#i am literally ONLY like this with the computer volume

[ladyshinga]

Mental illness is actually so funny sometimes, it'll have you catchin yourself feeling proud that you've managed to listen to your computer volume at numbers that are not obsessively divisible by 5

[inejstanaccount]

.

[sylusjinwoon]

{ 017 }

- when you fall asleep on them -

featuring: megumi, yuji, yuta

[ megumi 💤 ]

he will be the last to admit that he loves the way you fall asleep on him so casually; seeming to trust him and finding comfort in his presence as your head gently lands on his shoulder.

megumi convinces himself to head over to your place and study because he knew just how lazy you got each time you tried to study by yourself. there was an exam that was quickly approaching, and when he realized that you hadn't even begun to study when he last spoke to you-

he could feel the tension headache forming within his temple.

during the weekend, he stops by your house and invites himself inside, (your parents actually adored him and how he was such a positive influence for you), so it was actually pretty easy to catch you slacking off in such a casual manner.

he enters your room, seeing your eyes fixated on your computer screen as some cheesy drama was playing. your eyes were wide when you look up at him, with parted lips holding a piece of pocky in its corner, and megumi had to fight back his annoyance.

"oi, you need to study for this exam. come on, quit messing around." he slams your laptop shut and takes a hold of your pocky, chewing down on the treat with an unnecessary amount of force.

"aw, 'gumi, i-i was going to study! a-after one more episode."

he rolls his eyes at you, knowing you a little too well when he says, "sure, and then one episode turns into another, then another- and next thing you know, you're bingeing the entire season with your plans of studying becoming nonexistent."

your pout was all that he needed to know that he truly knew your intentions, reading through your lies like an open book.

after a bit of bickering, he convinces you to study with him, with the both of you settled on the hardwood flooring of your room, your backs pressed against your bed. megumi allows you to review his notes, since he remade them specifically for you, highlighting all of the important concepts in your favorite color while writing detailed, bulleted notes at the side.

he did a lot for you, for reasons he refuses to specify because he didn't think his heart could take it if and when he admitted to turning so soft for you and you alone.

megumi was caught up in his thoughts that he didn't realize when you had become slumped over against him, your warmth suddenly radiating on his shoulder as he glances over at you. the syllables that make up your name were close to escaping from his lips, yet when he catches the familiar sounds of your soft breathing was when he allows himself to smile down at you.

"you dork..."

he brushes back your hair, smirking when he sees the tiniest bit of drool settled near the corner of your mouth. letting out a feign, exasperated sigh, he closes his notebook and textbooks, choosing instead to humor you as he picked you up and carried you in his arms. with a gentleness he reserves only for you, megumi places you on the bed before laying next to you.

brushing the back of his hand against your soft cheek, he sighs while whispering to himself.

"what am i gonna do with you?"

perhaps when you wake up, he'll promise to take you out on that date so long as you do well on this upcoming exam.

[ yuji 💤 ]

a literal puppy who will do anything to spend as much time with you that he possibly can. he was your best friend, and you often spent your weekends together, having slumber parties while pulling all-nighters playing your favorite video games.

"whoa! the zombies are insane on this level!"

surrounding the floor of his bedroom were empty snacks and half-eaten bags of chips along with bottles of your favorite sodas as the only light that illuminated the room came from the television screen. the volume was turned down to a minimum to avoid the risk of waking anyone up at this ungodly hour.

while yuji was enjoying his game, you were comfortably settled on his bed, watching his joy with amusement and love in your eyes. you loved this side of your boyfriend a lot; just seeing him enjoying his life as a young teenager should.

yuji was laser-focused on his game, being so caught up with beating the level that he doesn't catch your soft yawn. it became a struggle for you to keep your eyes open, seeming difficult to hang on to your consciousness.

maybe if i just...rest my eyes a little bit...

succumbing to your drowsiness, your body slumps against yuji's bed, your breathing becoming softer and more even as you fell into a peaceful slumber.

yuji continues to play his game for the next hour, unaware that you had fallen asleep. only when he clears the level of his game did he let out excited cries of your name.

