#i also sell shit in a gallery but that's not the point

[trashgremlendoesart]

Not working a "proper" job and instead doing comic con once a year is like having 3 weeks of social interaction shoved upon me in the span of about 48 hours, with no breaks (:

[laswells-ashtray]

I think Alerudy, NikPrice and The Laswells would absolutely have a week vacation together where they can just be little freaks.

Obviously the Laswells won't be playing with the boys BUT there's no stopping Sarah from spending time with Rudy and Nik in an artisanal leather class gossiping about harnesses, collars and leashes.

Visiting dungeons and clubs as a pack of feral little deviants, not as their job titles.

Visiting a prude parade, enjoying museums and galleries as regular people!

And if Rudy gets overstimulated and asks John if his big Russian bear husband can wear out a particularly energetic vaquero, that's between them ♥️

I have been thinking about this ask all day since I received it and to convey my thoughts, I present you with this because holy fuck.

Rudy isn't sure what to make of Sarah when he first meets her because she matches Alejandro's loud and boisterous energy fairly well.

And then he sees how she wraps an arm around Kate so that anyone walking by the two lesbians is brushing against Sarah's arm instead of Kate's back because the sudden touch sets the station chief on edge and he realises, he likes this woman.

As it would turn out, Rudy, Nikolai and Sarah are one Hell of a trio when they all have a drink in them. And Sarah has no problem buying them a few rounds.

Sarah makes an offhand comment about a class that's open near their hotel that she'd been hoping to attend because she's aiming to make Kate a blue chest harness and she's met with two pairs of wide eyes as both men sit on the edge of their seats to hear more.

Rudy walks away with a collar and a belt. The collar is made to for himself, a surprise for Alejandro that night. The belt is for Alejandro to wear throughout his day because he knows that the thought of a leather belt he made with his own hands is enough to have Alejandro riled up whenever it crosses his mind and he wants to test the other man's patience.

Sarah notices and catches on to his train of thought, offering him a wink when he hands the bag it's in over to Alejandro later.

Nikolai spends far too much on an intricate leather chest harness for John while they're there but he also ends up buying a gift for Sarah, a late birthday present and a thanks for buying them all drinks. It's a simple leather band that wraps around her bicep but it's studded, something he saw her eyeing but never pick up.

Alejandro, John and Kate are a bitchy bunch. Ale and John very quickly realise that Kate has spent time in this hotel before and she won't tolerate their handsiness in front of her. That isn't a problem however because Alejandro makes up for being caught with his hand on John's ass by buying her a pack of cigarettes when she finishes her own and the three of them smoke as they wander around and talk shit about any shared names they're all familiar with.

When they stop outside a lingerie store, Kate says nothing but snubs out her cigarette and enters it. John isn't surprised, nor will he think about it too hard. When, after a moment of contemplation, Alejandro does the same and John watches him through the window as he walks directly towards black lace panties, thinks about that too hard.

Later he watches as Alejandro and Rudy exchange bags and decides in that very moment, this trip is going to put their flirting to an end and at one point or another he's going to find out how well these cowboys can ride.

At one point in time, they end up in a museum about the history of sex toys and it's a fun experience. It's only around halfway through that any of the four men realise that Kate and Sarah aren't as interested as they are and are lagging behind them.

It's Nikolai who realises the two are high. He doesn't announce it to the rest of the men, he does however procure an edible from Sarah's right pocket and forty minutes later finds himself thoroughly entertained by the history of the vibrator.

There's a shop that sells an abundance of sex toys. They approach it with varying levels of confidence.

Rudy is in and out, finds himself a leather ball gag and buys it with less than two words to the cashier.

Alejandro wanders around, looking at things shamelessly. Walks out with a cock ring, compliments the cashier on the playlist they have on through the speakers.

Nikolai takes John in with him, they leave with cuffs and a blindfold. John is confident enough to make eye contact with the cashier and say no when they offer him lube on a discount at the register. Nikolai asks if they have flavoured lube and buys the cherry kind.

When Kate enters, she buys a new vibrator, brown rope the same colour of Sarah's eyes, crotchless panties, silicone polish, accepts the discount lube and asks the cashier if there is anywhere nearby that sells good quality, thigh-high leather boots with a wide calf fit for her wife and then leaves with directions. Sarah is waiting outside with a pastry in hand and asks where they're headed next. They experience no shame. They're all on this trip to have great fun in the day and great sex at night, that's no secret.

One night, Kate and Sarah announce to the other couples that they're off to have dinner together and that they'll see everyone tomorrow morning. The polished black boots that Sarah is wearing, coming up to her mid-thigh with a dangerous heel don't escape Rudy's notice, nor does the hint of blue leather he just manages to make out under Kate's shirt. He wishes them well and ignores the loud clacking of heels as the two walk away.

Only he turns to find himself standing between Alejandro and Nikolai with John opposite him and he finds himself all too aware of the lace black panties he's wearing under his pants.

That night he watches as Nikolai enters a lift with Alejandro, the Russian's hand resting on the back of his partner's neck and recognises the distinct hip movement of an Alejandro who's trying to hide his hard-on from sight of those around him.

He doesn't spend too long thinking about it because a certain English captain and he have a date with the rooftop pool of the hotel they're staying in and a joint that he watched Nikolai slip into John's pocket. The next morning, Rudy has to grab the black panties from John's back pocket before they separate off to find their partners.

[3liza]

i got so lucky with my "gifted programs" they just did shit like take us to the opera dress rehearsals and show us Culture that i guess they figured the normal dumb children couldnt appreciate. the american school system is a farce from top to bottom. in high school my grades were finally so bad i was in remedial everything and in danger of failing out for just not turning homework in ever, and as a result taking half my classes in a portable classroom trailer park for pregnant girls and kids who just got out of prison, but at the same time i was also still in the "gifted program" in the hand-picked "Rhetoric" class taught by a local octagenarian Rotarian volunteer who was a successful heart surgeon who would personally tutor us in Socratic round tables in subjects that ranged from extremely, extraordinarily stupid (Give a Mouse a Cookie, Dean Koontz novels??, enneagrams and myers-briggs?????) to very useful and literate (shakespeare, world class opera, speed reading, greek and latin, phonetics).

i should have dropped out in 7th grade and taken the GED and i recommend every kid whos thinking about doing that to just do it. especially if you are, as i was, already self-employed. i was selling illustrations to publications like TTRPGs, and doing flyers for shows in my town and the cities around it, and selling some work out of a local gallery. and i was in 2-3 theater shows a year anyway on top of everything else. so like if youre already at that point just drop out and take the GED, high school is the biggest waste of time and its the biggest regret of my life that i stuck it out until i graduated (late, because i was missing fucking PE credits).

you can seriously get so far ahead of everyone else in your career path if you arent doing your fucking high school homework. you can start a career 5-10 years before everyone else does by doing this. the usa high school is largely a way to artificially keep labor competition out of the job market for longer when realistically any 16 year old is in their prime learning stage and is fully capable of doing plenty of specialized work

and dont go to art college lol get an HVAC, plumbing, cosmetology, solar installation or whatever certification you can use when your self-employment doesnt come through

[thankssteveditko]

Sony's PlayStation 5 Presents Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (the third game in the series)

I beat the main story and have enjoyed my time with the game overall! I want to talk about spoilers and things that I liked and disliked in the story, so here's a post with some scattered thoughts.

(Hello! I haven't forgotten that this blog exists! Like I said, no update schedule, I will read more of the Lee/Ditko comics whenever I make time for it. I've actually been sitting on a mostly-complete version of this post since I beat the game in October, thinking that I'd finish the rest of the side quests so I could throw in thoughts on those. But... eh, I'll do that whenever the inevitable DLC rolls around. I just wanna get these thoughts posted.)

Spider-Cop No More

First off: they downplayed the cop shit!!! This was the first thing that really struck me about the game, and I'm stunned that they actually listened to criticism on this. I thought we'd just be stuck with it forever.

It'll never be completely gone, of course. Spider-Man is always going to leave criminals webbed up for the police to take to prison, hoping that they'll do their time and come out the other side as Productive Members of Society. That's just a thing I begrudgingly accept as part of the genre that will probably never go away. But Spider-Man is no longer repairing police surveillance networks. You're no longer beating the shit out of random drug dealers. Gangs of escaped convicts still wearing their orange jumpsuits are no longer terrorizing the streets of New York.

Instead, Peter and Miles are played more as firefighters. Sometimes very literally! They work with firefighters, they rescue people from collapsing buildings, they rush injured people to the hospital. In general there's a huge increase in the number of random onlookers present during the big action setpieces, and the Spider-Men frequently have to save them from harm. One of the major side quest lines is even literally about a cult of arsonists, and you'll routinely find burning fuel tanker trucks you have to extinguish with your webs. It's great! Love this for them.

I also generally liked the side missions in this. There's a lot of good stuff with the Spider-Men being neighborhood heroes willing to help out anyone in need, no matter the problem. Some of them can get corny, sure, but that street level stuff has always been the real heart of Spider-Man to me.

Gameplay

The gameplay's as fun as ever. That probably goes without saying. I will not be spending a thousand words explaining that swinging is fun.

In particular, I really liked the changes to the Focus mechanic. I never loved the way Miles' game made you choose between healing and doing your special attacks, but here your four specials have their own cooldowns, and the Focus meter is spent on either healing or finishers. It still offers that risk/reward element, but those vicious cycles where you can't do any real damage because you keep needing to heal aren't nearly as bad as they were before.

Personally I didn't turn off the swing assist or turn on fall damage, because the streamlined swinging never bothered me in these games, but I'm glad the options are there for people who want them.

Kraven

I liked Kraven in this! I liked the way they leaned into his Hunters being this weird death cult, and him wanting to go down in a blaze of glory against a worthy foe, to the point that he's actually disappointed anytime a foe can't kill him. It riffs on things people liked in Kraven's Last Hunt without being the exact same story. I like that Kraven's gang is renting out this manor or whatever and just being a complete terror to the wait staff. I liked the way Kraven hunting Peter's rogues' gallery clashed with Peter's belief in giving his villains second chances. I liked that they were willing to have Kraven kill off a couple of the minor villains from the first game to sell how dangerous he is. (I know some people hated this, but like, come on. We already fought the Sinister Six. They don't need to do that again.) I like the way Kraven pushed Peter to the absolute brink, turning him more and more aggressive with the Black Suit. Good stuff all around, even if the Hunter enemy types did wear out their welcome a little bit by the end.

The Black Suit arc

I think I liked the way Insomniac handled Peter's Black Suit arc overall, but there's a tradeoff here.

They REALLY lean into the body horror tentacle stuff, with Black Suit Peter basically just being a skinny Venom by the end. The sequence where you play as Mary Jane while the symbiote puppets an unconscious Peter's body around and goes on a rampage against the Hunters was REALLY great at selling how scary Peter is becoming, and it made me completely change my tune on the inclusion of the MJ stealth missions in the sequel. Having to beat an out-of-control Peter as Miles immediately after Peter beats Kraven was also really good. This is all cool!

