to the top, laying zigzag atop the steps to glare at Pyronica. "Excuse us."

"I'll step on you, Morph," Pyronica threatened. Amorphous Shape grudgingly slid over for her to pass. "Fine, Bill's stupid 2D groupies like the Quadrangle. But the rest of us don't."

"What's wrong with it?" Morph demanded.

"What's—?!" Pyronica gestured upward at the floor below them. "You don't see the problem with this?!"

"It's supposed to be like that. It's a shortcut." 

"It's a—!" Pyronica covered her face and suppressed a scream. "It's giving me vertigo!"

"It doesn't give us vertigo," Morph said defensively. They partially peeled off the steps to look at Hectorgon. "Does it give you vertigo?"

"No, I'm fine."

"What about you, Kryptos?"

There was no answer.

"Krypt?" Morph reluctantly peeled off the stairs entirely and hovered in the air to try to get a better view.

"He probably got sucked into The Void," Keyhole muttered, "it was vibrating this morning."

8 Ball sighed. "Why do we even have that Void?"

"Man, I dunno."

Pyronica ascended to the bottom of the stairs, sat on the arm of the gamers' couch, and said, "The point is—none of us need this place. I got by fine before joining Bill, most of you guys did too, and we can get by just fine now without squatting in his weird architecture project."

She leaned behind Keyhole and 8 Ball to poke Zanthar's arm. "Big Z, you still have worshippers in your home dimension, right? Aren't you still getting offerings?"

Zanthar shrugged noncommittally.

"They've still got legends of you, you can whip them back into shape in no time. Keyhole, you've got family—"

Without looking away from the screen, where he was losing hideously, Keyhole muttered, "I'm not moving back in with my mom."

"I'm not talking about your mom, stupid, what about your sisters?" 

Keyhole winced, though it was hard to tell whether it was from Pyronica's question or from getting killed for the third and final time. "I don't know... Bill and I were talking about them once, and I realized they're as bad as Mom was. Bill said probably the only reason they didn't treat me as bad is because they never got the opportunity—"

"Who cares what Bill said," Pyronica snapped. "Bill's dead! We don't have to listen to him anymore!"

"Hear hear," 8 Ball muttered; but he couldn't throw in anything else, lest Zanthar blow him up and win the match.

Pyronica said, "Face it: the only reason the rest of us didn't leave the Nightmare Realm millennia ago is because Bill couldn't leave."

Morph drifted through the kitchen—reaching around Teeth to grab a drink out of the fridge as they passed—and unfolded questioningly around a corner. "There you are."

Kryptos was in the rec room, lounging on Bill's stupid tacky optical illusion throne with the fabric of reality upholstery, staring out a window (or skylight, depending on your point of perspective). He grunted at Morph.

Morph said, "Bill's gonna be furious you're using his throne."

"Whatever. Z's already spilled time punch on the armrest." Kryptos pointed at the patch of reality on the armrest that was out of chronological synch with the rest of the throne.

"He's not gonna be furious," Pyronica said, shouting through the doorway that inexplicably connected to the rec room. "He's not gonna be anything because he's dead. He died. D-E-A-D."

"He's not." And suddenly Morph were in Pyronica's face, all of their polygons and lines and piercing slitted eyes circling her head like angry moons. Keyhole leaned toward 8 Ball to see the screen around them, and 8 Ball elbowed him back over. Morph said, "He can't be. If Bill was dead, the Nightmare Realm would be falling apart even faster—"

"So let's bail while we can—"

"—but it's not," they said. "If anything, its degradation is slowing down. That would be impossible if he were dead, he's instrumental to holding the Nightmare Realm together—"

"Unless he lied about that, and he was actually making everything worse," Pyronica said.

"Bill's not a liar! We have the data to prove it, we've been measuring the degradation for billennia—"

"I'm sick of your stupid measurements! It was your 'measurements' that said 46'\ was perfect to take over! Was that stupid barrier part of your measurements?!"

"That barrier was extremely localized, there's no way we could have detected—"

"The portal was right in the middle of it! How did you idiots miss it?!"

8 Ball groaned as Zanthar whittled away the last of his HP. Zanthar let out a gentle hum like the sound of an apocalyptic vacuum cleaner as the game declared him the winner.

8 Ball tossed his controller at the TV. The TV squealed in fear. "If Bill is alive, that's just another reason to get out of the Nightmare Realm! Leave before he gets back! He can play king in this dump by himself."

Paci-Fire said, "Surely, you do not mean that. Were Bill still around..."

"No! No, I do mean it! The only reason we've stayed so long is because everyone's too starstruck or too scared to ditch him! Not anymore! If his flat-brained cultists wanna wait for him, fine! But why do we all gotta stay?"

"Hey!" Hectorgon rushed in from the kitchen to snarl at 8 Ball. "Who're you calling flat, cue tip—?"

Kryptos tuned out the argument downstairs/next door as 8 Ball and Hectorgon started brawling. Who were they kidding? Nobody was leaving. Maybe 8 Ball, he'd tried to split four or five times before crawling back, but Kryptos didn't care about him anyway. Bill had always been right about him: he was too selfish to care about the rest of the gang but too stupid to make it on his own. They'd taken in losers like that before and it had never been a big loss when they left. But no one else would leave. Where would they go?

Where could they go?

Kryptos didn't care about the outerplanar Henchmaniacs' reasons for joining Bill; but the shapes were here because Bill had promised to make them a new home. He was the only one in all of reality who could do it. Kryptos was as desperate to hear from Bill as Morph and Hect were. They'd held fast to Bill's promise for a trillion years—so how could they let go of whatever thin thread of that hope remained? Who would they be if they lost it?

But in his heart, Kryptos didn't really believe Bill was out there. He'd been gone too long. And Kryptos couldn't imagine anything less catastrophic than Bill's destruction could have reversed Weirdmageddon.

Yet he was still here, and still waiting, because he didn't know what else to do. He'd stay in the Quadrangle until the whole realm finally fell apart, just in case Bill casually floated back in one day. He'd do anything they could think of to find him and bring him back.

And then Kryptos got a call from Earth.

He sighed heavily.

Calls from Earth weren't unusual. Perks of having helped found the Fishmasons: Kryptos was occasionally summoned by the Fishermen high-ranked enough to be told their organization really did know an interdimensional alien who was their de facto secret leader and presided over their most important rituals. Assuming "de facto secret leader" meant "living equivalent of a beloved sports team mascot," and "presided over" meant "got free invitations to," and "most important rituals" meant "most fun parties." But the humans liked to pretend that their little group was a lot more important and cloak-and-dagger than the social club it really was; and all the wink-wink-nudge-nudge pretending-Kryptos-was-in-charge, while silly, was also kind of flattering. You didn't get many chances to be the star of the show when you lived around a supernova like Bill.

So, Kryptos got calls from Earth from time to time—at least a handful a year—typically from a middle-aged man in a business suit trying to pretend he wasn't giddy about being the guy who'd gotten permission to pull out the candles and contact The Alien.

Kryptos was not in the mood to talk to humans. Humans were why they were in this mess. Humanity could go jump in a lake.

But it wasn't every human's fault that a handful had somehow taken out Bill. And maybe they were calling for a party. Maybe it would cheer him up.

So he sighed again, half heartedly shouted, "Guys—guys, shut up a second, I'm getting a call," and opened up a window to Earth.

His vision was filled with a brown-skinned golden-haired haunted-eyed human who, at the sight of Kryptos, gave him a relieved, face-splitting smile. "H—"

Kryptos hung up.

To reiterate: he took calls from middle-aged men in business suits. That was a naked woman crouched on the floor like an animal.

"Who was it?" Hectorgon asked.

"No one. Some woo-woo witchy type who probably dug up a leaked Fishmason ritual online."

Hectorgon laughed. "I bet it thought it could ask a 'demon' for lottery numbers."

"Sorry, sister, but that's Bill's schtick," Kryptos said. "My number is unlisted for a reason."

Kryptos wondered about Bill's human pals. Well—"pals" was a bit of a stretch—devotees and students. How often did he get calls? And now they couldn't reach him.

Stinks for them. Must be awful, reaching out to someone in another dimension for help and getting nothing back.

####

An ethereal, sourceless voice whispered in Bill's ear, "The all-knowing dream demon you're trying to reach is currently unavailable for visions and prophecies. If this is an emergency, wake up and call your nearest Masonic lodge. Otherwise, please leave your prayers or petitions after the beep." Beep.

Bill stared, jaw dropped, at the empty patch of air where Kryptos had been projecting just a moment ago. After several seconds of mute outrage, Bill said, "Kr... Kryptos. You... I swear, if you don't get back here this SECOND—"

The sheer force of his anger woke him up. His eyes fluttered open to the world of color and humidity and pattering water. He grabbed every towel he could reach, wadded them up, and screamed into them. "KRYPTOS YOU SON OF A— I KNOW YOU NEVER CHECK YOUR VOICEMAIL! AND WERE YOU ON MY THRONE, WERE YOU SITTING ON MY SPECIAL THRONE—!"

He shrieked until his lungs were empty.

####

At sixty minutes exactly, Ford knocked and opened the bathroom door. Bill stood scowling behind it.