"babe! did you see that?! i finally beat the level-"

he trails off and immediately covers his mouth with both of his hands. realizing that you were asleep, yuji makes a great effort not to disturb you. he picks up the candy wrappers that surround your sleeping form, along with all the trash that was littered on his floor. he tosses everything in the trash before tiptoeing his way closer to you.

for the first time ever, yuji actually makes an effort to quietly get into bed with you. his movements were slow, not even daring to breathe when he manages to hold you in his arms before pulling the blankets over both of your forms. a look of complete and utter adoration was seen in his gaze as he allows you to bury your face within his chest.

with a sigh of your name, yuji closes his eyes, knowing that he will be filled with dreams of you the moment he joins you within this peaceful slumber.

[ yuta 💤 ]

despite being a busy man, he deeply cherishes the time he is able to spend with you. those moments where he is truly able to breathe and just unwind with you- those moments were his greatest treasures.

yuta had agreed to take the day off, wanting nothing more than to spend it with you as you decided to have a movie marathon consisting of all your favorite films.

from romance to comedy, to even horror, no movies were left untouched. feeling like this was a much needed day off for him, yuta was able to spoil the both of you with delicious takeout for each meal, reassuring you that you didn't have to lift a single finger or cook anything.

as such, you and he were both settled on your plush couch, with your head resting against his lap for the entirety of the day, your eyes engrossed in the current movie that was playing. of course, you would let out a whine each time yuta had to stand from his seat and change movies, which often prompted him to play an even longer movie that would last at least 2 to 3 hours in duration.

night had long fallen across the skies, yet yuta couldn't bring himself to retire to bed with you in his arms. it was obvious that he didn't want this day to end, because he knew that when morning came, then he would have to leave you for his latest assignment.

and truly, was it wrong of him to wish to spend every waking moment with you?

so, he continues on with the movie marathon, surrounded by empty takeout boxes with his deep blue eyes focused on the television screen. his hand mindlessly runs through your hair, earning a content sigh from you as you end up burying your face within his abdomen.

admittedly, yuta was not paying a speck of attention to the movie, so focused on your warmth and the steady sound of your breathing. only when the movie ends does he softly call out to you.

"honey, did you-"

he cuts himself off, finally looking down to see that you had already fallen asleep, with your gentle breaths felt against his shirt. yuta huffs in response, silently berating himself for being such a bad boyfriend, forcing you to stay up so late due to his own selfish desires.

"what a selfish lover i am." he trails off, pressing a kiss against your skin before picking you up in his arms. the way your body slumps against him was a clear indication of how exhausted you were. "forgive me, my love. forgive me."

even when you were so tired, you didn't speak a word to him of it. he knew that the reason why you remained silent was solely because you wanted to be with him, too.

and as yuta carries you back to your shared bedroom, he supposes that he could ask for another day off- just for the sake of your happiness.

a.n. - i am finally on spring break, with having a full week of freedom from classes, so i apologize for my sporadic updates 🥹

all stories are written by rei; reposts, translations, and plagiarism are not allowed.

[bobacupcake]

We got the earth and the sky, but has anyone asked about what you think of Abzu?

i love abzu!!! another one i have watched the gdc talk for which you can watch here!!

the two big things in abzu are the fish animations and the overall environment lighting - lets start with fish!! there are a lot of them. and when you want to animate a lot of things, your computer will explode. this is specifically when you animate things with bones, how a lot of computer things are animated

luckily one thing that gpus can be really good at is drawing a tonnnn of the same object really fast, using something called instancing. as long as its the same mesh and material, it can be rendered a ton with just a single draw call (like i am talking hundreds of thousands). so lets make 10 thousand fish. unluckily this doesnt work with skeleton animations. luckily you dont need them! especially with fish

even though all the objects need to be the same mesh and material, doesnt mean they cant have different input. not only that but shaders let you modify individual vertexes, so, what if you just take all 10000 fish and wiggle them along an axis, like this

and give them all slightly different inputs so they arent all doing the exact same animation, maybe by giving them each their own unique number. now you have 10 thousand fish swimming around, wiggling, at almost zero rendering cost

these are all individual 3d models and all their animations are running in the shader !