BUT, the thing is... with the symbiote powers being so freaky from the start, it really pushes my suspension of disbelief when Peter and co. take so long to become wary of it. I guess when you've been bitten by a radioactive spider and given superpowers, and when you live in the same universe as the Avengers and the X-Men, your perception of what's "normal" is going to be pretty warped. But they buy the whole "organic exosuit created to treat Harry's illness" story WAY too easily lmao. How do the self-aware slime tentacles help with his illness, exactly?

And I'm not sure how I feel about giving Peter Anti-Venom powers in the last act. It feels like it's primarily a concession so that they can give players that branch of their skill tree back, but honestly, the designer in me thinks it would be really cool (if risky) to just permanently lock players out of Peter's most powerful skills past a certain point. Yeah, it'd definitely piss people off, but it drives home the idea that Peter's given up greater power because it's the right thing to do. It'd put you in his shoes! Instead he just gets the symbiote powers back, but it's fine because the Venom voice in his head is gone and also the slime tendrils that explode out of his body are white now, which means they're good.

I have to say it. I'm sorry. The glistening white goo... they turned Peter into the Amazing Cum-Man. I changed back to the Classic Suit after rolling the credits and forgot I still had the Anti-Venom skills equipped, so I just saw regular old Spider-Man exploding his white goo everywhere. Terrible.

Assuming Peter is just stepping into more of a supporting role to Miles and not fully retiring after the events of this game, I really hope the Anti-Venom stuff is gone. I get that he needed it to counter Venom, but that's not what I want for Peter Parker.

Miles

Miles is good in this, and I really like his arc where he struggles with whether or not he should avenge his dad by killing Martin Li. I like how all that plays out. Unfortunately, they don't quite stick the landing when it comes to making him and Peter feel like equals in terms of narrative focus. His arc is definitely the B-plot to Peter's for the middle chunk of the story, which I guess was kind of inevitable since they decided to do the Black Suit arc. But Miles does at least get a lot of moments to shine, and by the end he's very much taking the lead as the main Spider-Man.

Becoming the main Spider-Man also gets Miles a new, wholly original suit that ended up being super controversial, and honestly... I kinda like it? Or at least I like what it's going for, even if the actual design could still use some work. It's something totally unique for Miles, and I like spandex/streetwear combo suits like what the Spider-Verse movies have popularized. But showing his hair is really pushing the limits of his secret identity. He hangs around Brooklyn Visions WAY too much for his classmates to not recognize his voice and haircut. And I understand why people would be wary about it becoming his "canon" look moving forward. But I think it's got potential.

On the subject of Miles, though, I will say that while I liked Miles' side missions, it feels like he's often saddled with the game's broad, kinda touristy, kinda token attempts at Showcasing The Diversity Of New York, in a way that Peter isn't.

I like that Miles has a deaf graffiti artist girlfriend that he and Ganke sign with, and I like that there's a series of side missions that explore some local jazz history, and I like that there's a mission where Miles helps a gay classmate ask his crush to prom. I like all these things! I like Spider-Man being involved with his community, and that said community includes such a wide variety of people! I like that this game slows down to savor these types of moments instead of just being all action all the time! But when I step back, I notice some patterns.

Hailey doesn't have a big role in the main plot, especially when compared to MJ, but Miles gets a side mission where you briefly play as her with muffled audio to teach you what being deaf is like. There are no major queer characters in the story - unless you count Felicia showing up for exactly one mission to mention she has an unseen, unnamed girlfriend in Paris now - but you get a side mission where Miles helps out a gay couple at his school, who then never come up again. To put it very uncharitably, they can feel like Very Special Episode missions. It's like the devs going: we're going to give Miles a Gay Mission, and an Impaired Hearing Mission, and a Cultural History Mission, so that we can say we touched on these things, but we're gonna make them all optional and keep them far away from the full-blown Superhero Stuff like fighting costumed villains. Those flavors cannot mix. Meanwhile, Peter gets to have a whole elaborate subplot about teaming up with Wraith to track down fucking Cletus Kasady. There's an imbalance here, and I think it's part of the reason why Peter still feels like the "main" Spider-Man for so much of the story.

I think this was all written with admirable intentions, but as others have pointed out, you can kinda tell that this game was mainly written by some white guys based in California. These attempts at depicting various marginalized groups can feel kind of detached in the same way that Insomniac's map of New York doesn't quite line up with the real thing. But I dunno. I'm not really the one to dig deep into some of this stuff as a white woman from Florida. I would be curious to read others' takes on this.

Maybe I'm just being overly cynical about the writers' well-meaning but corny and kinda out of touch liberal politics because of the podcasts.

The podcasters

I wish Jameson was in this more! They psyched us out by giving him a full character model for, like, two scenes. I like him being MJ's boss, but I wish we saw inside the Daily Bugle offices to get more Jameson.

At least his podcasts are better than the ones in the Miles game, though. Him completely trusting in Roxxon was just too much for me. Here he condemns Oscorp for the symbiote shit, and he also gets some moments where he takes the ongoing crises seriously and isn't just ranting about the Spider-Men. He isn't just a conspiracy theorist crackpot here. Shit like his "fuck Spider-Man, we have a justice system for a reason" speech makes him feel more like a human being with a point of view, rather than just a caricature. Definitely an improvement.

Unfortunately, I still find The Danikast grating. I'm sorry, Ashly Burch. It's not your fault. The quirky heckin' wholesome millennial podcaster lady who catches you up on current events and then reminds you to drink 64 ounces of water a day in the same breath is just too much for me. At least she doesn't have any lines as bad as her throwing in a "damn" and then going (direct quote here) "That's right - no censoring! That's how REAL I'm being right now!" like in Miles' game. Instead they give her this, like, almost psychic insight into the main plot to try and make her the angel on Peter's shoulder. The second Peter gets the symbiote she's like "Wow, y'all. Have you seen Spider-Man's new black suit? Something's different about him. He's been giving me such bad vibes lately. #NotMySpiderMan" Also she's supposed to be this, like, underdog independent podcaster who started her show on a whim and has become the voice of the people... but she's got billboards plastered all over the fucking city. Which makes her feel like an industry plant lmao

Again, there's a detachment with the writing. This is, like, some middle aged white liberal game dev guys' idea of what a modern leftist teenager would think is a Cool Activism Podcast. Unfortunately, because Insomniac thinks Danika's a hero, Mary Jane's triumphant ending is that she quits her job at the Bugle to become a podcaster, too, delivering a thinly veiled monologue about the pandemic to kick off her new podcast literally titled "The New Normal." She's going to save the world with podcasting, because that's the highest form of activism, I guess.

Venom

So! Venom! Venom was... okay.

Surprising no one, Harry Osborn is Venom. Harry's okay both as himself and as Venom, but I'm not sure his arc is a smooth one. He starts out as Peter's comically perfect best friend who returns to reminisce about the good ol' days and hand him his dream job on a silver platter, and then later he becomes a little ball of rage over the fact that Peter gets his symbiote and can't/won't give it back. I'm not sure that pivot is handled the most convincingly. You kind of have to write it off as the symbiote messing with their heads, I guess.

When he actually becomes Venom, I'm... mixed on the execution. On the one hand, the cool factor is absolutely there. He's a very cool big monster, and Tony Todd is great in the role. But he also wants to take over the world and make everyone a symbiote, and aside from any lingering resentment towards Peter, that's really all there is to him. It makes for a good video game to have a bunch of symbiote enemies and creepy symbiote nests and symbiote tentacles climbing up the sides of buildings in the last act... but is that really what I want out of Venom? Probably not. But he sure does look cool as a big monster guy to fight, and I was happy he was briefly playable.

Suits

Part of me feels like there's something lacking about the suit selection here, but almost every suit I liked in the previous games is back, and also I'm the type of person to give Peter the Classic Suit the second I unlock it and use that for most of the game. So does it really matter for me?

Peter's selection feels dominated by the various live action movie suits, but I get that those are going to be some of the suits people want to wear the most. I wish he had the Peter B. Parker skin to go with Miles' Spider-Verse alts, though. No idea why it's missing. Really I think I mainly just want more of the Spider-Verse designs.

Also I've complained about how most of the original suits designed for these games make Peter and Miles look like they were bitten by radioactive Alienware products, but I can just, you know. Wear other suits.

Misc thoughts

Everyone's already made this joke, but it's extremely funny that the Avengers didn't help with the symbiote invasion. Took one look at that and decided it wasn't their problem

On the subject of other superheroes, I do wish these games would acknowledge the Fantastic Four more. Peter's close relationship with that team feels woefully underutilized in his various adaptations

I like the trope of a boss fight that's a heightened version of a personal conflict between two people who are close, where throughout the fight the boss is airing out their grievances while the hero tries to get through to them emotionally. That especially works for Spider-Man! But WOW has Insomniac played that card a lot of times by the end of Spider-Man 2 lol

They're teasing the addition of Silk, I guess? I'm gonna be honest, I don't know shit about Silk, but I guess it was inevitable that they'd give us some form of Spider-Woman at some point. Gotta work all those costumes in somehow, and they're not brave enough to let one of the boys cosplay as Spider-Gwen.

They WERE, however, brave enough to let Harry say he loves Peter. I liked that little moment. They presumably meant it platonically, but clearly ol' Yaoi Lowenthal knows what's up

Post-leak addendum

So, obviously, by the time I got around to finishing this post the big Insomniac leak happened. I wish the game industry wasn't so secretive that it took a massive, dangerous data breach just to get our hands on some very basic info that would be public knowledge if Insomniac was a film studio, but here we are.

We now know that Insomniac spent somewhere around $315 million making Spider-Man 2 - triple what the first Spider-Man game cost to make. A quote about this from a leaked presentation has been stuck in my head ever since I first saw it on Twitter. “Is 3x the investment in [Spider-Man 2] evident to anyone who plays the game?”

To be honest, I'm not sure it is.

I liked Spider-Man 2, but I'd probably say that overall I liked it about as much as the first game. It's certainly a somewhat bigger game, with marginally more realistic looking graphics thanks to the power of the PS5. But I think I could do without ray tracing and more realistic hair rendering and whatnot if it meant that these games didn't take like five years and hundreds of millions of dollars to make. I could not give less of a shit if the swinging animations were recycled between games. I'd be fine with them being shorter, too.