Dryly, Ford asked, "Have a pleasant shower?"

Wet hair hanging in tangles, face flushed red, eyes even redder, Bill snapped, "Yeah. Refreshing."

####

"Mabel?"

Mabel glanced down from the stepladder at Bill, then pointedly looked away and continued taping Summerween decorations to the hallway wallpaper. "What."

"Mabel," Bill tried again, a touch more pleading. "O great Shooting Star. My hero. My one and only friend in this hostile universe. Last person who hasn't utterly forsaken me." He leaned on the wall, the back of his hand pressed to his forehead. "The sole illumination in the dark night of my accursed postmortem existence—"

Mabel grudgingly looked at Bill again. "What do you want?"

"Listen: I know I upset you at the mall, and I still need to make it up to you—I do, I do, I just haven't had a chance yet—and you're still a little mad at me, okay—buuut... can you help me make a costume." He pressed his hands together. "Please. I'll owe you one. I'll be in your debt. Just let me dress up for Summerween."

Mabel frowned at him. She frowned a little more. She said, frowning, "You're so lucky I love costumes."

####

(Next week: Summerween part 2!! Thanks for reading, if you enjoyed I'd love to hear from y'all what you think! I've been waiting to get to the Henchmaniacs for a long time. Mainly in the hopes y'all will yell at me for putting Bill through heck again.)

[moongothic]

So for a while I had wanted to make a knitted sweater or a cardigan with thick, vertical stripes. Needless to say though I was having a hard time brainstorming HOW to make that such a thing. Colorwork would be doable if I wanted to do thin stripes, but I wanted the stripes to be like a good 5-8 cm wide. That would result in a lot of extremely long floats, which would make knitting it a pain in the ass and far beyond my skill level (if not straight up impossible?), but also it'd be such a waste of yarn. But, I figured... people make granny square sweaters and cardigans where they sew the individual pieces together. Hell, knitters make sweaters and cardigans in pieces too. So, if I wanted to knit something with vertical stripes, what'd stop me from knitting each stripe as an individual piece and then sewing them together?

Now, a lot of this project was me figuring things out as I went along (partially because for a while I wasn't sure if this project would work out, and if I'd be able to make a cardigan at all or if I'd have to make a sweater instead), knitting pieces and sewing them together as I went instead of making all the pieces first and then putting them all together in a grand finale. So I don't have photos of the individual stripes I knit up pre-sewing. Each stripe ended up being about 7 cm wide but their lenghts vary depending on where they're placed (sides are shorter to make room for the arms etc), and two stripes on the front I knit into a sharp point to shape the neck opening. In total I knit 13 pieces to make the body of the cardigan

Now I did originally intend to just sew the pieces together using mattress stitch, but as I was sewing, I just... Did not like how it was turning out. It wasn't quite as seamless as I had hoped it would be, but more importantly, if you pulled on the sewn pieces at all you'd end up with a gaping hole between the pieces (not pictured) that just felt really unsecure. So I tried just crocheting the pieces and, honestly, I did prefer it quite a bit. It felt stronger than the mattress stitch and it blended into the knit way better, so that's what I ended up going with

I did however mattress stitch the tops together (I don't understand why it felt better/stronger up there than on the sides but whatever, if it works it works)

I did originally make arm holes waaay too big by accident. Fortunately it was easy to fix though, since I had made sure all the pieces were attached the same way- starting row at the bottom edge and bind-off at the top. I just had to undo the bind off on the side pieces of the cardigan and knit a few more rows before binding off again (and crocheting the extended sections together), aka I didn't have to rip the cardigan apart or anything to redo these sections (Yellow stripe on the left has already been extended (black marker shows where I picked up from), about to start knitting the black stripe on the right)

With all of that done, the body of the cardigan was mostly done! I was maybe a liiittle bit concerned about the fit, but I knew I wanted the ribbing to be as wide as the stripes were, so the ribbing was going to "complete" the fit; I had taken that into considderation when I was originally mathing out the size of the cardigan (how many stripes I'd have to make and how wide they'd have to be etc (though I did have to adjust that math a few times during the process lmao)) (Also; the reason I wanted to make a cardigan instead of a sweater is because I prefer clothes I can wear open. Like I don't really like hoodies without zippers because I can't open them, where as hoodies that do have zippers I wear all the time and I pretty much always leave them open. So even if this cardigan had turned out a little snug, it'd be fine, because I know I wouldn't button it up anyways lmao)

I figured doing the ribbing in crochet would be easier, but man. It took me fucking forever to figure out how to do the ribbing. For starters, the yellow yarn I've been using I've actually been holding double this whole time (while knitting), and so I was unsure if I wanted to hold it double for the ribbing as well or hold it single. I was also unsure if I wanted to do the ribbing in slip stitch, single crochet or double, not to mention figuring out the right hook size. I really did try like 5-10 different combinations before I landed on doing double crochet ribbing with the yarn held single. Like I had wanted to try other methods because I feel like double crochet is too hole-y and loose, but all the other methods made a really thick fabric, much thicker than the knit. And I just didn't like that. The double crochet/held single was the only way to get a fabric that was the same thickness as the knit, so that's what I ended up going with. On the plus side, it was also faster to work up lmao

Once I figured out what technique I wanted to use I just had to crochet the damn thing. Which was fine, though I felt like the ribbing was making the cardigan flare out weirdly (in hindsight I think I was just slightly loosing it at this point lmao I can't see what was wrong with the ribbing looking at that photo again fjdghksdf), so I also did a round around the edge of the ribbing to help secure it into a tighter shape. Once the front of the ribbing was done, I did the bottom ribbing and cleaned that edge up too

And then I ran out of yarn

More specifically, I had been using scrap black yarn I already had in my stash. And after I started knitting the sleeves with the remaining balls, having successfully turned the vest into a button-up t-shirt, yeah, ran out of black. So I had to go and order some more black yarn, one or two balls would probably be enough, just need some cheap wool But I don't want to pay 5 bucks in shipping for 5 bucks of wool, man. If I'm gonna order something I might as well make it worth the shipping (or even better, get the free shipping). Now the plot twist is that I originally began working on this cardigan back in September, and when I ran out of yarn it was October. And I knew in a few weeks I'd be going to a Spooky Convention, and I wanted to wear something Halloween-y to said Spooky Convention. So I put this cardigan on hold for like three weeks (in total) so I could crochet a Spooky Cardigan for the convention.

So yeah this cardigan I did start before I made that other one. Lmao.

Anyway, once that other project was done I finally got back to working on This Fucking Thing and finishing it with the yarn I had gotten. Hilariously the yarn I had bought was actually too thin so I had to hold it double to finish the sleeves, but it's fiiine, I've used all sorts of scrap black yarns for this project and could not tell the difference on what yarn has been used where, it's all wool (or wool alpaca mix) And once the knitting was done, I crochet'd some simple cuffs on the sleeves so it'd match the ribbing. I blocked the cardigan, weaved in all the bajillion ends and sewed on some buttons.

I'm deeply upset blocking ruined the shaping of the collar/ribbing. Like I should've seen it coming, I know crochet is stiff innitially but becomes loose and wavey when blocked. But I somehow forgot, and now the collar looks dumb as hell. Also, because the ribbing is quite thin, it can't actually support the buttons I had picked out for the cardigan, so they just kinda. Flop around and sit there, looking sad and flaccid. Of course, the buttons would be very easy to switch out (esp since I haven't weaved them in yet) but there's a part of me that feels like I should undo the whole ribbing and redo it to fix the collar. But. I've already weaved in everything. Undoing the weaving would be a massive pain in the ass, there's so many yarn ends in there... And I'm not sure I care enough to put in that effort into this.

Another minor thing is that I feel like the neck opening is a bit too open for my personal taste- like the cardigan fits on me perfectly, I did my math just fine on that front, but I prefer something that hugs my neck more and this is really open (especially after blocking ruined my perfect, fitted collar). So I should've left the front black stripes normal instead of doing the shaping on them, or something like that

All of that aside though, I am happy with how this cardigan turned out (especially it's technically my first one, even if I didn't finish it first), it fits perfectly and I'll absolutely wear it around home, it's nice and comfy and warm and that's all I wanted and needed

[allthegothihopgirls]

just finished reading death in the family properly and. whoo the racist undertones are racist undertoning. but uh. wanted to say that i cannot understand why people hated jason back then because like. he’s just a kid. he’s a KID. shaking 80s fans by the shoulders he’s a CHILD. he’s not gonna be a mature adult he’s gonna be a little weird and a little annoying even!! but he is a KID.

also wanted to ask your opinions on the jason has chronic pain headcanon? i personally as someone w chronic pain really enjoy it because it makes sense and i am a firm believer that we need more representation of invisible disabilities like some chronic pain is (and mine is) but ive heard a few people say they don’t like it

— baptism anon

right?? like yeah i think jason dying was the most beneficial thing to ever happen to his character, and he also had next-to-no defining traits as robin apart from being a dick grayson carbon-copy + replacement... but i don't get why people hated him.