the other way they animated fish without giving them bones was through something called blendshapes - these are usually used for stuff like facial animations, where you move vertices around to your desired "shape" (so like maybe your default face is :| but you edit the vertices so your character goes :> etc), and keep track of the difference between each vertex's position and its original position so you can move it whenever you want

that doesnt need any bones so they used this for things like fish going CHOMP and fish making sharp turns

for the actual environment, they experimented with a bunch of things like using actual volumetric lighting, but in the end they found that just using fog worked best!! they did tweak it a bit though - they had a "zone" between where the fog started to get thick and when the fog just ended up being a solid color where they dimmed any lighting - this really helped the background geometry stick out and give that underwater feel (left is without dimming the lights, right is with dimming the lights!! fun to think about how firewatch did something similar but changing the fog color based on depth rather than literally dimming the lighting)

they also let different volumes have their own fog value, so if there was say a cave off in the distance, it could have less fog than the surrounding area for clarity & also made the fog look a bit more volumetric

and the other huge thing that helped was "portal cards" - not an official term but its what they called them, basically just quads they could stick in any place where they needed to make something "stick out", like a cave, or a hilltop that blended with the background too much. the card sampled the depth of objects behind it, and used that 0 to 1 value to map a color to it. and then the closer youd get to these cards, the more transparent theyd get, until youre right on top of it and you dont need the objects to stick out of the background anymore!! here you can see a Me, but very dark, and then i slide the card over it. the black and white is the camera depth of all objects behind the card, minus the depth of the card. and mapping that to a color makes me stick out way more than i was initially!! then as you swim closer to me, the card fades away, until you pass the card completely

these portal cards were also used to make the light beams poking out from the surface, theyre just animated a bit!! you can see how the portal cards affect the look of things in this frame breakdown

and one other thing thats pretty prominent that wasnt touched on in the talk is all the caustics on the ground, those little wobbly light things you see underwater. but those were probably? just added to every shader as a "add this caustics texture on top based on the with the texture mapped to the world x and z position and only if the object is facing up"

like this !

anyways thats all from me on abzu..!! really pretty game

[lexosaurus]

And I'm back on my nerdiness!

This fic is a crossover between Danny Phantom x The Martian. You do not have to have read or watched The Martian to understand this fic. Although, I've convinced a double-digit number of people to read The Martian since I started this fic and I think that speak volumes to how obsessed I am about this media.

xxxx

Summary: When Astronaut Mark Watney went to Mars, he knew there was a chance he'd never come home. Now, though, he's determined to last long enough for NASA to save him because this whole dying for science thing is not as fun as it sounds.

Meanwhile, Danny Fenton is just trying to keep his identity a secret amidst a potential crisis with his powers. Seriously, what's up with that weird current under his skin? Why is he having so much trouble controlling it? And why does it feel so familiar...?

In a fit of determination (and possible stupidity), Danny goes to Mars to save Watney, only to add to both their crises when he arrives and can't get home. Will NASA save them? Will Danny have a home to return to if they do?

Chapter WC: 5801

Fic Tags: Danny Fenton & Mark Watney, Canon Divergence, Ecton AU

Chapter excerpt under the cut

xxxx

“I’m the potato of—what day is it?” Mark glanced at the computer. “May seventeenth! The spooky seventeenth potato ghost!”

“You’re delusional,” was Danny’s response. “And also still not over the fact that you missed May fourth.”

Mark lowered the potato. “Well, usually, I rely on supernerd Johannsen for vital dates like that. But since she’s gone, it was your job to pick up the slack! Haven't you seen Star Wars?”

“Of course I have!” Danny exclaimed, crossing his arms. It was almost offensive that Mark would think for a second that Danny hadn’t seen Star Wars. “But you forgot about May fourth too! Don’t try to pin this on me. I’m not your personal C3P-O.”