I like these games, but as we look at that leaked project lineup and realize that Insomniac is turning into The Marvel Game Studio, I think about how many smaller, more original games that those resources could go towards if they scaled back the Marvel stuff just a bit. How many Ape Escapes or Patapons or Gravity Rushes could get made for the budget of just one of these massive AAA tentpole games of Sony's, which are apparently barely even breaking even? How many could be made for the budget of the "smaller, cheaper" Miles Morales game, which somehow cost $156 million to make despite using an updated version of the same Manhattan map from the first game? Hell, how many smaller games could have been made with the $39 million that went into remastering the first Spider-Man game for PS5 a mere two years after launch? How many people will lose their jobs if any one of Insomniac's upcoming Marvel games underperforms - which, in this case, could mean selling "only" 5 million copies? And would hardcore PlayStation fans even accept those smaller games at this point, now that they've been trained to only appreciate mega-budget Prestige Games with cutting edge graphics and treat everything else with disdain? How much worse will this get as the graphical arms race continues?

I think I just miss Japan Studio. Fuck Sony. Uhh but anyway the Spider-Man game this post was supposed to be about was good, some writing complaints aside. 8/10

[moralleets]

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╭┈ 🏵️ ┊ sam / samuel

┊ 18 \⁠(⁠ϋ⁠)⁠/⁠♩

┊ he/they

┊ extremely queer

﹙🏵️﹚ ─ trans masc if simply put

─ demiboy demienby (?)

─ actually genderfaun

﹙🏵️﹚ ─ pansexual & panromantic

﹙🏵️﹚ ─ on ace spectrum too

─ demipleasure

┊ trilingual (english, russian, french)

┊ hyperfixating mess

┊ mentally unstable cringey being

about this blog

I mostly post cc I make for ts4 and occasionally some screenshots from my saves :⁠^⁠)

my cc is mostly made for my personal use, but I love to share what I do with other people! it's my hobby and I'm not perfect at it, but I try to get rid of as much issues as I can before releasing my custom content publicly (⁠ʘ⁠ᴗ⁠ʘ⁠✿⁠)

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in addition to patreon, where I post all of my cc, you can also download my cc on sfs. I created separate folders there to make it easy for you!

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if there's any issues with my cc...

please contact me asap and I'll fix it! I always try to check that everything's fine before posting, but you know... shit happens lol

my fandoms (where im both active or just passively observing, subject to change at any moment)

hellaverse (both hazbin hotel and helluva boss obvs) ;; all for the game ;; brawl stars ;; arcane ;; mouthwashing ;; tadc ;; good omens ;;

i don't want to engage in any political debate, however i would like to point out that i absolutely do not support any wars and conflicts and i think people should not suffer because of the governments! please, do not DM me anything related to any political conflicts I DON'T WANT TO BE INVOLVED thanks!

[lol1tzme]

Fic prompt~

Phum centric..

-setted in future, Every couple are happy and busy in their everyday life, Peem owning his own art gallery and selling few of his arts whislit helping aunt pui with her cafe. Phum joining his dad's buisness, since their older brother was not interested and Fang became an architect, Q handles their family resort, Toey and Matt still studying, Tan handling his family garage, Chain became a dentist and Pun joined as a social worker helping different schools and universities and organizing camps.

-it was phum's b'day, although ever since he got peem and the friend group he never had a lonely b'day, but the past still lingered in his heart. Making him anxious everytime before his birthday arrives, and everytime his friends and boyfriends surprised him with a really nice birthday party.

-However this time, He and Peem had a argument just a few days before his b'day, It wasn't normal for them to have such long argument however it was a really serious argument, both of them too mad at each other due to it.

-It was the night before phum's b'day, the whole day, he was an anxious mess, he had an argument with his dad yet again at the company, due to their different views on one project and the argument with peem still going on, He was feeling like shit and couldn't find peem for comfort due to their argument. Everything happned was enough to make him anxious, he had not received even a single message from any of their friends, not even Fang had wished him. Fang and Beer were always the first to wish. But none had today.

-somehow he managed to sleep, convincing himself that they must be preparing a surprise, morning arrives and nothing...he was starting to lose hope, his thoughts convincing him that no one is going to come..he is alone again. Noon arrives, still nothing. Phum lost all hopes. He locked himself in the house, alone with his thoughts

-Peem who was just mad at phum, due to their argument, met up with the boys a night before, not even remembering that phum's b'day is tmr, he met yp for drinks with just him, chainpun, Q and Tan. He was too drunk that night, everyone where except for Q and Tan. Q and Tan did advice peem to talk to phum since ignoring is not the solution and peem decided to talk to phum the next day, however he woke up with a headache and hangover and decided to talk later, but was caught up with a problem with his next exhibition date, he decided to talk with phum after handling the issue, it got late in noon, he decided to cook for phum after going back home and having a talk.

-realization hit him harder than he expected, It was phum's b'day...he didn't wish him, no one did, reason he asked to not contact them for the whole day tmr, to leave them alone, not even realising that it was phum's b'day, the others thought they would just call in later at nigjt to wish, maybe that's what peem meant. A misunderstanding. Herealised how much he fucked up. He not only himself forgot to wish phum, the others didn't too, cause of his own mistake, he knew the other's must have mistaken his words.

-I don't know how he would make up, but I need some crying, some hurt, I already gave the angst and Comfort, a lot of comfort since phum deserves the world. Peem shouldn't be that guilty since its not his fault other than forgetting the b'day and that was also due to the heated argument they had days ago and his anger took over his usual calm demour.

-you can even chose what could the argument be based on since I don't really much idea...

-just a hurt/comfort phum centric fic and PUPPY PHUM...BOTTOM PHUM If you could pls...(It's just my request, you could make it top phum too but I would prefer it bottom phum)

-hope it's not hard to understand, point out if you can't understand~ TAG ME IF YOU WRITE IT PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS

[galvanizedfriend]

I am me so I must ask about the two Christmas fics (Xmas Fic 2 and Other Other Christmas Fic). Also so intrigued by Mystic Tours Not This (and the what is this because smut obviously)!!!

-Amanda

Hi, Amanda bestie! 😊

I love silly Christmas romcoms (as you know 😂) and I spent the entirety of the month of December almost nothing else, so I get all these stupid ideas I end up never taking forward because at some point I realize they're too dumb to come into existence. 😂

Xmas Fic 2 was Klaus being a hotshot lawyer or something and inheriting a Christmas tree farm (because of course) that comes with a sort of Christmas village (obviously) from his biological father whom he's never really been in touch with. There are a lot of complicated feelings there. But anyway, he first wants nothing to do it, and then he is convinced by Elijah to at the very least take a look at what is there so he can sell it. So he heads over to the farm and that's where he meets Caroline (duh), Ansel's former lawyer ("I'm a good lawyer") and who also has close ties with the farm. She ends up convincing him to sell the place to someone who will be interested in reopening it instead of whoever, because there's a bunch of people whose livelihooods depend on it (Bonnie, Enzo, some other folks), and there are some complications halfway because Elijah sells the place to Tristan de Martel, who's obviously an evil asshole. But anyway, Klaus still very much wants nothing to do with Christmas or farms, but he does want to keep Caroline (also he gets to find out a lot of things about Ansel that Esther kept from him his whole life).

Other Other Christmas fic (lol) is one where Caroline gets invited to spend Christmas with Enzo and his new spouse (I honestly can't remember whether he'd just married Kol or Rebekah, but it was one of the two) at their family's ancestral home somewhere posh in England. But at Enzo's wedding, Caroline had an ~~incident with Klaus and she absolutely does not want to see him again, so Enzo ensures her he won't be there because he's the Grinch, so he doesn't spend the Holidays with his family, going on skiing trips instead. Except there's a snow storm and Klaus' flight gets cancelled and so he is, in fact, there when Caroline arrives, and then stuff happens. Very creative. 😂

The 'Not This' part in Mystic Tours is because I didn't really want to keep that title or that name in the story, but I was totally out of ideas so I kept it there provisionally. It's another AH AU where Caroline runs a mystical/supernatural tour agency in Mystic Falls she inherited from her mom (who started the business with Sheilla Bennett, who not only is a self-proclaimed witch but also a professor who teaches a very popular occult and folklore class at Whitmore). Now her mom's dead and Sheilla has retired and it's Caroline, Enzo and Bonnie working together to keep the business aflotat, but they're struggling. So she gets this chance to participate in some kind of contest which will bring a popular influencer to town to promote her business (I think I got this idea from Lovelight Farm, or something like that. Have you read it? It's really cute!), except she ends up adding a sob story about how the heart of her business if her own love story with her fiancé when she submits her application. She does that because she knows this influencer has a thing for love stories, but the issue is she not only doesn't have a fiancé, she's not even dating anyone. So after a strong reluctance she ends up asking Klaus to be her fake boyfriend for the duration of the contest. They've been unlikely friends forever and Caroline has had a major crush on him, but she's convinced he's not at all interested and way out of her league because he's a hotshot gallery owner in New Orleans who always seems to be surrounded by beautiful women. Loads of Mikaelsons, Kol being a little shit, Carenzo friendship, Damon is a douchebag. Major tags here are fake dating and idiots-to-lovers.

[practicingbushiho]

Reminder that Cohost exists and is basically the early stages of Tumblr without the embarrassing and obvious 'omg we need investment bux' bullshit the staff have done after seeing that they could use its new influx of users as fucking pawns to facilitate a profit growth. There needs to be some more work done on webpages where you can find like content blogs, but the user interactions there have already shown that they are invested in making sure that the site is usable to people not familiar with like, 2014 Tumblr.

And also, if a selling point is being able to post R18 works, I gotta be honest, cohost is the only place I've used so far that has felt amenable to that specific niche-- and I've also noticed a markedly larger queer artist population there as well. I've had a pillowfort account for 2 years and every time I've gone there it just didn't feel like I was doing anything. And maybe that's because I am more art/creation focused than fandom focused-- but my advice is this

If you use Tumblr because you are a fandom media consumer or a fan of a media property; sign up for PIllowfort. It has awesome community features (clubs, neat) and so you can even further curate your fandom experiences.

If you are a queer R18 artist who doesn't buy into the weird dichotomy of 'anti/proship' bullshit; sign up for Cohost. It's small but it is GROWING and there is a lot of wonderful fucked up shit there made by weirdos like me-- we also will NOT be tolerating fandom generated toxicity and bullying.

If you are a FURRY...I noticed itaku (which is a gallery/tumblrlike fusion imo) seems pretty amenable to those types too. It's less direct about its interactions, but its organizational tools and ability to detail commission info makes it good for both artists and prospective clients for an easier browsing experience.

Either way; please stop assuming that websites that have corporate investors will ever, ever care about its userbase. They didn't listen when we warned them about the nsfw ban back in 2018-- it almost killed their site revenue.

But they survived, because corporations are cockroaches that refuse to die. You will not change their minds; you will delay the inevitable at best. If you want a social media site that represents user needs, it needs to be owned by its users; ALL of the websites above are user funded and will NEED US to thrive and succeed so they can BE a viable replacement for Twitter or Tumblr. So join one, and help it grow. Enough of this shit.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[cherokeegal1975]

Not sure why this particular novel sells more than the other books, but it does. Not that I'm selling very many copies, and as you can see, I don't make much of a profit from the royalties. So, I hate to ask for this, because I'm worried people will try to tell me what they think I want to hear, than...well, what I really want to read as far as feedback. As disappointing as it might be to get a less than glowing review, it's better than the nothing I usually get. I get reviews even more rarely than I get a sale! I do read them and come back to review them once in a while.