~

jason w/ chronic pain!!!!!! oh boy i have feelings about him... i LOVE.

especially when it's death-induced.. a bit like phantom feeling/pain, but instead it is. very. real. like, he has chronic joint pain in places where joker hit him a few too many times etc. personally i reject the 'lazarus pit made him squeaky clean' canon, so on top of him keeping all his scars, and being more frankenstein than man.. chronic pain fits in very well.

i also definitely enjoy headcanons of him with chronic migraines.. not because i'm projecting.

i think it's a pretty agreed-upon headcanon that jason isn't a fan of medication in the slightest, due to his mother's death (only making exceptions when he's sustained more than a minor injury on patrol or a mission and is being tended to).

so i propose, stubborn jason w/ chronic migraines, who will never admit to needing actual medication. obviously he isn't going to be stupid about it, he won't patrol if it's too bad, and maybe tries to ward it off with some regular ibuprofen. but he is so against being properly medicated for prevention or treatment, and gets super defensive if dick or bruce suggest it to him.

he's always in varying levels of head hurt™ and just. lives with it. in the comfort of his own apartment he's definitely not a stranger to herbal teas and heat packs though.. however at the same time he's 100% beating himself up whenever he can't just power through.

i don't think he'd actively tell anyone either. dick figures it out from the way he'll rub at his temples post-patrol, or maybe a couple of unclosed search tabs on a computer 'whydoesmyheadalwayshurt' or 'home remedies: how to naturally prevent migraines'

for bruce finding out i have a bit more of a developed idea. jason's gone out patrolling with a migraine, against his better judgement. he's on comms with bruce, who's getting his assistance on a case he's been tracking. seemingly out of nowhere he hisses a little in pain, and bruce is asking what's wrong.

jason grows defensive quickly and spurts out a routine "imfinedontworry" but was apparently not convincing enough because before he knows it bruce is asking "status?" ..and he swears there's a microchip in him somewhere that forces him to give a truthful answer, because it's not like he wants to tell bruce his head's hurting, because that's just plain embarrassing. he doesn't want people thinking that he can't handle pain that miniscule.

between that and the other times he's been asked "red hood, report" and stated his condition, adding on a "head hurts a bit too, but that's just normal".. it wasn't difficult for bruce to suspect something unusual.

moving away from migraines, i think he also experiences chronic joint pain. compared to the previously mentioned, it's easier to play joint pain off as 'normal' and convince himself there's no cause for concern. he's 100% in denial of having an actual issue, which i'd like to think somewhat comes from bruce experiencing the exact same thing, and jason watching him absolutely refuse to admit any weakness it causes him.

he ends up believing it's just something that happens to everyone (well, at least everyone who dresses up and fights crime on the regular). jason's confused when dick's asking him if he wants to stick around for a chat post-patrol, because is dick not also desperate to go home, ice his joints, and spend time doing stretches to ease his pain before finally getting some sleep?????

i don't think he'd realise that it isn't a normal thing until he's called out on it. maybe he makes an off-comment about 'never feeling 75%, let alone 100%' comfort-wise, and damian remarks how that is. an issue. jason's instantly defending himself "yeah well that's just what happens when you've been in the business for this long-" and dick chimes in to point out that he doesn't feel like that. from there i think he goes to an even larger effort to hide any pain he's in.

big believer in jason being a cane user too. i think babs is the one who convinces him to start using one, after the events of this panel ↓ ↓ ↓ 

you cannot tell me that she's letting that comment slide: "that book looked... useful" plus "i don't think i've ever been okay", ok jason mr 'i really resonated with this and now i'm having revelations' todd.

she's 100% sitting his ass down for a real talk about whatever he has going on.

and i think afterwards, babs suggests that he really considers mobility aids. to which i think he ends up being very accidentally ableist, in the 'but those are for old people' way. it takes... a lot to reverse his somewhat internalised ableism, and get him to at least try a mobility aid out.

he grows less opposed to it as he realises that it's not something he's obligated to use all the time, and that it works. so he uses a cane around his apartment, and around the manor when he gets to be confident enough (he's a bit worried of people asking questions, but no one even bats an eye, because it just makes sense).

i have a whole other set of thoughts about the batfamily + how they go about jason using a cane... but i think i've gone on for long enough.. my apologies

in conclusion... chronic pain!jason todd is a HUGE headcanon of mine. love it a lot.

[olderthannetfic]

A question a bit out of the usual ones, but do you have any free resources on sex ed and female pleasure?

Like, i try masturbating and i know the parts work, but I've never been able to Like, get anything more than a little stimulation. Never orgasmed, really want to

Lots of sex ed books I've seen recced are paid ( and I live in Europe and can't exactly hope to get them here) and everyone I've ever talked to is like " just wait for the right person, pleasure ks related to feeling" which, while not wrong, I don't want as my only option, especially since the same ppl told me to wait since sex isn't all that's cranked up to be

So, any advice/ resources you might know?

--

I don't have specific book recs since everything I read was on paper and from the 90s.

I also think women's masturbation isn't all that well covered even by otherwise great books. Men's habits are covered everywhere, up to and including hilarious websites like JackinWorld. Women? It's usually just advice about vibrators.

I had my first orgasm while doing math homework. It occurred to me that I'd never had one and that this was rather silly since I masturbated every day and had for as long as I could remember, so I tried a different technique.

Frankly, orgasm isn't the be all end all of sexual pleasure, especially for women, though I'm sure it depends on the person. But yes, it makes sense to figure out how to have one.

If you're on any heavy-duty medications, it's possible they're making it harder to come. In the absence of anything like that, it's probably just a lack of strong enough, lengthy enough, or a specific type of stimulation.

People telling you to wait are morons. Even a partner you really like will be better in bed if you can tell them what kinds of physical sensations you enjoy. And experimentation by yourself is one of the best and lowest stress ways to figure that out. There's no pressure to get a move on or to worry about another person's pleasure while trying to sort out your own frustrating body.

One thing that often works (though not very well for me personally) is a strong vibrator with a good variety of settings that pulse in different patterns. Even if you've tried a vibrator, if it was some namby pamby weak one or if it only provided one consistent stimulation and not a varying pattern, it may not have been enough. (There's a reason vibrator advice is so overrepresented in what little sex ed stuff there is about female masturbation.)

However, another problem I've seen is that it seems like people assume that all men masturbate basically one way and thus women must be similar. I suspect men are more varied than that stereotype, but women are much, much, much more varied. Vibrators get a relatively large amount of attention, as does using fingers on one's clit. Using a dildo shows up way more in pop culture than its actual frequency in the masturbation habits of women I've known. Some people use water (like from one of those flexible shower heads). There are many options. The one that is by far the most common among women I've talked to shows up basically never in pop culture. The only example I can think of is in Secretary. That method is grinding on the corner of a pillow or the heel of your own hand or similar.

If what you're doing currently just isn't working, try a totally different method.

It sounds like you just aren't getting enough stimulation, but it could also be the opposite: stimulation that's much too strong can just make you feel kind of numb.

[ghouldtime]

Hello again! Since you said that you HC König to be Styrian, do you think he'd be the kind of person to sometimes speak his dialect with reader to tease them a little? The dialect is kinda hard to understand for people, who only speak High German (the German you find in texts and the one you're taught at school and stuff). Because I speak with a dialect as well and I'd love nothing more than to banter with König in our Austrian dialect together! Of course, there's a thousand dialects in Austria! So, someone from Styria has a hard time understanding someone from Vorarlberg, but still! (Also, because I HC him from the southern part of Styria, I like to imagine he "barks" a little when he speaks! It's gotten better as he grew up, but when he gets drunk he still barks, which makes it harder to understand him! It's really hard to understand some people from southern Styria >.< Are we allowed to share our own HCs with you? I just thought it'd make sense since I am Austrian! Not trying to sound entitled or anything, of course! But I just love giving him HCs of things I'm familiar with :>)

Anyway, sorry for the long ask! Have a nice day! ^^

💚💚💚💚💚 HELLLLOO it's great to see you back again :D I hope you're doing well! Also prefacing this with I'm an American so I'm admittedly not the most well versed in everything Austrian! I do put in my research and know some but I haven't even been there so if I'm ever wrong, absolutely feel free to correct me (I try my best not to be totally ignorant)

To answer your question simply in one word: ABSOLUTELY. Caps, bold, and all.

Naturally, his default IS his dialect. That's what he grew up speaking, that's what he learned, that's what sounds the most correct to him. Yes, it's not the standard, but it's HIS standard.

If reader doesn't know his dialect or if he's going out of his way to be a bit of a little shit, he'll be teasing about it - he's got a sense of humor (as unconventional as it might be). Assuming reader is learning German, he of course will still be helpful with teaching! He'll speak the "textbook" standard, but he's still slipping his dialect in, especially if they're catching onto what he's saying and he wants to make a sly comment.

What did he just say? Oh, nothing, you'll figure it out :) .... eventually, in due time.... and maybe a few post it notes in your text books there...