“No, you’re more of a Chewbacca.”

Okay, now his angsty mood had entirely turned into offense. “The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I’m Han Solo, obviously.”

“Why do you get to be Han Solo?”

It was as if Danny had just asked why rockets exist if Mark’s expression was anything to go by. His eyebrows shot to his hairline, and his mouth opened with a comical amount of confidence—or was it arrogance—as he gestured to himself and answered, “Well, duh.”

As if that were supposed to sum it up.

“That explains nothing!” Danny argued.

“It’s quite literally the only bit of explanation you need, Chewie.”

“I’m not Chewbacca.”

“And the sky isn’t orange.”

Okay, all the prying into Danny’s personal business? That was rough, Danny had to admit. But this? 

This was unforgivable.

[spockanalia-archive]

Spockanalia #1: The Territory of Rigel

By Dorothy Jones

Art by Juanita Coulson

(A ni var to be performed by two voices and a Vulcan harp)

First Voice

Rigel in the scanner, blue-white and crystalline, shining. Light born in the corona pours into space.

The instruments whisper, the panel lights flicker. The stars are still and clear.

Their song is deliberate, long years to a cadence.

Dust in their paths moves in their wake like water, and Rigel shines.

The stars like ancient trees, heavy with planets, blazing with life.

I wander the bright roads: whom no planet claims: live in the open Galaxy.

I have clarity before me, and Rigel full of light.

Second Voice

Dark and silent is the field of space. The bridge is empty. The time, three hundred.

The instruments tell little. The computer absorbs in silence trivial patterns meaning nothing.

Three-twenty. The night is very long. In the dark gulf is the ship, in the sleeping ship is the bridge, on the bridge am I, silence upon silence,

as quiet as memory, and dark as death.

I am far From my beginning and my end. Four hundred and the watch is changed. I leave the bridge and go from darkness into darkness.

This is a piece supposed to have been written by Spock, many years ago. The idea is that he was on watch aboard some ship or other, all alone on the bridge. It was in the middle of the "night" cycle and the bridge was relatively dark except for the instrument panels. Outside there was also darkness, except for the faint light of the stars and the brighter light of Rigel, which was nearby. The contrast of light and darkness appealed to the duality in Spock, and he attempted (no one being around to interfere) to express it in a Vulcan form called ni var.

Ni var means literally "two form," and it is basically a piece comparing and contrasting two different things or two aspects of the same thing. (It need not be a literary work; a suitably-formed painting or sculpture or dance composition could be a ni var.) So in this piece there are two voices: one singing of light and the other of darkness; the little Vulcan harp accompanies them and plays short solo passages. The first voice is soprano and the second voice bass.

Although the ni var is a purely Vulcan form, Spock decided for reasons of his own to write the text in Terran. This was perhaps his undoing; Terran languages are by their nature more personal and less objective than Vulcan, and he found himself writing not only about the physical surroundings which he set out to describe, but also about himself—a totally unVulcan thing to do. He probably looked at the composition the next morning, blanched, and put the piece away for thirty years.

—Dorothy Jones

Note: With the help and guidance of Open Doors, we digitized the first volume of Spockanalia and imported it to AO3, which you can view here. In order to meet AO3's terms of service, some of the content was edited or removed. The full version of the zine is preserved on this blog. The masterpost is here.

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 55 - The Gods Are Bastard Volume Four by D. D. Webb

This is properly a review of Books 11, 12 and 13 of the gargantuan web serial The Gods Are Bastards, which I read in one massive sprint back in August, and also mark the exact point stops including book summaries in the table of contents. So caveat lector, all errors are my own here. Though this is hopefully the last review I’ll need to open by saying that for a while.