I do believe that if I get this professionally edited and published, this story could be good enough to be on Netflix. I mean, if they did a live action version of the books He's Expecting Vol. 1&2 by Eri Sakai, I think mine would do just fine. I just have to get past the financial block somehow. I mean I'm broke and so far the price tag for just editing this book is roughly between $600 to $900. And publishing is just over $900. Then I have to sell no less than one thousand copies before a literary agency would even consider proposing my book to Netflix. My chances aren't good. I have the information, but not the financial backing to get it going.

And thanks to the enormous expenses of getting my work out there, I'm going to have to pick one book and likely let the rest fall to the wayside. I have published five books. Three art journals that no one, not even myself gives a shit about (well I do care a little bit) and two novels, Unexpected Cargo and Eden Symbiotic which were both experimental passion projects that I care about very much. Unexpected Cargo's the one I'm going to pick because it sells the most often when I do make a rare sale.

(I did buy both volumes of He's Expecting out of curiosity since I was lucky enough to have access to Netflix for a little while, so I did get to see the series. Not the best stories I've ever read, but nice enough that if Volume 3 ever comes out, I'd get it. The show got a lot of criticism, but I thought it was alright. My main point of complaint was that even with suspension of disbelief, if men were suddenly able to have babies, nature would never go halfway and they would be fully equipped for the job. In the book, men who got pregnant had to have cesarians to give birth. I guess the writer didn't think that particular point though. But I'm a bit of a science nerd, so I pick up on all kinds of random information about nature and biology.)

Anyway, the main point of this article, before I wandered off a bit, was that I want and need more people to give me honest feedback about my novel Unexpected Cargo. I'd love it read them on my Amazon reviews. I only have two there. I got a few in my DeviantART gallery where I treasure what I have. I have a couple on YouTube and at least one here, but I lost it...but not forgotten. Aside from this one comment, "This is shit," in a language I had to have translated and didn't recognize at all, I pay attention to all of them. It's because of the feedback I did get and put great value into, including the constructive criticisms I received that I began to realize that I need the services of a professional editor. So in depth feedback is valuable and the more I can get the better.

I have this hands-off policy for my work until I get some help, even when I have a few of ideas on how to make some small fixes to some small plot points here and there. I want...need someone who knows what they are doing to help me out. So, when I do get that help, I will also be keeping in mind the feedback I get from my readers. I stepped up my pace of Unexpected Cargo because more than one person said that Eden Symbiotic was too slow. I listen. I'm begging for more feedback and I'm always grateful for it when I do get it...even as it often frustrates me because people often leave it at, I like this, but not telling me why they liked it. I find that I value the feedback more than the pitiful profit I get from the rare sale.

So, please! Give me some feedback. I want to know what you think. Writing a book isn't easy and this was one of the more difficult projects I've ever done...the hardest being making an audiobook for Unexpected Cargo. Too bad the end result of that project was not as good as I'd hoped and that's why it only got posted on YouTube instead of being published on Audible as I had originally intended. Though I did hope that it would receive a lot more attention than it does.

Periodically I do look up my own books just to see if they get any reviews. I don't really expect anything, but I look anyway.

[henlp]

Disgaea 6

Not only does it scrape the bottom of my rankings for Disgaea games, it's probably one of the worst JRPGs I've played. Yes, including Final Fantasy XIII.

Almost 140h put into it, and without question the VAST majority of that playtime was wasted on grinding. Granted, I'm sure part of that was when I left the game running on auto-battle for some sessions, but that's part of the problem.

Disgaea 6 is made to waste your fucking time. Not just because of the stupid 'meme' of Disgaea games, but also because there's microtransactions, namely boost packs and item drops. Sure, they're probably not needed, but their mere existance indicates that NIS was trying to get some cash whales from this.

Even when I give up and accept the meta, to try and cheat the game as fast as possible, I still wasted almost 30h of grinding (some automated, some not) just to get to the point where I can optimize my gains. And it's STILL NOT ENOUGH.

The story is really short and anything before the postlude is anything but a challenge. It has the least amount of available generic classes, even when it does away with monster classes being their own thing. And the additional difficulty modes that you can switch to are just there to pad out the runtime and feed back into that abhorrent loop of constant grinding.

There are some things that I like, sure. But even things like the Juice Bar, or Research, or Squads all seem to be there to feed into this mobile game mindset of the perpetual gameplay loop. I'm very fond of turn-based RPGs, regardless of their subgenre, but I despise games that needlessly waste my fucking time, and anything post-sixth console generation has no excuse in my eyes. An example that comes to mind is in Bravely Default 2, where I gladly went out of my way to max out levels, jobs, and Speed stats for all my characters, because the game is designed in such a way that you can expediently do so.

While I'm still interested in playing Disgaea 3/4/D2/5, and maybe even replay Disgaea 2 one day, I am not fucking touching the upcoming Disgaea 7. The surface level shit of 'more classes' (yeah, now that you can recycle the unstylized, low-poly 3D models) is not a selling point. I cannot trust Disgaea 7 to not continue down this downward spiral of asinine grinding for the sake of trying to milk people out of more money, under the pretense of 'Disgaea goes CRAZY with numbers!!! Look, you can reach FOURTY digits on your stats now!!!".

It's a real shame, because I had a genuinely good time with Disgaea 1 Complete back in 2019, and even though the grinding there wasn't optimal, I was satisfied to have beaten the game's final challenge of Tyrant Overlord Baal and Prinny Baal at least once (even if I cheesed it). I like the art direction, I like unlocking the silly humanoid classes, I like having a gallery for my weapons (something Disgaea 6 also cheaps out on)... but not at the cost of losing so much of my most valuable commodity...

[garbagefarm]

Mutucule Farm #12

2023-03-10, Session #12 for Mutucule Farm, Winter 22 Year 1 through Spring 7 Year 2

cast:

Me (@mothmute)

Belle (@snacco​)

Cam (@amanitaspore​)

Erin (@salamand3rin​)

Highlights include, but are not limited to:

Cam decides he wants to keep some sheep sometime

Personally, I’m looking forward to getting a slutch and doing some slusbrandry

Erin forgot about my hat*, and was immediately disappointed

* - legally not a hat

I’m gonna pan for gold, a thing I actually bother doing, and a valuable and important mechanic in the game

(Pompkin makes his tail get big at the sight of it)

I use only the freshest egg to make Belle a chocolate cake (my egg reserves are off-limits)

Erin made some comment about needing hard wood (I don’t remember the full context)

We all agree that fitness is very important

Copper watering can! A can, for watering copper.

We have two choices for quests. One of them is for bones.

“you got me reading the locked tomb”

We all had a lovely time in the bone mines together! We all survived!

oh shit oh shit oh shit phew

Belle and Cam survived the bones, but died of the tired sleepy.

Oh hey, Robin made a bed, aaand Demetrius is being a smartass about it

“Yea”

Putting the bones in the bone chest ribcage

Deluxe barn!

Boneless skinless dungeon floor

Starmas!

Harvey is grateful there weren’t any medical emergencies. uhhh, didn’t we fuckin’ die a few times?

Belle gets a gift from Willy!

Cam gets a gift from Shane!

Erin gets a gift from Clint!

I get a gift from ... Willy again? Why’d he get two?

It’s nice of Robin to invite us to sit with her at the feast, but the chairs are all decorative. Can’t sit on ‘em.

Anyway, thanks for the gifts, we’re just gonna walk out on the “feast” part of the “feast of the winter star”— seeya!

Pompkin in my bed

“you shouldn’t have said anything”

IT WAS AN AMBUSH

Cam finally gets level 1 farming!! Yay!!

Artifact spot contains bones, a promising bone omen, or bomen

(everybody insists that “bomen” is actually a job)

I’m not gloating about how many bones I’m finding, just ... show-boning

“Peloton town”

Delicious secret notes, full of essential inks

Belle follows a secret note’s instructions to go into the woods in the dead of night to meet a bear

We hit the bone quota!!

Somewhere along the way, I pick up ... The Slammer. I’ve got better, so I hand it off to Belle, who immediately uses it to menace Cam.

borat voice: my wine

(nobody liked this, everybody got a negative moodlet)

Sheep named Buckle!

Cool pig day! Also, pig day!!

Pig name: Officer

Belle upgrades her backpack, giving us the best possible amount of money. (See gallery)

Last day of the season, I pick up a plush junimo.

Winter is over!!

Fella and Pompkin hang out together (see gallery)

Belle asks why my light radius is so big. I’m not glow-ting, but I’ve got multiple glow rings!

Secret note directs me to an ornate necklace. It’s still wet.

Heart event with Emily (Birds)

At some point, my bride-to-be (Penny) caught me digging through the trash! I’ve gotta make it up to her by giving her diamonds. People’ll excuse anything if you give them enough diamonds.

Penny sends me a note to meet her at the bathhouse after dark......

Pale ale for Pam is up, gonna drop it off in everybody’s chests

Cam’s chest overfloweth

Abigail’s mom will never know (about the necklace. It’s still wet.)

Big potato quest!

Belle does not like my potato field

Cam requests my strange buns 😘

(uses it to make a shirt for Belle)

I’ve got a hot date!

Hey, why does penny have a shadow or reflection in the bathhouse, and I don’t?

We agree to stop planting trees in the Beach Farm’s limited splash zone.

We don’t need 200+ common mushrooms, I’m gonna sell ‘em. That’s hog money!

Pigs are pricy, but they’ll pull their own weight. And sometimes a smuggler merchant cart, too!

Second pig: Detective

Emily requests an apricôt (the t is silent)

Mature single trees in your area!

“they have a root system!”

not anymore they don’t 😏

RIP Belle, died to skulls

lost The Slammer!! has to ask Marlon to get it back

Cam surprises me with a trash can shirt! ... but it’s a tank top.

Somebody put a Joja sign in my house??

I am not a corporate shill!

(I don’t need to shill for the cool, refreshing taste of Joja cola)

TO-DO:

Potatoes!

Expanded bees?

Backpack + Tool upgrades

Taller barn? Taller coop?

More pigs!!

Fences for the creatures?

house upgrades

Rainy day... (and 5,000g) (each)

fashion!!

oh right, bundles are still a thing

Iridium Sprinklers

... egg?

Link to photo gallery post!

[xazz]

Only in the past 6 or so years has my mom really started taking on lots of commissions. She's been an artist, a painter, in galleries all over my home city, for about 25 years now? (give or take) And she just... makes art.