If they already know German, he'll pretty much insist on his dialect and will maybe speak a bit slower if you're lucky. But he'll talk so much if he likes you, you'll catch on - sooner or later (all apart of his masterplan). He's far more comfortable speaking German so he naturally adopts a faster talking pace too to match

Side note Dialects are SO interesting. One of my pals is Norwegian and he'd look me dead in the eyes and switch to another dialect whenever I understood him. Frustrating, actually pretty hilarious, and gives me MORE incentive to learn and to try and figure it out. How a single language can vary so differently from place to place in the same country is very interesting to see and hear alike

(Also you're absolutely welcome to share head cannons with me anytime!! 💚💚💚 I love hearing them and I love seeing that people can relate and have their own experiences to add. It really adds depth when we know we're never getting more than the bare minimum and it's not entitled at all its so nice to hear these little details)

I'm absolutely on board with that head cannon and support it FULLY in every sense of the word. That's 110% HIM. Since he wasn't much of a talker as a kid too I think it certainly was much more pronounced for that reason before it lessened as he grew up, and especially had more exposure to his peers.

I adore niche head cannons like this, it's my bread and butter. Because you KNOW we'd not get that level of love and attention to detail with or from the game alone and it's just adding that extra pizzazz, that extra depth that he deserves

💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚 If you don't mind, I'll adopt that for him because it's so perfect??? It's so him I just love the idea so so so much

[ambermotta]

Draconic Offerings – A Personal Insight

Offerings are a way of showing goodwill and honoring spiritual beings. Even more than that, taking some time to give an offering also means you are dedicating a moment of your day to thinking about them, which makes attuning to their energy easier and keeps the relationship you have with them alive.

Offerings are versatile and personal. Today I thought to share my own POV on giving offerings to dragons.

So remember: this is just my experience (or "UPG"). Other folks may have different insights!

_________________♡♤◇♧_________________

In my own experience dragons seem to like a variety of things, from simple to shiny, which to me reflects both their humble wisdom and love for beauty.

Natural beauties seem to captivate them most: pearls, crystals, metals, colorful patterns. Anything that gleams and projects lively colors.

They also seem to enjoy humbler natural offerings, such as stones (bonus points if they are an interesting shape or from an important place) and wood from powerful trees, such as willow or oak.

Offering Elements (like fire, water) feels pretty powerful especially when doing magical work. If the dragon in question is associated with a particular element, offerings of that element feel best but they seem to accept all elements still.

Food can be a great offering, but I feel like they don't make it such a big deal. To me, offering elements feels the best.

I'd try to figure out what they like before offering anything specific. If you can't, go for something more generalist until you get to know the dragon better. To me, it feels like food is a bit less essential to them when compared to other spiritual beings.

If you decide to work with them long term, it may be good to dedicate a space for them and do weekly or monthly offerings.

So here's my list of offerings I associate with dragons:

Water

Fire

Incense — which one varies, I like offering them according to the dragon. Though I know Dragon's Blood is a popular one and I like it

Shinies — pearls, shells, jewelry

Gemstones

Crystals

Metals

Stones and wood — especially if it has strong magical properties

Potent herbs

Food offerings:

I think of rich flavors and warm food. You could share a meal with them

Meat

Sweet fruits

I don't feel particularly strong for bread, milk and cookies, but they are under the "generally acceptable offerings" for most cultures. So I think you can give them if you're short on supplies or unsure, but I'd ask the dragon what they prefer

Alcohol — I have never offered any alcoholic drinks to dragons, but they might be appropriate. I would ask

Overall, as I have mentioned in another post, the dragons I work with don't really make a fuss about offerings. I give them because I want to share with them.

I do however use offerings in our magical work together, usually to power up the ritual, and on that note, offering corresponding elements feel the best.

Important Sidenote:

Be mindful that whenever you want to take anything from nature you must ask the local spirits for permission and make sure it's legal in your region.

You don't want to be taking anything too important for the survival of the ecosystem (even a fallen branch can be crucial for some organisms), and you also don't want to leave behind anything that could harm it.

I mentioned shells as offerings — unfortunately, taking them does have an impact in the ecosystem so I disencourage it. Their calcium is important for the ocean's chemical cycles and the shells themselves are used by other organisms, so be mindful of that.

Final Considerations

There is not really too much to say about this, really. That is because offerings are very personal things.

One man's junk can be another man's treasure.

One dragon may like simple offerings, another one may like something fancier. You can offer an old necklace which has a deep meaning to you, or a simple food offering.

What matters is that you make your offering special for you and the dragon, and if you're unsure about what they like, by all means ask!

Or adopt the good old trial and error method.

And lastly, do take the opportunity to connect with your dragon. Don't just say "here you go" and call it a day. Make it special! Spend some time with them!

They'll enjoy it more if you put more time, effort and meaning into it.

Thank you for reading!

[thevioletcaptain]

So I've been quiet on here a lot longer than planned.

The reasons are many. The reasons are varied.

The reasons are mostly fucking horrible.

Under a cut because it's long. Check tags for content warnings.

First was the expected absence: my parents came to visit me in Los Angeles over my birthday, so I spent the first half of October showing them around whenever I wasn't working a shift at my shitty department store day-job, or in class at UCLA.

Then, almost immediately after they went back to Australia, I got a second job working as a personal assistant for a composer. This was (and is) an extremely fun and rewarding job, but meant having one more thing on my weekly schedule, which was an adjustment.

Given that until halfway through last year, I'd been out of work since I immigrated in 2019, it took a while for me to get used to having so many concurrent responsibilities, and I'd just started to get a handle on things when I got sick right before the holidays. I took many covid tests -- all negative -- and eventually determined that it was just last year's strain of flu, which I hadn't managed to find time to get the shot for due to the aforementioned super busy schedule. I'm almost positive it was thanks to a particular customer at the aforementioned shitty department store job who coughed hard enough in my direction for their germs to get through my n95.

Anyway, last year's flu was a monster, and I spent a week in bed with a fever, then several more weeks being utterly drained and with a horrendous cough to match. It took a full month for me to recover, and then in mid-January, almost as soon as I started to catch up on all the things that had fallen behind while I was sick, things got bad, then good, then worse, then better, then much, much, much worse.

Basically, it starts with my dad being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He'd told me in October when they came to see me, but the surgery was scheduled for the tail end of January.

The surgery happened on a Monday, and it was a complete success. They got it all in one go. No chemo or radiation or further treatment needed at all. I spoke to him on the phone after he woke up, and he was in good spirits. Happy to have been given the all clear by his doctors.

I told him to watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds & Evil while he rested up at home, because I'm writing specs for both this year and wanted him to be able to read them and know what was going on. He's the one who got me into sci-fi and horror, after all.

He went home.

He was home for two days.

He started feeling a bit rough on the Thursday. Short of breath. No appetite. Mum took him back to the hospital, just to be safe.

Turns out he'd had a mild heart attack. They couldn't figure out why. The echocardiogram didn't show any issues with his heart.

Then over the next couple of days, his breathing got worse. They took a scan of his lungs, and found that they were extremely inflamed. They'd given him covid tests but they came back negative. We told them about a work accident he had about 20 years ago, where a switchboard he'd been working on exploded in his face, and he'd suffered from inhalation burns among other things.

They thought that maybe something during the prostate surgery had caused irritation in his already damaged lungs, which put stress on his heart and caused the mild heart attack. He's never had any issues with his lungs since that accident, but they thought that maybe he'd just adapted to the damage over the years without realizing.

They kept trying different treatments to help his lungs heal. Nothing seemed to work. His breathing kept getting worse. They had him on as much oxygen as possible without intubating him, but it wasn't enough, so over that weekend they decided that they'd need to move him to another hospital with a more specialized lung unit.

When they were preparing to do that on the Monday night, he crashed. Another heart attack. Bigger, this time. They intubated him. Sedated him. Called my mum and told her to come in right away because things looked so bad.

But then he rallied. By the morning, though he was still sedated and intubated, the doctors were confident that with the right treatment at the specialized lung unit at the other hospital, he'd be okay. He was still in a rough condition, but stable. They transferred him to the other hospital.

He was given another covid test. This one came back positive.

My mum and brother called me once it was a reasonable time in Los Angeles to let me know what was going on, and the next day my brother booked me a flight back to Australia. I had to leave for the airport about five hours after my ticket was booked.

I got to Melbourne on February 1st.

For the next two weeks, dad was intubated, sedated, and in an isolation room. Every few days, they scanned his lungs again, and they were slowly improving.

Finally, he stopped testing positive, and was moved to a regular room in the ICU. Then he healed enough for them to extubate him and wake him up.

On February 13th, he was conscious enough to squeeze my hand when we went in to see him. On February 14th, he was conscious and capable of talking enough to ask a nurse in his ward to bring him his phone, and called mum first thing in the morning to wish her a happy Valentines Day.

Two days later, on Friday 16th, his lungs looked good enough on scans that they felt it was safe to do an angiogram, which they wanted to do just to double check that there weren't any issues with his heart that they missed with the echo.

They did the test. They found massive blockages. 90% blockage in one artery; significant blockages in two others.

Even though he'd barely recovered from covid, the blockages were bad enough that they scheduled him for open heart surgery on Monday 19th. They said without surgery there was a 100% chance that the blockages would cause another massive heart attack that he would not survive. They said there was about a 20% chance that he'd have complications, but only about 4% that they'd be serious/life threatening.