The serial is set in a world that’s best described as ‘someone’s D&D setting left to cook for a couple hundred years, and which is now undergoing a magitech industrial revolution’. Quite literally, actually – as it was revealed in the previous volume that the setting is a Lord of Light-style experiment by far-future space-magic-weilding scientists from Earth who were insufferable nerds even before their experiments and millennia of treating the world around them as an experiment drove them insane. All of which becomes much more plot-relevant in this volume, with one book’s main plot dedicated to an imperial concubine learning how computers work in what is like 90% of the way to a femslash harem anime, and the main villains of another being a cybernetics cult who were objectively the coolest thing to show up in a hundred thousand words.

This volume returns more focus to the ostensible protagonists of the serial (sophmore class at Adventuring U), while also splitting them up so Triss (the only-occasionally-murderously-racist paladin) can go get some character development and also spin out the cast even more. Which may have been part of the reason this is the volume I started to burn out on the series in this volume, really – I have, I think, an unusually high tolerance for sprawling casts of characters. But there’s really only so many different sets of sympathetic plucky teenagers learning to bond and work together I can take before I literally stop being able to tell them apart. Certainly my limit of characters I actually cared about got hit some time before Triss’ half dozen new fellow thieves guild apprentices were introduced. At the point where I’m waiting for a murder demon to get loose just to clean up the dramatis personae a bit.

I mean admittedly it didn’t help that they all had the most incredibly predictable character arcs imaginable and none of them ever really got enough screentime or, like, creative energy to ever become memorable. The one besides Triss who got much independent focus was instead someone whose entire character, arc, and impact on the plot was ‘realizing she’s trans and being loved/accepted/supported for it’. Which I acknowledge many people find important and validating, but if I am looking for Representation Fiction it probably won’t be a million words into an epic fantasy web serial (and the author can clearly do better! Ingvar is trans and it clearly informs his character and backstory and he still gets to, like, affect the plot and do things).

Though honestly I’d probably forgive the bloated cast if at this point I wasn’t getting, well, either bored or impatient with the conflict of the story. Which is to say – look, the story’s titled The Gods Are Bastards, I don’t think I’m being unfair in expecting a certain rebelliousness or blasphemy in the narrative. But it’s been 13 books, and all morality aside, 13 books of the protagonists working for Gods and Empire and University and either upholding the status quo or mildly reforming it from within to strengthen it just gets monotonous. Even the thieves guild is somehow a pillar of the establishment. The forces arrayed behind the heroes so utterly outclass their opposition in basically every case that it’s really hard to care about them on any sort of dramatic level, and I keep waiting for a reversal or betrayal that just isn’t occurring.

Anyway yeah, if you liked the previous 10 books you will probably like these ones as well! Would just recommend spacing them out so you don’t burn out.

[fructidors]

@radioactivegeorg cassette tips!!!

ok so. generally it is very easy to record cassettes. i for one was surprised about how easy it was. it is however a little timely but worth it because cassettes are god's most beautiful children.

you will need a cassette player obviously. i have bad experiences with the small walkman-type guys but i think that might just have been mine. this is the one i use to record them & play them most of the time

got it from my dad and she is my favorite firstborn son who is 30 years older than me. yeah you heard it right this bitch was made in the SEVENTIES and she hasn't let me down once except when she ran out of batteries that one time. as long as yr cassette player has a record button it should be fine though

you also need:

cassettes! fun fact you don't actually need blank ones (although they are a little easier) you can record over regular ones! i don't personally have experience with this though so here is an article on it

your Device! so Hypothetically i think you MIGHT be able to record from a phone if you have either a headphone jack on your phone or a very functional headphone jack to lightning adapter. again i have not personally tried this so i would recommend Computer

your music! Another Fun Fact you don't have to have any music downloaded to record it onto a cassette! cassettes will literally record any audio coming from your Device so all you need is a playlist from your streaming service of choice, a youtube playlist, a playlist of files on some media player, something like that. you could record a whole episode of television if you want no one can stop you. i will explain how to arrange yr music further on.

a cable that goes between the cassette player and the Device! typically a male-to-male 3.5mm headphone jack cable (gayyy). this guy.

this is probably the only thing on the list that isn't like. immediately obvious-- i got mine at a local guitar store but they're very cheap online

and of course fun things to decorate the cassette with!!! the Most Important part. i use sharpie paint pens.