She started out small, did a lot of stuff just to get her name out there. Got into a local coop gallery. Did christmas ornaments, painted glassware she bought from big discount stores, bought metal mailboxes from Home Depot and painted them (you can still find them around Key West even tho she hasn't painted one in years!). I remember going to the mainland often just so she could buy out an entire Big Lot's stock of glass salt and pepper shakers and wine glasses and champagne flutes. She painted glass for years while also making paintings. (also the glass stuff is so rare I can't even find pics of it online)

(some older work people were buying. Pretty small too)

Then she stopped doing glass when paintings started selling better. Then she got into more galleries. At one point she was in 3 at once? Maybe it was two (I was a child so memory weird).

(these are like 16x24? From 2016 which feels forever ago since a lot of her Very Old stuff isn't on the internet)

She's been in like 7 very well known galleries in our home city all through her career. She very rarely had commissions. People just bought what she had for sale. She got approached by Margaritaville, the local Chamber of Commerce, organizations in the Keys wanting to license her art but I don't think she ever made art specifically for them. They just paid her the license fee and used it as they had permission to. And only recently she tells me about the commissions she does. The houses she paints for people. All the little details people love about her art they want in their paintings too.

(commission from this year. The story linked to it is very sweet)

You do not need to prostrate yourself for commissions. Make stuff you love and put it out there and let people buy it. And instead of taking commissions make the prints yourself. Frame them yourself. You make SO much more money. My mom still makes and sells framed prints in both matte board and with a wooden frame. She's stopping this year because her gallery is taking care of it now. But unlike using services she turned a 50 cent print into a $50 framed piece of art and she got to keep all of it. Printing companies got $0. My mom sold these prints for 25 years. She's still doing it. And she's also selling big paintings.

(stuff she's most known for and does)

Also now she's doing weird shit like this and people are LOSING THEIR MINDS because it's so crazy from what she usually does and as soon as a $1700 painting is done it's sold within a week.

Anyway; yeah. Agreed. Fuck the commission grind mindset.

I think at some point in time we need to sit down and start explaining to artist who want to make a career out of art that there are FAR more options than just "living off of commissions" and "posting my art online and praying I get paid for it".

[thevindicativevordan]

Why isn't Nightwing a bigger deal? He has all of Batman's skills and Superman's faith in humanity and is arguably the most beloved hero in the DCU, but most people seem to know him either as the leader of the N̶o̶t̶ ̶J̶L̶ Teen Ttians or just Robin.

Thank you for asking me about Nightwing, I've been wanting to write a piece about him for a while now. The short version is that everyone who claims Dick becoming Nightwing was him "moving out of Batman's shadow and becoming his own man" is completely wrong.

Dick Grayson is a fantastic character, someone who saved Bruce Wayne in-universe both by forcing Batman to grow up a bit, and the countless times he saved Batman's life as his partner whether as Robin or Nightwing. Dick saved Batman in the real world as well, hard to believe but Batman was actually in danger of being cancelled due to poor sales early on. Enter Robin, a young daredevil audience stand in the creators hoped would get kids interested in reading Batman. And it worked! Sales on Batman doubled once Robin showed up which is crazy to think about, but Dick Grayson has always been a popular character. Cartoons like Teen Titans, Batman: The Animated Series, and The Batman only helped grow his audience.

Character-wise, Dick Grayson really does fill a number of crucial roles in the DCU. For Batman, Dick is proof that Batman is a positive force. Meeting Batman helped change Dick for the better, helped him heal after his parents died. With Dick, Batman can take comfort in knowing that yes, he has made a difference in the world for at least one orphan boy, which is all he wanted when he lost his parents himself. To the wider DCU, Dick is a friendly face who convinces others that Batman is competent and not a complete asshole. He took this kid in, trained him to be one of the best heroes the DCU has seen, and did it all out of the kindness of his heart. That someone like Dick can confront the evils of Gotham and not break means there's still hope for that city. As Robin, Dick has led the Titans and is an icon in his own right as The Sidekick, the original, the one every other Robin is built around copying or contrasting. The one all other superhero sidekicks are drawing on as a basis. As Robin Dick Grayson is very much on Batman's level.

Just not as Nightwing. As Nightwing, Dick has been a second rate Daredevil which means he's a third rate Batman (fully prepared to get hate for this but I've read and enjoyed the Miller and Bendis DD runs so I feel entitled to my opinion). A typical Nightwing run tends to go like this: Moving to Bludhaven (which is Gotham... but WORSE!), Dick Grayson usually enrolls in a pointless job we don't care about in order to provide some meaningless soap opera drama that doesn't go anywhere. Patrolling the city as Nightwing, he fights a variety of bad guys who are usually rather lame and unthreatening, with his big bad being a Kingpin knockoff called Blockbuster. Villains are fought, long running plotlines are set up, then everything is abandoned because it's Batfamily event time, and Dick has to run back to Gotham in order to play sidekick again. Usually his involvement is completely superfluous and it would've been better if the writer had gotten to opt out. By the time we finally get back to Nightwing's solo plotlines, the audience has usually ceased to care and the run gets cut short.

That's how Nightwing has been since the New 52 at least. Anyone who thinks that's "becoming their own man" is out of their mind. Dick is so thoroughly in Batman's shadow that he got shot in the head and spent a longer time as "Ric" which everyone fucking hated and sold like shit, than he did as Agent Grayson which was extremely well-received. Reiterating: Ric went on longer than Grayson because of a fucking Batman plotpoint Tom King wanted where Bruce was sad and cut off from the Batfamily because of Dick getting shot. Not just calling out King either, how many times was Kyle Higgins Nightwing run derailed because of Scott Snyder's crossovers? Or how about that entire run getting dumped to the side because Johns wanted to out Dick during Forever Evil, a Justice League/Lex Luthor story? DC has repeatedly made their contempt for Nightwing clear, he's Batman's sidekick still in their eyes, and he serves whatever story role the Batman writer wants.

Hell his best stories tend to have been the ones where he's not Nightwing. He was Robin in a good chunk of the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run. Morrison really showcased his depth as a character when they wrote him as Batman, their time with Dick under the cowl was actually one of the first Batman runs I ever read, and no Nightwing run has ever matched it in terms of quality in my humble opinion. Scott Snyder's work with DickBats also was a high point for the character, showing Dick as competent and examining his relationship with Gotham and the Gordons. King and Seeley gave him one of the best comic runs with Grayson, a series where he wasn't even a "superhero" technically! When it comes to actual pre-New 52 Nightwing runs that are highly recommended where he *is* Nightwing, there's Chuck Dixon and uhhhhhhh... Tomasi's brief run before Dick became Batman? It's not exactly an overwhelming list.

Look there has been good work done with Nightwing, I'm not claiming there hasn't been. Tim Seeley wrote a great run with Nightwing Rebirth. Seeley fleshed out Dick's Rogues Gallery with cool new ones like Raptor, he brought back old foes like Dr. Hurt (why oh why couldn't you have brought back Flamingo too?), he gave Dick's world some character it solely needed. Bludhaven under Seeley is pretty much the only time I've really felt like it lived up to being Dick's city.

The problem with fictional cities is you have to put in the work to give them the character of real cities. You have to make the cities feel like characters in their own right. Gotham is the best example of this, it's a character all it's own, one that tells you a lot about Batman and his cast. In contrast Bludhaven is usually one of the worst. Any place that wants to claim to be worse than the city that is built over the gate to hell and gets wrecked every other month by the Arkham freaks has to really put in the work to compete. Simply put, Bludhaven typically fails utterly. There's nothing about it that makes you really buy it's worse than Gotham, I mean does anyone really think Nightwing's Rogues wouldn't get their lunches eaten by Batman's? No, no one genuinely buys that. When Bludhaven claims to be worse, it just comes across as tryhard, an attribute that does end up telling you about Nightwing in unintentional ways.

So Seeley didn't do that. Instead he created a city built for a hero like Dick Grayson. Someone who is bright and flashy, but does have an element of darkness to him. Someone who loves the spotlight, but often uses it to obscure. Seeley turned Bludhaven into Las Vegas, and that was the fucking best concept for Bludhaven I have ever seen, it makes so much sense. Las Vegas is the "Entertainment Capital of the World" and isn't that the perfect city for a hero who got their start working in the circus? Isn't the aesthetics of the gleaming casinos, the glamorous sex appeal of the performers, and the spectacle of the shows, all being used to cover up the seediness of mob bosses meeting backstage perfect for Nightwing? It's so utterly unlike New York City, yet Las Vegas is still dangerous, it's got a crime culture all it's own. Seeley used it to great effect, as did Humphries during his brief run, and I will always be pissed that DC didn't continue to use it. That should have stuck around and been the definitive look for Bludhaven.

How Seeley's take on Bludhaven was treated feels like a small scale version of how Nightwing in general gets treated. Whenever creators pitched ideas for him, if editorial thought there was potential to break big, they asked for those ideas to be repurposed for Batman instead. Anything big or good gets repurposed for Batman or tossed to the side so Nightwing can go back to his default: having irrelevant adventures in a city that is supposedly worse than Gotham but can't live up to it. Just like how Nightwing is supposedly better than Batman but never gets to show it. Goddamn it's so frustrating seeing his potential get wasted like that.

The Nightwing book should be one of DC's most ambitious books in terms of storytelling. You can go from traditional superhero stories, to romantic soap opera, to spy stories, to crime noir, to horror, to cosmic adventures, and ALL of them would fit because Nightwing is someone who has a foot in both Gotham and Metropolis. He's got friends everywhere on every team, and has been a hero longer than most Leaguers have at this point. No reason DC should still be afraid to let him loose and insisting on hewing close to what Dixon established almost over 30 years ago is only holding him back. At the very least get him some better Rogues, why the hell didn't he get to keep Professor Pyg? That's Dick's villain not Bruce's! Bullshit that they didn't let Dick keep him. Hopefully Flamingo comes back, with a slight revamp I think he'd make a great reoccurring Nightwing Rogue.

Luckily it does look somewhat like Nightwing fans have reason to be optimistic. While Taylor isn't to my taste, DC clearly views him as a "big" writer, and that they put him on Nightwing says a lot. Taylor has been selling well so far, so hopefully he gets to tell his story, hilarious that even he lampshaded having to write Dick running over to Gotham for another tie-in after Taylor's big opening arc was all about Dick committing himself and his money to Bludhaven. Scott Snyder is apparently working on a Black Label Nightwing book which will explore how he's a different detective than Bruce. The Gotham Knights video game has him as one of the main stars, and while Titans is... controversial, it's one of the most popular streaming shows and Dick is the main character. There's a lot of content coming that features him in the starring role, and that will only help his star rise further.

For the first time in, well, ever it feels like DC may be serious about elevating him. Time will tell if it pays off, but I for one choose to be optimistic that the 2020s will be a turning point for Dick Grayson where Nightwing becomes hugely popular in his own right. Not just as Batman's sidekick.

[wheelsup]

the taming of the shrew | two

if i be waspish, best beware my sting

after some setbacks, penelope is willing to do anything to get you back on board. but has spencer already ruined things?