Like before, the surgery went well. Triple bypass, in the end. We got a call late on Monday afternoon to say that he was in recovery and looking good. His heart was functioning perfectly. They'd bring him out of sedation that night. Keep him in the ICU one or two days just as the standard post-op procedure. He'd spend a week or so in a cardiac ward after that, then head to a physical rehab ward for a couple of weeks until he could build back the muscle mass he'd lost while sedated.

We went in to see him the next day. Tuesday 20th. His 66th birthday.

He was tired, but looked good. Color in his cheeks. He made a couple of jokes. We left after about 45 minutes because he was pretty worn out, and we wanted to let him get some rest.

But then after, that his breathing started to get bad again. By Wednesday morning, they'd switched out the oxygen prongs in his nose for a big, high-pressure mask again. They called to let us know they were going to intubate him again so he could rest while his lungs recovered a bit more.

They struggled to get the tube in.

His lungs were deteriorating badly. He kept getting worse. We couldn't go in to see him because they were working on him all day.

At 9pm we got a call to say that he was just getting worse. They had him on 100% oxygen. He just wasn't absorbing it. His entire body was under massive strain. They were doing everything they could, but he just wasn't improving.

They said we should go in right away.

We got there by 10pm. My brother and his wife arrived about the same time. We went in to see him. He didn't look good. He looked pale. But he was warm, and he'd come back from the brink before, and we were sure he could do it again. We stayed with him for about an hour, and left not long after 11pm. Went back to my brother's place because they live closer to the hospital.

We were there about half an hour before they called us again. Just after midnight. He was gone.

That was about a week and a half ago, now. It still doesn't feel real. He was only 66. He hadn't even retired yet. He was working full time up until the week before Christmas, and had planned on going back to work a few days a week after he'd recovered from surgery. He never had any heart trouble, or lung trouble. He was active. He was fine.

My wife Zel and her mom flew in a couple of days after it happened. I barely remember anything from the past two weeks. Everything just feels fake.

I've been trying to write something to say at the funeral, which we've finally been able to arrange for next week -- it was delayed because we had to wait for dad to be released by the coroner. I don't think I'll be able to do it.

Anyway. That's where I've been.

It'll probably be a little while longer before I'm around here much, let alone posting with any regularity, because I'll be in Australia helping my mum & and my brother sort everything out. I have no idea how long I'll be dealing with stuff, or when I'll be able to make words cooperate enough to post anything, but I'll be back eventually.

I'm trying to keep an eye on Discord (I'm violetmatter over there) so you can find me there if you want. But yeah, I just wanted to let you guys know why I've been so quiet.

[auncyen]

8 and 10! For Isat ask thingy!!

8. post-game things I'd like to see lmfao I mainly just want to see the trip that the whole fandom thinks happened BUT a few minor h/cs--

post-game his memory improves. It'll never be great if you compared it to someone else but they're pretty happy with it. It's a combo of Isabeau and Odile trying to help him find ways to better remember things and the group remembering some things for him and kind of easing that mental load. (I remember reading something once about how like. in longtime couples each person kind of specializes in remembering different kinds of things and can prompt each other to remember things relevant to a subject/event by bringing up what they remember and with Siffrin we do see like. some pretty old memories ARE there, they just need to be prompted and then not eaten by the Universe.) ...Also less anxiety.

The world rediscovers astronomy as Bonnie's generation and younger don't associate the subject with the Island. (way way far out obviously.)

If Siffrin settles down with Isabeau, their part of the living arrangement probably gets very cluttered at times with them wanting to keep TONS of things as souvenirs and no longer being limited to what they can carry--which might also lead to frustration at times if Siffrin does end up forgetting where he got something from. Isabeau's probably surprised by this at first and it might even cause conflict if Isabeau tends more toward "things should be organized and in their place", but they could probably figure out some sort of solution. (Maybe they add lots of "pockets" to Siffrin's side--aka a big cubby hole organizer where they can keep all those things on display. Siffrin tries to sort through it when it needs dusting to make sure he still cares about something and that helps reduce "I've forgotten what this is but I have it so it must be important" frustration. Still happens sometimes though.)

10. headcanons about the world--

already gave some of this away in fic but Poteria emphasizes "beauty" pretty heavily. They praise Muses of science and art (and yes, it's definitely borrowing from Greek mythology). Given the science bit it's not always about visual/sensory beauty but there is like. a general sense that what is pleasing is good. (This can at times lead to some messiness in dealing with what isn't pleasing.) Also not all Poterians do this but it's openly acceptable in Poteria to also worship gods/faiths from other countries, since the Muses are seen as like. Praise-worthy for helping them find enjoyment in life, but not omnipotent or anything like that. They're credited with very specific things and that's it.

Countries having varying attitudes toward Sadnesses and the people they spawn from, some very accepting and tolerant or helpful (Vaugarde very much on this end of the spectrum) and others having negative attitudes that pressure people to attempt to hide having a Sadness, which...definitely tends to do more harm than good. (I'm not 100% sure I want to use that attitude for the Island but it is kind of tempting to wonder if the journal is supposed to be understood as a cautionary tale because the clone who perfectly understands the writer's pain turned out to be "the first Sadness" or whatever. Similarly Sadnesses being seen as some sort of twisted, selfish wish, trying to force your own pain on others. ...Again, not very helpful for someone who actually has a Sadness!)

Sadnesses could have originated after the loss of color. This is just springboarding off how negative thinking is usually more a hindrance than a help nowadays but might have been important for an ancestor surviving in the distant past. The loss of colors would have been a huge loss of information, and probably still is (think plants/animals that you recognize as poisonous to eat by color for one easy 'could get you killed' example). This probably caused a lot of upheaval when it happened and you had a better chance of surviving if you were prone to being cautious. Societies eventually adjusted as well as they could but 'no color for u' probably had a huge effect on people's psyches so yeah. just tempting to think Sadnesses might not have even been a thing before that.

[denial-permanente]

Hey!

I'd love to hear from experts advice.

Would you guys recommend a 12cm metal cage with "vertical bars" for a beginner and longer term use? (I don't know if the model has a specific name, it's quite frequent to see this design).

I want to lock my boyfriend for some consecutive days, having him relatively comfortable while he pleases me as well as his daily things. Right now I got him a plastic cage, adjustable in length but that still seems to give him a hard time to put on and, although he seems to cope with the discomfort, I get the feeling it might be a little more than what's right (consider we have no experience), and that's something I feel bad about. The cage I mentioned above should be bigger, so I thought it could be what I'm looking for, but I thought you might be able to tell me.

Thank you so much <3

🔏Tom here. It would have helped if you had a link or a name, but I think I understand what you're asking.

First, for the readers on this side of the pond, 12 cm is about 4-1/2" inches. If you are asking about vertical bars, I'm thinking of a particular cage that shows up in a lot of pictures, but is not really practical.

It seems counter-intuitive, but cages that are more snug are more comfortable in the long run. If a cage is large enough to allow an erection to grow partially, it will actually hurt. It's better to have a cage that prevents the erection from even starting. So find a cage that is about the same diameter as his flaccid penis.

The other factor is the length. Again, it's better in the long run to prevent an erection in the first place. Most guys report that a cage that is just about 6 mm (1/4") longer the length of their flaccid penis works well.

The difficult part is finding a cage with such dimensions. Men are infinitely varied in their dimensions, so you will have to go with something that is "close enough."

I have found an inexpensive Chinese cage called the A272. The inner diameter is a little bit snug, but it helps to prevent an erection. The length is a hair longer than I might need, but the next shorter model, the A271 is too short. Also, look at the cuff ring that holds it to his body. This model has a ring that is flat and wide, which has less pressure per square mm (inch), and is more comfortable to wear when you're aroused.

I'm not saying that this model will fit your BF; but you may want to look at models that are similar. They are inexpensive enough so that if you need to try a couple to figure out the best fit, then you have not wasted many pounds (dollars).

[midnight-omega]

Anatomy hc

Okiii ur girl spent most of last night trying to figure some things out and draw some diagrams fr

This post focuses on the reproductive anatomy of my omegaverse. I'm gonna go through each of the 6 gender/dynamic combinations and give a little info about how I think it all works :> like everything else this varies from person to person so if this isn't ur thing no worries! If this is ur thing feel free to use it! But if you use my diagrams I'd appreciate it if you credited me be i spent a long time on them 😔

I also want to link this very in depth explanation because I did take a lot of inspiration from it for my male omegas! I adore this concept for them and I'll be using it going forward. The author talks about a lot more tho some of which imma steal some of which Im not :))

Okay lets get into it fr, be warned there are my messy diagrams of all kinds of private bits under the cut. Also if tumblr kills the quality im so sorry fr :((

Male Alpha

🌕 Let's start with our boys here.

🌕 Honestly they're pretty straightforward! There's not too many crazy anatomy changes here. They function pretty much the same as irl amab anatomy does.

🌕 They have a penis and external testes

🌕 They have a prostrate that can be stimulated via anal penetration

🌕 Male alphas tend to be on the bigger side concerning length/girth but this varies from person to person

🌕 Now, the defining characteristic of a male alpha is their knot. Only alphas have a knot!