OKAY!! step one!! get yr music organized. yr tape is probably either 60 or 90 minutes long or maybe 110 or 100 or possibly some other strange number if you're using a prerecorded tape. either way you need to make two playlists each the length of one side of the tape. so if i'm making a mixtape i usually make one big 90 minute playlist and then divide it up into 45 minute playlists when i'm done. if you're doing an album you Might be able to get one on each side (again depending on what length yr tape is). since the playlists generally end up a minute or so under the exact length my very favorite thing in the entire world to do is add a random song and let it play out in part at the end and not write it down on the tracklist. music dessert.

step two!! get those guys connected. my tape player has this hole labeled MIC

but yrs might not. so just plug one end of the cable into whatever hole looks like an audio input or headphone jack and hope it works. i am the farthest from an expert here. & then plug the other end into yr Device's headphone jack! congratulations you are now practicing Mad Science & yr devices are having transgenerational gay sex. (at least that is what it feels like)

step three!! play that audio!!! so this is the part where trial & error is key. because if you record your music on full volume it will sound Bad. i typically turn the volume on whatever platform my playlist is on way down. like.

but you don't want it Too Quiet or else you'll have to turn your player's volume so far up that the tape hiss will start to overpower the music. it's a balancing act. which is why you should...

step three point five make a test patch!! what i usually do is play the first ten seconds of the first song, ten seconds from the middle of that song, and ten seconds from one or two more songs on the playlist, just to get the full range of volumes & frequencies & whatnot. then rewind and listen to it back and figure out if it should be louder or quieter. this might not be super obvious right away (my first cassette Sucked) but it gets pretty easy to tell eventually.

step four record that bitch!!!! don't press play on your music the Second you press record because there's a bit of plastic at the beginning of the tape that can't be recorded onto so you'll lose the first few seconds of your music. this is also why you shouldn't have a playlist that's Exactly the length of a side but rather a little shorter or a little longer w/ a song you're cool with getting cut off. and then. you wait. my absolute least favorite bit. recording is basically the same as playing (in that the entire tape gets run through the player, at the same speed) except you can't listen to any music. you should also probably refrain from using the Device while recording to avoid any other sounds playing because like i said the tape isn't recording your music specifically, it's recording all the audio from the Device. i have So Many tapes with text tones interrupting the music :( generally i like to record tapes when i'm out or doing something off my computer or on occasion sleeping. once the whole side has been recorded there's a click (like when the whole side has been played) and you turn the cassette over, go to your second playlist, and do the whole thing over again!!

step five best step the reason we do it all DECORATE!!!! coolest thing about cassettes is you can decorate literally the whole thing. all the case all the card all the cassette itself!! anything that works on plastic should work. here are my children:

& yeah that's it!!! sorry this got so long & over-explain-y i just. love talking about cassettes. number one activity. lmk if you have any other questions!!

[dollsonmain]

Today I should rest and spend time with myself but there's too much to do.

I need to look for insurance some more, shower, catch up on chores, get ready to go get groceries/make the list....

Yesterday I remembered something.

So, I get up really early in the morning in the hopes of getting a little time to myself with the quiet.

On weekdays That Guy gets up at 4 and so do I. I make sure I'm up and out of bed, downstairs, drinking my coffee before he gets out of the shower so he doesn't come kneel down and try to stick his dick in my face every morning.

He leaves at 5.

Then, if I'm lucky, Son will stay in bed until 6 but he usually gets up at 5 because That Guy stomps and slams and insists on having a conversation or giving me a lecture first thing in the morning when I'm not even awake, yet.

This morning it was "Our son doesn't know some specific information which is not available to him and he's disrespecting me by not having this information that doesn't exist can you figure it out but don't tell him you're figuring it out behind his back because I want him to do it even though he can't." Again.

Son leaves at 7.