A/N: hello! im so sorry that this posting schedule is super inconsistent. the more i thought about this chapter, the less i liked the more technical aspects of it. but! i hope you enjoy to plot aspect of it nonetheless <3 thanks for reading!

category: fluff, slow burn series, spencer reid x fem!reader

wc: 4.4k

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Since that phone call with Penelope, she’d been over nearly every night for a week with plates of treats and onslaughts of apologies. Each time she came knocking, you told her there was no amount of persuasion that could change your mind. And yet the following night, she’d be there, a new type of pastry in hand and a new set of reasons why Spencer was worth the trouble.

First, she brought blueberry muffins and reasoned that deep below that prickly exterior, he really was everything she promised –– sweet and caring. But that must be deep, deep down. Like, The Lost City of Atlantis, deep down, because you didn’t expect it to surface any time soon. 

Then, she brought fudge brownies and explained that his behavior wasn’t personal –– he was getting snippy with everyone lately. And while you maintained that anybody would have a hard time getting along with Spencer, you were absolutely positive that it was now impossible for you. 

Quite frankly, it wasn’t just Spencer who was unwilling to play nice. You hated him. More than you’ve ever hated a stranger. 

You wished him a lifetime riddled with minor inconveniences that would drive him to the edge of insanity. You wanted him to miss all his trains by just a quarter of a minute; close enough so that he could see it leave the platform, knowing he almost made it on. You wanted him to constantly feel like he was about to sneeze. You wanted his socks to be perpetually wet, and if he should happen to put on a dry pair? You hoped he stepped in a puddle.

That was all you could think about as you laid out on your couch, munching on one of Penelope’s lemon bars while she paced around your apartment. She kept going on and on advertising Spencer to you. As annoying as it was, she was also saving you a ton on groceries that week. 

For the most part, you filtered her out. Not a single word that came out of her mouth was believable anymore, especially not when she was talking about Spencer. Despite what Penelope thought of him, you saw in him what she refused to accept. 

As her speech came to a close, she looked at you like she expected a response to dignify her prattling. 

“Give it a rest, Penelope. He’s a lost cause,” you laughed dryly. “He doesn’t need –– nor does he want –– anyone in his life.” At the very least, he definitely didn’t want you. 

“Yes, that’s the problem!” If you’d been listening to her, you would’ve heard her saying the same thing. “He doesn’t want to date!” 

Your head just about exploded when she said that. 

There had been countless, fruitless conversations about this, and all along she saw the gaping hole in her supposedly airtight plan?

“If he doesn’t want to DATE, then WHAT was the point of this?!” Your fingers pressed the bridge of your nose; you suddenly felt a headache coming on. Funny how it always happened around the time of day that Penelope came to visit.

Penelope stopped pacing. She stalked over to your couch, picked your legs up by your ankle, and moved them to make space for herself. You begrudgingly sat upright as she took her place beside you. 

“Because he’s not himself anymore. He’s not open like he used to be. Not to the people who care about him the most, and certainly not to the world.”  

Penelope toyed with the hem of her dress, distracting herself from her quivering lip before pressing on, “Spencer Reid has always wanted love. And it’s not right that he no longer believes he can have it.” 

You hadn’t seen Penelope look so desperate until now. It was concerning. Because what could make her look so hopeless? What could make Spencer so hopeless? 

“Penelope, I don’t know what’s wrong with your little friend, but… there’s a lot more bubbling inside him than you’re letting on.” 

She chewed up the insides of her cheeks, wincing to herself at your incredibly accurate claim. 

“You are hiding something, aren’t you?” You narrowed your eyes on her. You were no detective, or whatever exactly her team did, but she was just awful at concealing her thoughts.

“It’s not my story to tell,” she murmured. 

She could already feel herself about to give it away and doubled down her mental defenses against it. Focusing extra hard on keeping Spencer’s privacy intact. If only you knew her track record with secrets, you’d be proud of her for staying quiet this long.

“What isn’t your story?” 

“That his girlfriend died last year.” 

She spilled it before she even realized what she was saying. You’d just asked so nonchalantly that she forgot she was talking aloud. Penelope turned purple, terrified now that the whole truth was out there. 

You couldn’t even take satisfaction in the fact that your trick worked. You were just as mortified as Penelope, and if you weren’t already sitting down, you knew you’d need to. You assumed there was something deeper going on with him, you didn’t think it was a dead girlfriend. That was some Nicholas Sparks shit. 

“He pretends like he’s fine but I know he’s not. And if he found a way to move on, maybe he’d start feeling as okay as he claims to be,” she sniffled before snot could run from her nose, tears lining the rims of her eyes. “I know I should’ve given you the full picture, but I didn’t think you’d go for it if you knew…” 

You were too floored to process it all right away. This added a whole new layer of complicated to an already uneasy arrangement.

“Well, I know you’re right about one thing. I would’ve said no.” 

She gave you a set of pleading eyes, praying you’d see where she was coming from. 

“I know,” she whispered defeatedly. “But maybe... now that you know, you can understand why he acts out the way he does.”

“Penelope, I can’t just… make someone move on, or –– or get them to believe in love! Especially when it’s fake.”

How on Earth did she expect you to pull that off? Did that guy from A Walk to Remember move on when Mandy Moore died? You hadn’t seen the ending of the movie, but you assumed not. 

“I’m sorry, this is just… a lot bigger than the favor I thought it was ––”

“What if I could return it?” she cut in. The gears in her head started to turn, figuring ways to patch up the holes she made. 

“There’s nothing I need from you.” 

That couldn’t be true. Penelope looked around the room and it didn’t take her long to think of it.

“I can help you sell your art,” she tempted, gesturing to the scattered canvases. “You make all your income from this, right?” 

You didn’t want to give any fuel to her fire, but you nodded. “What if… what if you didn’t have to settle for local buyers? What if I told you that you could make way more money selling them to the whole world?”

You chortled at her idea. 

You were a local artist, through and through. Your art got put in local galleries and sold to local buyers. Nothing more, and that was fine with you. You realized it a long time ago that it was just a pipe dream to think you’d be more. 

“I’m serious! You could get a separate painting studio, and stop living in one? Huh?” She wrapped her hand around your shoulder, waving the other in the air, urging you to picture it with her. “Imagine this: a kitchen that’s separate from your living room. A bed, inside it’s own four walls, and more than twelve feet from where you cook your meals.”

Pushing aside her so blatantly insulting your apartment, if that were a possibility, you’d want nothing more. But it already sounded foolish and you hadn’t even heard how she planned to pull it off. 

“Penelope, I’m fine where I am. I make the money I need, and that’s... it’s fine.”

She gave you a pointed look. “You know, I can hack all search engine results to make sure you are what comes up first anytime someone enters the word ‘painting’, right?

An airy chuckle left your lips. Of course she could. You patted her thigh twice and stood up, prompting her to follow you to your door –– hopefully, so she can show herself to the other side of it. “Still no, Pen.” 

“Just take some time to think about it!” Her voice carried through the wood as you shut it on her.

*

There was this one bench in Kenilworth Park – the one that overlooks the crystal clear pond – that you’d always been able to rely on to fix any problem.

There was hidden magic in the bushes that sprawled out from the edges of the water, surrounded by spiky green blades of overgrown grass. A simplicity you loved in baby ducklings paddling into the tiny body of water, swimming close together so they don’t get lost in, what seems to them, a whole ocean. And clarity provided by the freshest air in the world, under the shade of the big oak trees on a late summer afternoon.

But at the present, none of that came close to being enough.

The artist’s block started off as a minor inconvenience, but without your permission, had stretched into weeks of steadily declining motivation. Each new idea felt even worse than the last, and you were acutely aware that there would come a point where you’d officially hit maximum capacity for how awful they could get.

Still, that didn’t seem to light a fire under you. You happily coexisted with the blank pages of your sketchbook. Staring down at them, laying open on your lap in their stark-white glory, you felt like you were playing a waiting game. If you stared long and hard enough, maybe they’d flinch. 

Unfortunately, you never got to find out who won, because your phone rang inside your pocket. As if the caller had interrupted an incredible genius at work (which couldn’t be farther from the truth), you hastily raised the phone to your ear, slamming your sketchbook shut.

“Hello?” Your voice wasn’t as kind as it could be for someone with nothing better to be doing. Two seconds later, you learned who was calling and came to regret it.

“Hi, This is Rebecca from District Arts, calling with a message from Andre ––”

“Oh, hi!” you tried to walk back your previous tone, straightening up in your seat and pitching your voice higher, “Yeah, I’ve been waiting to hear from him!” 

While Rebecca intimidated you, Andre happened to be your closest friend at the gallery. He worked closely with the artists to curate their collection and help them make sales. 

“Does he want to sort out what to set the opening bid prices at for my new pieces?” A handful of days ago, you sent him pictures of your new work and were waiting to hear his thoughts. You’d always been able to trust his opinion, and a vote of confidence from him might be just the thing to inspire you.

“Uhm…” There was a criminally long pause on the other side of the line, ended by Rebecca’s weary inhale. “Unfortunately, we’re calling to inform you that your pieces will not be included in the next rotation.”

For a minute, you weren’t sure what to make of what she said. You’d never heard those words before.

“What – what do you mean?” you laughed nervously. She probably misspoke. Perks of friendship aside, Andre always included you in sets. 

“Ugh, let me just get him…” her voice faded away as she put the phone down. 

That wasn’t exactly the reassuring statement you were looking for. In the time it took for the call to switch hands, your confusion finally melted in. And then quickly boiled into anger.

The District Arts gallery changed their entire collection every two months. The pieces shown accepted rolling bids throughout the full eight weeks, finally selling at the end of term to their highest offer. After that, the pieces got taken down, sent to happy new owners, and the entire gallery reset with entirely new works. 

So if you missed one rotation, that meant waiting two months to get back in.

“Andre, how am I just cut from the gallery!” you barked before he could get a word in. If he didn’t like your work, he could’ve just said so. 

“No one said that ––”

“Okay, let me rephrase.” You pinched the bridge of your nose, something you found yourself doing quite frequently lately, and took a deep breath in and out. It was seemingly just for show because it did absolutely nothing to calm you down. “Why wouldn’t you put me in the next set? I’m in all of them!”

“I know you are!” He sounded just as upset. “It’s just that… we give you the biggest space we have, because you always manage to fill it up. But this time… I’m not so sure you can.”

“That’s ridiculous,” you scoffed. “What makes you say that?” You asked that, but you knew.

“You’ve only finished three pieces… I’m worried how you’ll deliver seven more before we set up.”

“But… it’s four weeks away, I could do ––”

“And it took you four weeks to make what you have... I’m sorry. We couldn’t take that gamble.” 

He took your silence as an opportunity to turn off the work talk and speak, just friend to friend. 

“You know that I trust you and I’d hold that spot if I could. But, I also know what you’re going through right now, and… I don’t know, maybe letting yourself rest would be a good thing?” 