🌕 The knot is soft tissue that expands during orgasm. This "locks" the penis into the vagina in order to facilitate conception. In simple terms, sperm stuck inside better change pregananant

🌕 The knot typically stays expanded for about 20min after orgasm, but this can vary. Any longer than an hour though, can be cause for concern

🌕 The male alpha usually has a larger knot than a female alpha and experiences higher chances of successfully "tying" (tying here meaning the knot actually gets stuck in the receiver)

🌕 An alpha can knot outside of rut, but these knots may be smaller or not fully expanded since they're lacking the overproduction of hormones that rut creates

🌕 A deflated knot is still visible as a ring of much softer tissue than the rest of the shaft

Female Alpha

🌕 oh boy, oh god, mother mary save us all

🌕 This one was so HARD to figure out fr... let me get into this

🌕 I've always liked the idea of a female alpha having a hidden penis best. One that's concealed where the clit ought to be but expands and pops out during rut or when aroused. I like this one best bc I'm not a super big fan of the anatomy set up of having a vulva and dick and balls all at once, and anatomically I never understood like... the concept of the clit swells a lil and thats the knot bc... penetrate how?? I also just don't like pregnant female alphas much! To me alphas impregnate only not carry

🌕 So hidden penis was my favorite option !

🌕 But once I started drawing out the diagram I immediately had problems placing the sheathed penis inside the body

🌕 My biggest issues were the bladder and pubic bone. The bladder I can move around easy enough, especially since female and male anatomy have it in slightly different positions anyway

🌕 But what was fucking me up was that damn bone

🌕 If we want to replace the clit with a penis the penis is going to need to run straight through that bone. The pubic bone in female anatomy sits right above the clit basically. In male anatomy its a tad higher up but even moving it up it would still be in the way of the penis

🌕 I could continue to move the bone or do away with it but then we compromise the human shape of the female alpha. The rest of the dynamics would look human in the hips and pelvis but female alpha she'd be.. little fucked up. Not to mention I'm sure there's some other wild medical consequence of removing or moving the pubic bone that I'm not aware of

🌕 So... we can't put the sheathed penis exactly where the clit is

🌕 I could put it where the vagina is, but then that eliminates the vagina entirely and makes female alphas unable to have penetrative sex and tbh I'm not into that give her a gspot yk?

🌕 I could move the urethra around, like push it forward towards the clit even more and push the vaginal opening backwards, or even combine the vagina and anus like the male omega but I wasn't a fan of that either. It makes her feel to male omega-y and less unique to me

🌕 Furthermore like... vaginas are low. Like lower than u think, clits are a little lower too. And penises are so high! So.. having a penis come out so low between your legs wouldn't that make penetrating kinda hard unless you had a crazy long horse cock or smth.

🌕 So I ended up keeping the penis sheathed like I wanted, but I moved it up

🌕 The penis head is a little above where a clit would sit but I still removed the clit from her anatomy

🌕 To avoid the bone I had to put the penis above it. This isn't super crazy since the vans deferens also comes down over the bone, but it is a little awkward because this isn't a little tube this is a PENIS. This is a whole long cord of tissue and blood vessels here and I'm not giving her a small flat cock to compensate she doesn't deserve that

🌕 So, her muscle, fat, skin, and what have you is gonna have to push out to make room for the penis sitting above the bone.

🌕 Insert female alpha sheath bulge >:))

🌕 tbh I think giving her a bit of a bump is pretty hot so I'm satisfied!

🌕 However bc its sitting right over a bone any pressure applied to it is going to be uncomfortable or even painful for her

🌕 So... ig if you wanna kick a female alpha in the nuts aim for her sheath fr

🌕 So then I was good for awhile, I had placed the penis in the body in a way that satisfied me and kept the vagina intact

🌕 But okay now the penis has to come out

🌕 The female alpha cock still sits lower than the male one, so we have to do a little more bending to get it to flip up in proper penis formation

🌕 No problem, I'll just give the female a longer base after the knot and said base will be way more bendy than a real penis np np

🌕 Okay but... if we have a noodle base how is the erection staying erect and not just becoming a top heavy string of stuck blood that flops tf over

🌕 Insert what I did with the labia

🌕 I want female alphas to enjoy vaginal sex if they want to mostly for kinky reasons yk but its my world so!

🌕 But this means that I don't really wanna touch the labia around the vagina, they should still get looser during arousal they should still be fun to play with yada yada yada

🌕 But the penis needs something to lock it upright. So I split the labia into even more parts.

🌕 On irl afab anatomy theres the inner and outer labia and that's that. On the female alpha tho I had to get creative. I gave her her inner and outer labia that would function normally

🌕 Then I gave her another set around the exit of her sheath. I called them! The penile labia for lack of creativity and anatomical knowledge! Unlike the outer and inner labia around the vagina, these ones stiffen and lock up during arousal after the penis has been unleashed. This keeps it out and helps it stand!

🌕 I also gave her a middle labia. This is an extremely tough piece of muscle that separates her upper and lower sets of lips. The middle labia supports our bendy base even more and tends to get engorged and may even expand a little to support the weight of the cock and knot

🌕 This isn't fool proof by ANY means and I'm sure ppl who know anatomy better than me have a million issues rn but yk what? This makes sense to me and took me awhile to figure it out fr so I'm content

🌕 Now... I gave her a uterus-like structure and still called it "uterus" for lack of better term. this is not a functioning uterus so female alphas cannot conceive

🌕 But in this model I have this uterus act more like a muscle that helps push the penis out of the sheath. Believable? Idk but its chill with me

🌕 The female knot is generally a littler smaller than the male knot because it's gotta fit in the body

🌕 The knot here doesn't even begin to expand until the penis is unsheathed, whereas in males it may puff up slightly on initial arousal

🌕 Since I did not give her balls, her testes are inside the body where the ovaries would typically be

🌕 insert the part where I tell you alpha sperm does not need to be cool. It can survive higher temperatures which also makes sense considering omegas practically have heat strokes during heat, the sperm would need to be a little tougher.

🌕 But then why do males have balls? I got u fam ! Bc while they can survive in warmer temperatures that does not mean they thrive there. The healthiest swimmers are still kept a little cooler. Female alphas may be less fertile even because of this which could be some fun plot points bc i love female alphas pls write them more

🌕 That was so LONG but I think that's it for her

Male Beta

🌙 The male beta doesn't really have anything super atypical from irl amab bodies.

🌙 The penis of a beta tends to be a lil smaller than an alpha's but bigger than an omegas, but again this isn't always the case!

🌙 We do have a prostate for fun anal times if desired

🌙 Beta sperm is not as heat resistant as alpha sperm. They can impregnate other betas just fine but may struggle with an omega in heat. It's suggested that b/o couples try conceiving outside of heat with the help of fertility experts :>

🌙 Male betas cannot conceive, they have no uterus or vagina

🌙 Betas do not knot!

Female Beta

🌙 Again, not a lot of differences to talk about here, typical afab anatomy

🌙 It is worth noting that in my verse I am not giving female betas periods bc thats mean

🌙 For this reason their endometrium is thinner than ours so the body can reabsorb it without a true heat easier

🌙 I'll also say that beta eggs are just built different for this thinner endometrium

🌙 usually you need a certain thickness for the egg to embed properly to the uterine wall, but imma say that for whatever reason beta eggs are totally chill with a thin lining. They have a better grip or smth ig!

🌙 This allows my girls to get pregnant without an extra added issue due to my silly anatomy choices

🌙 It also makes her different from the female omega which I'll talk about later :))

Male Omega

🌑 Okay ya'll get ready for shitshow number two

🌑 actually the male omega wasn't as bad to figure out mostly bc I stole the idea of the epivagina from the author I linked above the cut!!

🌑 I'll sum up if you don't want to read through the link (you should tho it's really interesting stuff you might wanna use in ur own verse!)

🌑 So like the female alpha there are depictions I don't like when it comes to the male omega. I don't like them not having a uterus and just being... a guy? Like having nothing about them that makes them different than a male beta. Also, like how I said I don't like pregnant alphas, I don't like omegas that can impregnate.

🌑 I'm also not a fan of not giving them a penis and having them only have a vagina and uterus. What makes the two omega genders different then? Breasts? Not a fan tbh considering I like my male omegas to breastfeed with their lil pregnancy boobies (cancer in venus I like boobies and lactation not sorry)

🌑 Basically I want my mpreg and I want my penis too

🌑 So, like the female alpha, we have to give them both parts.

🌑 Since there's not a ton of room between the balls and the anus (the taint is only so big yall) I'm not a fan of just giving them a vulva here

🌑 I'm also not a big fan of the birth canal that develops from the taint when pregnant just bc it doesn't make sense to me that the body just forms and unforms a hole that they have to push out a baby the size of a small melon through. Like in that case pregnancy must be excruciatingly painful on top of pregnancy already being painful and hard

🌑 So... butt babies. Except not quite

🌑 The popular option is the cloaca but... I have issues with that too

🌑 If you read the chapter on male omegas on the ao3 link you can see why. A short cloaca definitely results in poop in the vagina. I don't think I need to explain why poop in the vagina is like the worst thing. As the author points out it also makes it difficult for fun oral time just bc the amount of infections you can get from... constant ass licking/fucking especially bc I haven't seen any male omegas telling their alphas omg wait i need to shower, shit, and have an enema first

🌑 The long cloaca can work ig but then the penis never enters the vagina and thats just not fun. The male omega would never be able to have vaginal sex fr :((

🌑 So I'm going with what the author made up! The epivagina!