On the weekends I often wake up around 5 or 5:30 and try to sneak out of bed

Usually, Son is already awake and he gets up as soon as he hears me moving around in the house. He starts immediately with noise videos, noisy apps, transcribing music, etc. and he talks the whole time. Louder, and louder, and louder with the occasional "Dad's asleep, still, watch your volume [because I'd like him to stay that way]" from me.

Often That Guy is woken up by me getting out of bed and also gets up because he's suddenly Alone and that's unacceptable.

Yesterday, I was up and trying to work on something on the computer, Son got up and started in but I've gotten pretty good at both engaging with him and continuing to work, then That Guy got up and demanded my full attention constantly.

I snapped at him a bit saying I was busy and leave me alone, which I feel bad about, but if I'm sitting in front of a screen, typing, with multiple resource tabs open, actively researching and processing information, I don't need a play-by-play of every fart, the fact the house is cold like every winter, and what he's eating/drinking, and are you still working are you still working are you still working I want to play video games and you have to watch.

...

It reminded me of a time at my grandma's house when my aunt and I were still young. My aunt is 5 years younger than I am, so we are close in age.

Grandma put us to bed in her bed, which was a queen, and my aunt kept scooting over so she was basically on top of me. I told her to move and give me space, but she wouldn't.

I got up and went to the other side of the bed repeatedly in the night and every time she'd scoot over on top of me again.

Eventually I took a blanket into the living room to sleep on the couch, and she followed me there, too.

In the morning I complained to grandma and she said I was being mean and my aunt just wanted to cuddle and be close to me.

What I needed didn't matter.

-

That persists. It doesn't matter that I need time to myself. I'm expected [by That Guy] to pay attention to Son at all times and to pay attention to That Guy at all times.

The only time I get truly to myself is very early in the morning if I'm lucky enough the boys stay in bed, or for about an hour at night because I go to bed earlier than everyone else on purpose.

This is why I call Monday my recovery day, but I don't get Monday, either. Monday is groceries day.

Even if I try going down to the basement, That Guy starts stomping around overhead as hard as he can, just to remind me he's up here, he's Alone, I'm not doing what he wants me to do, and he's bored.

It doesn't matter how much I beg the people around to please, please just get off of me.

It's very frustrating.

-

Anyway, that's all part of why I'm so hard focused on the basement right now, I guess.

Desperately trying to regain control of literally anything, trying to find a quiet place where I can breathe, trying to feel human again.

[rainbowtvz]

simp is aave. stop misusing aave. (literally just look up "what is aave carrd" and figure it out.)

doubles is a kinnie term. as a kin myself, yes i am gatekeeping that word. people who share your f/os are not doubles because it inherently implies that you AND the sharer are somehow the same person whether that's both BEING your f/o or you have the same s/i. you are not using it correctly. it's annoying and confusing. doubles is a derogatory term anyway for people who share your kins that you do not like. (kintwins would be for people you do like.)

^ i've been on kinblr and numerous other otherkin AND fictionkin spaces i know what i'm talking about.

minority coding is important. if your f/o is coded as being a minority and you do not acknowledge that then you need to re-examine that. yes this is about trans headcanons too.

^ two examples: chihiro from dangan ronpa being a poorly written but widely accepted transfem character. and danny phantom having a common headcanon as being transmasc. the first one if you discard chihiro being a transfem and make her a guy, cis or trans, it's erasing her identity. this is transmisogyny at worst and ignorant as fuck at best. the second one if you discard this headcanon or make it so danny is transfem instead, it has no greater impact or implication of prejudice or bigotry. vice versa, their headcanons about danny's gender has literally 0 impact on your interpretation of his character and his gender. you do not have to subscribe to those headcanons and can go with your own or go with canon, but you need to re-examine why exactly you very specifically do not like those headcanons.