Your heart paused. By, “knowing what you’re going through”, you assumed he didn’t mean the little artist’s block.

“If you’re implying that I can’t do my job because of what happened with Cyrus –”

“I’m not, I’m not....” he backtracked as quickly as he could. “But take another look at the paintings you showed me and tell me if they feel like you.”

Even if he was right, you wanted to fight him. You wanted to cry. You wanted to beg that you didn’t need that big space; you were willing to downsize and just turn in the three that you had. Even if they got shoved into the corner where hardly anybody bothered to look. You just couldn’t afford to go two months without the income. 

But even with tears beading up, you realized that the gallery couldn’t afford it either. They needed to bring in money and you couldn’t do that for them this time. So they were right to go to someone who can.

“Right,” you sniffled, recollecting yourself so he can’t hear the shakiness in your voice. “I understand. It’s a big risk, like you said… It’s for the better.”

Andre tried to thank you for being understanding and spewed some sort of encouragement. The words flew over your head. You managed to toss in a few ‘mhmm’s and ‘sure’s at the right places to coast you along until the call finally ended. 

As soon as it went dead, you dropped your phone to the side and brought your hands to your face, rubbing them furiously over your cheeks. Your fingertips pressed hard into your eyelids, trying to forcibly reabsorb the tears threatening to spill. 

It almost worked, until you tried to breathe. 

A full sob escaped in that one gulp of air and you succumbed to it. But the loud crunching noise of some pedestrian walking over the falling leaves destroyed your sense of privacy, and you quickly wiped away all signs of your breakdown. The crunching stopped just short of your bench and on instinct you flicked your eyes up to see who the intruder was.

You did a double take. It was him. That fucking asshole.

He was standing there, looking dumber than you could even remember, with his hands in his coat pockets and a curious look on his face as he watched you cry. Tucking your sketchbook under your arm in haste, you made it a point to stand up with as much aggression as possible, rolling your eyes at him.

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” you barked. “No need to yell at me this time.”

You bristled past him, barely refraining yourself from checking his shoulder as payback. You wanted to believe you were better than him, but it did sound incredibly tempting. He stood there for a moment before turning on his heel and following you.

“Wait,” he groaned.

You didn’t listen, neither stopping nor slowing down.

“I said wait,” he huffed as he caught up to you, popping up at your side and jogging along as you kept going.

“Yeah, because I need to listen to a guy who yells at strangers in bookstores.” 

Now that you’d brought up the elephant in the room, your feet started moving even faster, working double time to get you away from him.

Damn the fact that he had those long legs. He didn’t even break a sweat trying to keep up. He was inescapable.

“Well, if you waited like I asked, you would’ve gotten an apology for the ––”

“Gee, thanks!” you yelled, stopping for only a second to turn to him and give him a mocking bow of your head, hands clasped together like you were praising at his altar. “I was waiting with bated breath for that! Thank you, kind sir, for now my life can go on.”

“Look, I’m actually sorry,” he snapped. Then in realizing the irony, softened his voice, “I’m sorry for being rude. I was having a bad day… not that that’s an excuse.”

You stared at him blankly, just watching his mouth moving quickly and waiting until it finally stopped. 

“Did you need something?” 

“Did you… did you not hear what I just said?!” 

“No, sorry,” you smiled, voice sweet like sugar. “My ears filter bullshit. Wanna try again?”

He scoffed, looking away like he couldn’t believe you before stepping even closer. “What’s your problem?”

“Me!? The fuck –– what the fuck is your problem?” You turned and stormed off again, seething at his audacity. Spencer just couldn’t relent his annoying tendencies and followed yet again.

“My problem is that I’m trying to be nice, and you’re not letting me!”

You got a good, hard laugh out of that. “Okay, first of all, having to apologize for yelling at me and pushing me isn’t exactly the best starting point for the journey of becoming a nice person.”

“Like I said, I was having a bad day.” 

Under your breath, you muttered, “Well, I hope this one’s even worse.”

“Why are you such a ––” He stopped himself from finishing that thought. Even in his worst mood, he wouldn’t cross that line. 

But he didn’t need to finish it, you knew exactly where he wanted to take it. The soles of your shoes scraped against the loose gravel as you came to a grinding halt, ears ringing.

“A what?” You turned to face him, a sarcastic smile on your face growing wider as he started to shrink more and more. You got up close in his face, daring him to say what he really wanted to. So he could reinforce your belief in exactly the type of person he was. “A what?” 

Spencer pursed his lips and shook his head, refusing to say it no matter how much you challenged him. If he wasn’t going to have the balls to say it, you decided to take it upon yourself.

“Tell you what, you keep thinking about it and get back to me the next time you’re in a cunty mood.” 

The word he was thinking of was probably not as bad, but you had a habit of escalating things. Even if you took this one too far, you didn’t care. 

Before you tried to take off again, Spencer’s hand flew to your elbow. He tugged you back, forcing you to turn around and face him. He didn’t know his own strength; without any resistance, you came stumbling into his chest, at risk of falling over if it weren’t for his tight grip on your arm.

It took you a beat to push him away with both your hands on his chest, vocalizing your disgust for being so close to him. 

“Can you stop trying to disagree with me for a second? I’m trying to tell you that you’re right, I was being a… well, you know…” He avoided the word. Apparently ‘cunt’ was where he drew the line. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve it.” 

Your nostrils were still flared and blood hot as ever, but he made you pause. He looked sincere, if not a little tinged with guilt as well. You were suspicious of it.

“You saw me crying and felt bad, didn’t you?”

He laughed darkly. “Well, I saw you, yes. Did I feel bad? No.” 

“Oh, my God,” you growled, berating yourself for getting close to believing he might be capable of decency. 

“I’m joking! I’m joking.” He squeezed your elbow twice in earnest. “I did feel bad, but that’s not why I wanted to say it.”

“Okay.” You weren’t ready to give him a real smile, so you flattened your lips into a thin line and nodded once slowly, and left it at that. 

You still weren’t a fan, but the apology did dampen some of the resentment. Maybe he wasn’t the worst person alive. You’d settle for saying top ten most annoying, instead.

Minutes later, you came to the startling realization that he was still on the path, just two paces behind you. You flinched when you saw him out of the corner of your eye, not expecting him to still be here. 

“Uhm. Where are you… why are you still following me?” 

“I’m not. My car’s that way,” he gestured to the parking lot at the end of the long walkway. “I forgot my loaf for the ducks.” He didn’t mean to offer that information up, it just slipped out. He could practically see your smug expression coming before it even got there.

“You’re not supposed to feed bread to the ducks. It’s bad for them.”

“I don’t.” He didn’t care to explain this to you, but he couldn’t have you thinking he was any less competent than he really was. “It’s a special bread made from water and seeds that were ground into flour. It’s duck-safe.” 

“They make duck-safe bread?” Now that was something you’d never heard before. 

“No… I make duck-safe bread,” he said softly under his breath. 

You didn’t know how else you were supposed to react to that besides laughing wildly. 

“You make it?” He nodded like you were the crazy one here. As if he wasn’t the one spending his spare time grinding up seeds and baking loaves of bread for ducks, donning a frilly pink apron and oven mitts as he did so. At least that’s how you imagined it. “Why not just feed them the seeds?”

“Because, loose seeds will sink in the water and can potentially clog waterbeds and cause foreign bacteria growth in the pond.” 

“So you… hand-make the seeds into a little loaf of bread so it doesn't do that?”

He confirmed. You pondered silently for a moment, then absolutely had to ask, “You ever eaten the duck bread before?”

Spencer was caught off guard by that question. His cheeks deepened to a rosy color.

“Yeah, well, it was the house so…” he laughed nervously and stared at his sneakers. “It’s actually not too bad.”

You weren’t entirely surprised by that. You remembered what his grocery basket looked like, and given those same options, you probably would’ve tried the duck bread too. Still, you cracked the smallest of grins at knowing he makes bread for ducks. The one, sole redeeming fact you’ve learned about Spencer. 

You reached your car first, and Spencer stopped in front of it with you. 

“I’m actually sorry, you know,” he whispered once more, hand resting at the top of your car door as you opened it. He wasn’t talking about the incident at the bookstore.

“Yeah…” For a while you were so busy being angry at Spencer that you forgot about your own problems. 

He noticed your nose was still red around the edges, eyes still a little bleary. “Are you okay, by the way?” His voice was too soft, too genuine.

You shook your head no.

“Is there anything I can do?” You shook your head again. And then you had an awful thought.

You knew he was just offering to help just to say it, because that’s how people react when you say you’re not okay even if they don’t care. But there actually was something he could do for you… Something that Penelope could do.

“Uh, no but…” you fixed your hair and tucked it behind your ear, seamlessly switching to a flirtier voice. “If you still feel bad about the other day, you’re welcome to make it up to me.”

Spencer cocked his head to the side, unsure of how he could do that. 

“Hang out with me sometime.”

“H-hang out?” You could tell that it flustered him, even if he tried to play it off. He swallowed thickly, nose twitching and brows scrunched together.

“Relax, I really do just mean hang out.” You were lying through your teeth. He didn’t need to know that. 

As if he didn’t want to think about it for a second longer and just get out of this conversation as quickly as possible, he agreed without thinking it through. He didn’t even ask why an almost complete stranger would want to hang out with him. 

You stuck your hand out, expecting him to hand over his cell so you could put your contact into it. He rocked on the balls of his feet, watching as you input your contact and sent yourself a text on his phone.

“Hi, this is…” you read out your message as you typed, pausing at just the right place. “What’s your name by the way?”

“Oh-uh, I’m Spencer.” 

A devilish grin took over your face, hidden from his view while you were looking down at the screen. He was going to be easy to fool.

-

-

agh! im still not in love with how this chapter is turning out, but it came to a point where i just had to stop fiddling with it and just post it. any feedback or comments about this story is very much appreciated 💕

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if you’d like to join, the link is at the top of my masterlist

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[stxleslyds]

Has Jason met the Flashpoint Universe's Thomas Wayne? Like, actually spoken with him or voiced an opinion on the guy? If not, how do you envision their interactions?

Hello friend! I really like your questions; they make me read new stuff!

To answer your first question, nope, Jason Todd from main continuity hasn’t met Thomas Wayne from flashpoint! The only issue in which they “appear together” is Batman (2016) #71, but Jason only appears there when Barbara calls him so he can team up with the “Batfamily” to help Bruce. And that’s where this iconic Jason panel comes from!

Now, as a little heads up, I haven’t read flashpoint but I have done my research on Thomas Wayne’s story in Flashpoint. What I have read, though, is Batman vol.3 issues, 21, 22, 50, 58, 60, 69, 71-77, 80-85. I read that to answer this question Batman is not necessarily a book that I follow, from those I think I had previously read four or five issues.