🌑 The epivagina is a strong valve-like muscle kinda like the middle labia in alpha females.

🌑 During non horny times the epivagina remains positioned in a way that closes off the vaginal opening. No penetration without literal tearing can take place with it closed. The anus is open and free for poop!

🌑 During heat and arousal the epivagina switches the other way opening the vagina and closing the anus so the opposite is true

🌑 You do not have to be in heat for the vagina to open btw! Just turned on

🌑 During birth we can just assume the sphincters and muscles around this anus and vagina were built for stretching, though it might be recommend for male omegas to anal train a bit to get all our muscles ready for it (there are literally butt plugs the size of a child's head so we can train out asses a lil)

🌑 Now the drawback to this would be that... you cannot have anal with a male omega if he's turned on. Tbh that's okay with me since i'm not really into anal anyway! If it's not okay with u then.. idk change it to fit ur kink babe im not stopping u

🌑 It also kinda acts as a rape defense too in a way.... like a duck if we're not turned on good luck entering the vagina. ofc... the exception to this is heat in heat it's p much always open unless we need to shit rn so ig vaginal rape protection in heat isn't a thing but it's neat outside of heat

🌑 Male omegas do produce very small amounts of sperm but they're such sad little boys it's basically impossible to get pregnant from them. Most of them have clear orgasms if they come from their cocks at all.

🌑 I did raise their balls a bit back into the body. We're still descended but not... exactly the whole way if that makes sense. Our sperm just isn't as cool this way and it's not heat resistant fr!

🌑 Bc omegas get so hot during their heats this can also decrease or fully kill off any remaining sperm production.

🌑 Technically this way you can still get pregnant by a male omega if you're a female beta/omega but.... bc its my verse and I don't really want that I'm gonna say it happens like once in a century it is not really a thing

🌑 The penis here is smaller than anyone else's, but not as small as you'd think. I'm not going the whole micropenis route with them you can still be satisfied through penetration with my male omegas!

🌑 Like the author, I also like the concept of giving them a prostate and an internal clit >:))

🌑 no real reason other than 3 ways for my boys to orgasm and I like it

Female Omega

🌑 Pretty similar to the female beta, not too much difference from irl afab anatomy

🌑 The biggest difference between a female beta and female omega are:

🌑 Slick production (beta's do not produce slick)

🌑 The endometrium

🌑 I gave my beta's a thinner one so their bodies can absorb it and we can avoid menstruation!

🌑 Well in female omegas the endometrium is thicker, about the same as the average one irl or maybe even a little thicker than that.

🌑 Her eggs just aren't as good as gripping just like irl fr, so we need a lot of cushion for them

🌑 especially since female omegas tend to release more than one egg a cycle (2-4 is normal) so if we're all embedding we need more room to do it

🌑 A female omega also can reabsorb her endometrium no worries I am not giving her a period either

🌑 Instead I'm going to say that heat has 3 phases. Pre heat where we get ready for ovulation that lasts about 3-4 days, heat heat which lasts about 1-2 days or less. This is when we are fertile we need to get pregnant NOW, and then post heat which lasts about 3 days where our body temperature is still extremely high and we're still horny and feverous but the egg has passed alas. Its during post heat that we reabsorb and break down the endometrium. Sometimes we might see a little blood a lil spotting yk, but for the most part our heat stroke helps us absorb it idc if that's unreasonable its what imma say

🌑 The term heat usually includes heat and post heat but not pre heat (I mean you get off work for heat and post heat and we use the term heat as a collective to include that 5 or so days but this doesn't include the pre heat) but i'll do a different post for heats later !

I think thats everything if you survived all that thank you for indulging me fr! Feel free to pop in my askbox if you wanna talk about smth and like I said in the beginning feel free to steal but pls credit my diagrams if u use them :))

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

The Touring Data account on Twitter has posted updated numbers for Louis’ shows in Latin America, and it has caused a bit of fandom drama because the attendance was lower than expected. Some fans claim that the figures for the Mexico City show are wrong and the concert was attended by 67,000 people and that this has been confirmed by Louis’ team. I’m pretty sceptical about this claim because I haven’t seen any evidence of this apart from a few newspaper articles, and they seem to have relied on info from Louis fan update accounts. The Touring Data account itself also tends to be reliable because it just reports numbers from Pollstar.

Do you have any thoughts on this or about the figures in general? I’m no expert on touring but it seems to me like Louis’ team might have overestimated the size of the venues needed for some of the shows. But maybe it just makes more sense economically to play one show in a big venue rather than two shows in a smaller venue?

https://x.com/touringdata/status/1831090091294617979

I'm very glad that this sort of fandom drama only gets to me through anons. I really appreciate that you've explained so fully what's going on and linked to sources, because otherwise I'd be super lost.

My main thought is that current fandom treats worrying about this sort of thing as standard fandom practice. And it's not, or it doesn't have to be. I think its main function is to make fandom a more anxious experience - and I would strongly advocate for people turning their fandom towards the bits that bring them joy.

What that means is not talking about the data directly, but instead talking about the meta question of the meaning people are giving to the data. (If I was going to talk about the data directly it would be giving it meaning by comparing to what we knew about ticket sales at his last Latin American tour, but I don't care enough to try and do that).

I can come up with two explanations for why fans might give the questions of how many tickets are sold at a local venue so much weight - one is basically economics and the other is very fucked up ideas about validity.

There are two reason that you might be concerned about economics - one is concern for the artist (which I think it's good practice to try and not being too concerned about artist's financial position. They're wealthy and they're making money off other people's labour. If you want to be concerned about the finances of anyone involved, be concerned about the finances of people who make merch), and other is concern for whether or not they'll come back.

The problem is that fandom discussion is based on a complete lack of curiosity (that crosses over into willful ignorance) about how touring works. From the way fandom talked about it, you'd think an artist and their team selected and booked the venues in each case - took on all of the risk and got all of the reward. But that's only true of independent tours and most tours aren't independent. Promoters often offer a guarantee (that's the minimum an artist is paid) and a bonus for a sell-out - and what happens to the amounts in between is up for negotiation. The artist meets all of their touring expenses out of their cut (so that's transport and people and equipment that travels). So the economics of a tour can really vary. Some tours are budgeted around selling-out - others aren't. What will make a tour work for both an artist and a promoter is mostly completely opaque to the public.

It's possible that the promoter pitched larger venues than was wise - there have been indications that that's been happening since the first wave of post-pandemic concert enthusiasm. But it's just as possible that the promoter owned these venues and it was better to have an act in them than not. We certainly don't know from these figures that Louis' tour underperformed expectations, or who is carrying the cost of it is unknown.

According to that data, Louis sold around 130,000 tickets in South America (back of the envelope adding to the near 1000 - may be a bit off). If he'd sold double that it would have made him more likely to come back, or play more venues. But I don't think there's any reason to panic. Lots of artists come to New Zealand, don't sell out their venue and come back. And currency strength has a lot to do with who does and doesn't come here.

There could be a lot of good conversation on the levels venues sell at where fans talked about their own experiences. Not just the question of will they come to me (although that's very pertinent to me). But what sort of venues would you like to see an artist in? Might ticket prices go down? But that's never the tone of the conversation.

Instead an assumption in all this is that validity is scarce and measurable. I think it's really important to say that this is not true. It matters to some business people whether an artist sold 60,000 tickets or 30,000. But it doesn't really matter to anyone else.

And buying into a worldview that it does matter, will only harm fans mental health.

[papercranesandpride]

Life tip: if you can't bind for medical reasons, look into compression tops. Obviously they don't work as well as a full binder, but they do work way better than I expected. I have a rather large chest, but with a compression top and a baggy enough unisex shirt, it is actually reasonably obscured. I certainly haven't noticed any construction to my chest or lungs from it. It's basically just a sports bra, just one specifically designed to flatten.

I do also use trans tape, but that isn't really a complete solution, at least for me. It gets me flatter and it means I can actually sleep on a flat chest, which is awesome, but it also messes with my skin way too much for it to be a thing I wear all the time. I've got to spend at least as much time with it off as I do with it on. I know I have pretty sensitive breast skin that's prone to acne, so others may be able to use it more frequently than I do, but still, in my experience it isn't a solution that can be used daily. Compression tops are what give me at least a little bit of hope of being read as masculine.

Anyway, obviously your mileage may vary depending on why you can't use a traditional binder. For me, it's just because I know constricting my breathing and the general fear of leaving it on too long or screwing up my ribs would trigger my medical delusions. Obviously, physical reasons can be a lot more complicated than that, so I'm sure there are people who this won't work for, but I figured I'd throw it out there.

(The brand I've got is Tomboyx, but it's not like I tried a bunch of different ones out. I had an amazon gift card to use and that was the one on amazon. Still, it's worked great for me)

[yellow-computer-mouse]

Aebes! - Open Furry Species

Hey! I figure it's about time to make a species guide for Aebes (what Bramby is)! This might be a bit disjointed and rambly, but it should all make sense (hopefully)!

Also, @mrmrsdarklordjrthethird specifically requested this, so here you go! I hope this helps! ^^

What Is An Aebe?

An Aebe (pronounced ay-bee) is some kind of alien species. They come in two variants: bees and moths.

Bee variants have sharp, fluffy-looking tails that are actually quite thorny and hold a toxin. The severity of this toxin varies from mostly harmless to lethal. They have thin antennae that occasionally have small amounts of fuzz, as well as four small, dragonfly-esque wings sprouting from their back.

Moth variants don't have tails but have much, much more fur. Some choose to style their fur to resemble a bee variant's tail, but most don't care to. They have thick, fluffy antennae, and two large butterfly wings. They are, on average, slightly larger than bee variants.

Bees tend to live in more warm, tropical areas, better suited for their sweeter diet. Their fur excretes a water-resistant oil, much like a duck's. Moths stick to cold, snowy areas, their thick fur coats keeping most of the snow away from their skin. They have better night vision than bee variants, although bees can see farther than moths.

Both variants have orbs floating above their head. These orbs can change shape with emotion. Common shapes to see are hearts, exclamation points, question marks, and crosses, although the exact range varies wildly from person to person. An orb has the consistency of jelly, and acts differently depending on the individual. Some orbs orbit around the Aebe's head, some bob up and down, and some remain more or less motionless.

Although uncommon, it is not unusual to see a hybrid of the two variants.

[ID: A bee variant Aebe and a moth variant Aebe standing side by side, facing each other. The bee variant is messily colored a faint yellow, and the moth variant is similarly colored with a greyish-blue. End ID]

Aebe Culture

Aebes have a wide variety of cultural practices. Many bees like to hold competitions, racing across land and through water to see who's faster. Prizes last about a week and typically consist of extra fruit, bragging rights, and a shiny medallion.

Moths focus more on togetherness, banding together as groups for large feasts. They also commonly work in pairs or trios, styling and dying each other's fur into intricate designs.

Aebes names depend on what variant they are. Moths tend to name each other based on deceased relatives or friends, while bees' names are related to the environment or colors. Some common names include:

Aether - Bee

Somni - Moth

Lapis - Bee

Nickle - Moth

Bases and Extra Stuff

That's pretty much all I have for Aebes! I have some free-to-use (the only rule is credit me somewhere if you do use them) bases here, a moth variant and a bee variant! This is a completely open species, no need to credit me or anything! I don't believe in closed species. You don't have to tag me if you create an Aebe character, but if you want to, I'd love to see it! :)

Either variant can technically be any color, but bee variants are usually more brightly colored! Moth variants have smaller pops of color.

They do usually wear clothes, but design your character however you want! The refs are empty so you can focus on coloring and add clothes and patterns later, as well as not having to use a preset outfit! On a similar note, add more limbs! More eyes! Make them more buggy! Go wild!

With everything said and done, I hope you love these little guys as much as I do! Happy creating!

[lollipop-helo]

So, I was thinking about one of my most recent posts:

The one I talk about how much I hate doing digital lineart and that my artstyle depends on it.

And that gave me an idea!

What if I created a whole new artstyle for the sole purpose of not doing any lineart?

So that's what I did!! (⁠✯⁠ᴗ⁠✯⁠)

I didn't have any idea on what I'd do or how I would do it, so it's still a bit rough and the proportions and other stuff may be a bit off ┐⁠(⁠￣⁠ヘ⁠￣⁠)⁠┌ I'll try to make it better with time!

Anyways, my first subject was....

TAILS!!!!!!

^ No bangs version (at first I completely forgot about them)

^ w/ bangs version (With this, I found out I have no idea on how to draw his "hair")

HE'S SO FREAKING CUTE!!!!!!!! ＼⁠(⁠ÒwÓ)⁠／

"Oh but why did you draw him with lashes if he's a boy?" BECAUSE HE IS THE CUTEST AND LASHES MAKE EVERYTHING CUTER!!!!!! (⁠｢⁠`⁠･⁠ω⁠･⁠)⁠｢

Now for the facts! :

Miles "Tails" Prower is a character from the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise.

His name is a pun that refers to "Miles Per Hour"

He is Sonic's sidekick, and had his first debut in 1992, in the game "Sonic The Hedgehog 2".

One of his favorite foods (if not his favorite) is mints!

Even though he is very young, being only 8 years old(or 4 ½ if we're taking "The Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog" into account), He is extremely smart and has a IQ of 300. He once even made a TV out of paperclips, for heck's sake!

He has made multiple gadgets and tech items because of his inteligence, his probably most famous/used one being "The Miles Electric", a multi-use portable computer, or the "Tornado", which is an airplane.

His intelligence and knoledge on technology is very advanced, with him being able to figure out how tech he'd never seen before works within only a few glances/minutes.

Although his main focus is in being a scientist that creates technology, he also has good knowledge in history, physics and just science in general

His origin story can vary a little depending on what piece of media we're talking about, but two things that are confirmed in the majority of iterations are that:

1- He used to get bullied in his village because of his 2 tails (That is also why his nickname is, well... Tails.)

And 2- One day he saw Sonic run by, found him cool and decided to follow him around until they became friends.

Tails can fly with his 2 tails, using them like a helicopter propeller. While flying, he is shown to be able to keep up with Sonic's speed, although he does get tired if he flies too much. Using his tails the same way, he can also push boats and stuff like that underwater. He also sometimes fights using them as weapon, and is a very skilled fighter.

Still about his tails and fighting skills, although I think those are just plot errors, he is shown to be able to use his tails to slice through metal, and is seemingly strong enough to lift up tons and sometimes is even faster than Sonic. (Okay, let me rephrase this. These definitely are plot errors. Sonic is literally supposed to be the fastest being on earth. And which 8 year old child can LIFT UP TONS OF STUFF??? It's already impressive that he can lift Sonic and other people up along with him when flying!)

(ahem...)

He is agile and has some acrobatic skills.

Unlike Sonic, he is a good swimmer, and also a good cook.

I can't think of any more random facts..

And again, sorry for the drawing's awful quality, it is my first time trying that artsyle TwT I promise I'll get better.

Also, it's almost 2 AM and I should be sleeping long ago. ( ⁠ಥ⁠ ⁠‿⁠ ⁠ಥ )

So as always,

BYE BYE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And have a good night~!

(or day, idk.)

[repurposedmeatlocker]

🔥🔥🔥 abt beavising butthead...share as many hot takes as you want i'd looooove to hear your thoughts and feelings :3

OH BOY OH BOY *cracks knuckles*

Obsession with which character has the "highest moral ground" is tired and unnecessary. Especially for a program like Beavis and Butt-Head. I've noticed a lot in cartoon fandoms there seems to be a focus some people have on which character is "evil and bad" and which is "pure and good". I don't know where this concern stems from, but it doesn't interest or make sense to me. Real people, and therefore fictional characters, are more complex than that. The fact that this argument surrounds young/child characters is even weirder for me, because I find that age is rife with bad behavior. Back to Beavis and Butt-Head though, while I do think a lot of fans are unfairly harsh in their perspective of him. I don't think Beavis is "morally higher" by any standard. They are both horrible teenage boys that find beating the shit out of each other entertaining because there is nothing else to do.

(speaking about the original series here, since I haven't completed the 2011 and 2022 revival yet) While I think the writing got way better and funnier in the later seasons, I kind of miss the "natural edginess" of the earlier "crude era". It has this messiness that I find super endearing. I can really see how the show got popular with teenagers/young adults back in the day since it really did feel like the script was written by some degenerate boys rather than adults trying to figure out how high schoolers act. There is a lot of horrible topics in the earlier season related to intoxication, animal abuse, and general illegal activity. A lot of it is 100% shock value. I'm glad it moved away from that, but also I admire the...grungey realism, I guess.

A lot of older fans complain about Beavis and Butt-Head reacting to clips of TV shows in the 2011 season and Youtube videos in the 2022 revival. I personally love it. I think they should react to everything possible. Some of their best lines come from their impressions of this stuff. I don't care if it is just being used as a way to "promote" that content. The music video reactions are doing the same thing. It is all promotion. Just very creative and based on hating which is inherently more entertaining. On that note, I've also seen the complaint by OG fans going around about how Beavis and Butt-Head feel like they aren't "metal-heads" anymore? Or it is just not as overt in their characters anymore since they don't react to metal music as much as they did in the original run. Personally, I...don't think they are any less metal-heads now than they were before. Maybe they aren't exclusively defined by it like they were in the first episodes. I think the question of "why is there less metal music in the show" has more to do with music culture when the show airs than it does with the actual writing. Which is kind of interesting. Generally, metal and rock doesn't make up popular music spheres the same way it did in the 80s and 90s. There is still rock music, but I don't find a lot of popular stuff being extremely "heavy" starting around the mid 2000s when the 2011 series was airing. If you'll allow me to get deep for a sec. The choices of what Beavis and Butt-Head react to during the show's entire run is a pretty interesting picture of popular US culture, actually. Anyway...I do think they could hit a bit heavier and varied in their music choices in the new season. Have them listen to hyperpop or something. I think they would love 100 gecs.