("City of Bane" was so boring, confusing and stretched out too long. It would have been an easier read if Tom King stopped writing everything in pauses, I really don’t know how to explain it, but between that and the “Bat” “Cat” stuff I was ready to cry).

But because I read all that and did my research on Thomas Wayne, I believe I can give a pretty solid answer to your other question, “If not, how do you envision their interactions?”

I think Jason’s first impression of Flashpoint Thomas Wayne would have been, “I now understand why Bruce is so scared of killing the Joker, he just won’t be capable to handle himself and go on a killing spree. Suppose being not strong-willed runs in their blood”

Then as time passes by and he gets a glimpse at Thomas’ actions in main continuity I think that Jason would have reached the conclusion that Thomas was pathetic, crazy and dangerous. I can really see Jason writing down Thomas’ name in his own “to kill” list.

I really don’t think they could have gotten along from the very start. Yes, they both kill criminals but Thomas is deranged compared to Jason as he is now. (I will be talking about Jason as if he were a solid mix between UtRH and RHatO Jason).

Jason kills criminals such as drug dealers that sell drugs to children, rapists, people who work for the wrong kind of people and monsters, or things like the Untitled. Thomas on the other hand kills every kind of criminal, and sometimes he thinks that killing innocents and children is a means to an end.

In the Batman run, Thomas wasn’t happy about Bane killing Alfred but those were the rules, basically, he stepped aside from protecting Alfred because Bane had set a rule that said that if any of the Bat-People stepped foot in Gotham Alfred would be killed, and Damian went to Gotham so Thomas was like “oh well, time for Alfred to die, I guess”. After Alfred was killed by Bane, Thomas took Damian hostage and decided to use him as leverage now that Alfred was dead.

Thomas was nasty. But, I kinda started explaining Thomas’ thinking process from a weird place, so let me give you a little context if you haven’t read this arc.

Thomas Wayne is the Batman from Flashpoint. Flashpoint isn’t another universe, it is like a re-written main continuity universe so that Thomas is main continuity Bruce’s real father. How are they both in main continuity? Flash and Reverse Flash nonsense, I am not a Flash person so that’s the best way I can explain it. Reverse Flash and Flash did something weird and Thomas ended up in main continuity after they deleted the Flashpoint “timeline”.

Thomas Wayne asked Bruce while they were both in Flashpoint that he stopped being Batman, he told Bruce to find happiness and leave Batman behind because it would only bring him pain and suffering. (Batman vol.3 #22)

When Thomas Wayne woke up in main continuity, he got to see Bruce proposing to Selina, and going on a double date with Selina, Lois and Clark. But he also got to see that Bruce and Selina didn’t get married. That was what made Thomas Wayne go to Bane so he could help him break Bruce’s mind so Bruce finally let Batman go.

Yeah, Thomas really thought that the best way he could make his son give up the vigilante life was by helping Bane take over Gotham and breaking Bruce’s mental stability (or whatever he has left of it).

By helping Bane take over Gotham, Thomas was actually working with people like Joker, Riddler, Scarecrow and other villains. So, from that alone Jason would have been like “Who the hell is this guy and how can I kill him before Gotham falls apart?”.

I have to be honest though, I am really happy that Tom King didn’t include Jason in this stupid story, it just wouldn’t have made sense because even though Gotham was falling apart and villains were roaming free and terrorizing Gotham’s people, King actually made the “Batfamily” fight only for Alfred (who was already dead) and then they all got beat by Thomas. Tom King never made anyone care for Gotham itself, and no, I am not counting Selina and Bruce because those two were fucking and having drinks while Gotham fell apart, they only showed up at the very last second.

But your question wasn’t about my thoughts on this dumb story, it was about Jason and Thomas interacting. Well, I think that if Tom King had invited Jason to this party, he would have shot Thomas without hesitation and then would have told the “Batfamily” to get their shit together because Gotham’s people were suffering while everyone was looking away.

Thomas was working with Bane and letting Gotham’s rouges do whatever they wanted, Jason would have killed Thomas instantly! There would have been no talking, no “What are your thoughts on the Joker being alive after he killed me that one time? Do you think Bruce was right?”, Jason would have wasted no time on that because he would have seen his city fall apart at the hands of Thomas and Bane AND Bruce’s negligence. Oh, yeah, I blame Bruce too, I can’t really help myself, I hate that guy.

So, that’s what I think Jason would have done if he got to interact with Flashpoint Thomas Wayne.

Now, there was one thing in Thomas’ whole speech and idea that I kinda thought UtRH Jason (mostly) would have agreed on.

“All of you. He made you. Children fighting for him. An addict spreading his poison. Trying to make himself seem normal”.

Alright, Thomas, I hear you, you are one crazy mf but I see your point! That’s what I think and what I think Jason would have thought if he heard him say that but he would have killed Thomas anyways. Thomas really fits among the type of people that both UtRH and RHatO Jason would kill, so even if he kinda agreed with that statement Thomas would have been done for, no hesitation.

I wish I could have come up with something else but really, I don’t see Jason ever agreeing with Thomas’ ideals as a whole. While Thomas’ initial motivation to kill was to avenge his son then he went on a path of pure destruction, killing just to kill, and that has never been Jason (Battle for the Cowl and Batman and Robin vol.2, I don’t know them), in UtRH he expressed his desire for Bruce to kill Joker but he also said that he didn’t want Bruce to go on a killing spree, that wasn’t going to solve anything! No matter what Zdarsky tried to tell us with his two interpretations of Bruce and Jason’s perfect worlds, Jason has never wanted Bruce to kill every one of his rouges so then they can become a happy family.

That’s just an obscene lie. Jason knows better than everyone else that Gotham is corrupt beyond salvation and that killing Batman’s rogue gallery won’t solve Gotham’s problems. If it were that easy Jason would have done that a long time ago.

Anyway, I hope this isn’t a lame answer, I just don’t think that Jason would want to see or hear more about Thomas in general.

Thank you for the ask! I hope you had a great day!

[phantasmsinsideme]

Aren't starseeds fun to talk about and to listen to those with information about them? Well, having been on either side, a lot of you have a lot of misinformation about it, including ableist beliefs that only deem to harm the people that you cater to.

What do I mean about that, of course? I am saying that most people who are starseeds or "star children" are neurodivergent of some kind, and that a lot of information about starseeds is susceptible to cults.

Any mention of god or angel is religious. You don't even need to look, places like the ascension gallery are a fucking cult, and you are not immune to propaganda. I understand people connect to both deities and archangels, but it is not safe information if you are just putting anyone up who is enlightened and pure, and you are shitting on people with lets say, a "lower vibration" than you. Also, eating essential oils will kill you, anyone who believes in consuming poison is clearly being brainwashed and manipulated. I know most of you don't eat essential oils, but you understand my point when I say that.

Also, people like Doreen Virtue, is a fucking racist bitch that you should not put your faith into. Also The Secret, a book about the law of attraction, was also made by a cult, I'm pretty sure it's fucking scxxntxlxgy. Censoring because I hate those guys.

Oh by the way, lizard people, middle earth and a lot of alien theories are antisemitic. I really do not need to tell you twice that a lot of stuff in the new age spiritual community is nazi rhetoric made to sell you white supremacy.

So, now that I have most of you mad here, let's talk. For fucking real. A lot of starseed stuff is bullshit, but not all of it. Like, noone is an animal person, except maybe the mermaids, but your planets by stars, are just filled with different looking people, people with different feelings and connections. But no, they're not human. Humans are vessels who exist in the physical plane, that hold souls, often reincarnated from different places. But new souls can be born, it's just much harder. But most souls here are not normal people, and its insane that most of you think you're different or exempt. Just because you were born on a different planet doesn't mean you're better than anyone else, or less likely to be a person. Sorry buddy, but if you inhabit a body on earth, you're going to have to deal with the bodily functions of a body on earth. Like, I get it, you miss your past lives, but you're meant to experience shit here, get over it already.

So, with that out of the way, let's talk about me a little, my past lives, my story.

Well, in my very first life, where part of my soul essence came from a star, I was a fey in Lyra. And this was before Earth existed. Where my world would soon come to a close, as a new world was soon to be born. Fey are magical creatures, the sidhe, they are born from magick, the stars essence and named after the stories of those stars. They have a humanoid form and an animal form, and they have elemental magick. Mine was lightning and water, a storm from where I was very born. And while in prophecies, I was a blessed child of light, I was going to be trapped in a place that I helped create. Hope is the harbinger of world's end, but those are the stars in the sky after chaos is pushed, darkness after, and then night falls. The beginning and the end.

And the thing of all of it is, my family was torn from me, at the start of this new earth, the one that was birthed after the beginning of the end for my home. And the people who say they created this world aren't the ones who did. It's funny that you guys say that you're starseeds made to help this world be better, but you forgotten your history. This world was made by starseeds, made by the fey, made by nature, made by the stars. We were here from the beginning, and you guys don't fucking know that. We were here since the start and you guys were made to forget.

So let me tell you this, the problem isn't jewish people, the problem isn't disabled people, the problem isn't black people, the problem is the fact that you guys are made to think people born here are the problem. The problem is that you guys were made to think this world is "low vibrations" and "3D" and "boring" and "bad". What do you even fucking say? To the people coming here, being called here, being asked to make this place better, when it was ours in the first place?!

I know you guys think that humans are stupid, or unmagical, or whatever. But listen to me, why did you even come here in the first place, why are you here, why do you feel called to nature, and looking up at the stars, and the smell of the sea, why do you feel so close with mother nature, if this isn't your world?

I know you guys miss your home planets, I know you guys miss Sirius and Pleaides and Andromeda and others, I know you miss your homes. But my home was destroyed by people who want to control and destroy Earth too. So stop like, drinking poison, stop pretending anyone who consumes energy is bad, stop acting like you hate this place, just because they're trying to kill you. This was made to be your home too, stop being the end of your own damn world.

Lyra was the start, the beginning, and Earth does not have to be the end. Stop killing yourselves just because you find it hard. Protect Earth, listen to Earth, be kind to Earth, be gentle with your damn body. It doesn't fucking matter if you were born in Lyra, it matters you're here on Earth.

And go fuck yourself if you think it's okay to demonize anyone who isn't pure and holy. Look at who you're demonizing and tell me that it wouldn't be you if you lived through that. Earth is your home, treat it well.

TLDR: Calling Earth a 2D/3D un-ascended, unenlightened, and "low vibrational" place is propaganda. Earth has always been your home, and made by people of the stars, it was just taken from us. Humans are not bad, "low vibrational" people either. Every single one of you is human. Treat your fucking body well, and this damn place. Stop listening to culty ass rhetoric and protect Earth. It doesn't need fucking ascending, it needs protecting.

P.S. Stop trying to "let go of your ego" you aren't a fucking martyr for the cause. Desire, intention, magick, is what makes you human. Stop listening to people who say Earth is boring or bad. It's only bad because you're hurting it and you're hurting yourself.