^ people projecting transness onto characters they like is often to find representation in them, or for coping, or both, to deny them of that because you simply disagree is.. odd and speaks volumes. cis selfshippers please think critically about that. i feel a lot of you are detached from overall fandom ettiquette and common ways for queer people to engage with media outside of the hyperspecific bubble that is selfshipping. we're all gonna annoy each other (selfshippers and nonselfshippers) at some point but painting yourself as being transphobic because you view your f/o as cis Only is only going to cause you grief. let people enjoy things. you don't have to look at it, just like they don't have to look at your stuff. this is okay.

plaese for the love of god please stop putting your vents in the community tags. (i've blocked or have been blocked by a majority of the people who do this but its making it feel dreary here.)

if u harass others for doing/saying something you don't like or agree with or for someone having an opinion about something you care about or about you in particular (that they aren't even being public about) then you suck and maybe u should at least take a break if not just leave entirely. (sideeyes some people)

blocking is a tool to affirm boundaries. people are allowed to block whoever they want, whenever they want, for whatever reason they want. and it's okay for you to do the same. it's okay for people to not like each other. not everybody IS going to like you and that's okay too.

callouts are for people doing active harm, or people who HAVE done active harm who have not grown and changed as a person since they did it. nobody care if they vagued u bc u share an f/o. practice utilizing the blocking tool. ^ this is not about wishing harm on others or stalking this is about petty shit that does not fall under that lol

thank you for coming to my ted talk.

pro/com/etc shippers please smash your computer into dust no one likes you or wants you here

[giddlygoat]

tbh i did not know who cyrus borg is nor have i ever interacted with the ninjago fandom but i am obsessed about him. blorbo via osmosis.

anyways if you have any headcanons about him i would like to hear them :3c

cyrus borg my beloved blorbo babygirl <3

thank you for asking about this man. he is like a chew toy for my brain. hold onto your butt bc it’s 2 am as of writing this and that’s when all the big brained stuff happens 

in his mid/late thirties and slaying <3 he started his tech business at about 17 and now he’s got a crazy monopoly on like half the city but it’s okay bc he’s a kind philanthropist and actually treats his employees like human beings so no one cares that he’s effectively one of the most powerful men in the city lmao 

i see cyrus as autistic and adhd tbh. the way he gets so hyper focused on his work that he literally does not perceive anything else around him is a bit too relatable, and he strikes me as a very brilliant man who simply does not retain information unimportant to his interests. he could tell you the precise components of the most advanced computers and explain their relationships with one another, but hell if he knows who the president is. you’re lucky if he even remembers what day it is. this man constantly uses reminders and alarms for sure. 

he’s on the aroace spectrum i think. i’m not exactly sure how but he just gives me those vibes. 

also transmasc swag tbh?? i think i’ve seen that hc around and it goes hard 

hear me out. cyrus listens to rap. this is based on absolutely nothing at all i just know it with my very being. he likes stuff with fast, predictable and heavy beats. would totally blast shit like masquerade by siouxxie sixxsta at full volume in his office. it helps him get in the zone. idk what to tell you man [<- 100% projection] 

cyrus is like. absolutely fascinated by zane. he admires dr julien’s work so much and wants to study zane under a microscope. as he gets to know zane better personally though, i think he would realize that he has been looking at things through the lense of an engineer for so long that he forgot zane was just like his human family. it’s not that he ever viewed zane as simply a machine, quite the opposite - he fully acknowledged that dr julien had created a full person, and an incredible one at that - but cyrus still has to remind himself that people don’t like being poked and prodded. [the moment he makes the mental connection between zane getting put on an examination table and himself getting operated on by the overlord against his will, he realizes the error in his line of thinking] 

oh yeah. the trauma! yeah cyrus might be just a little bit majorly fucked up over the overlord thing. the overlord did amputate his right arm after all, which leaves him with only one fully functioning limb. he still has nightmares about it. getting used to a prosthetic arm wouldn’t have been such a hurdle if the overlord had put any sort of thought or care into the operation, but it left him severely scarred up and just fucked in general. however! as the years pass he becomes pretty much fully accustomed to his situation and doesn’t let it inhibit his creative passions. 

also when zane died in s3 cyrus was super broken up about it and blamed himself for it in part. then, not days later his daughter disappeared for reasons he would not understand until like a year later, which totally messed him up. he inevitably threw himself into his work in an effort to not feel anything. he didn’t take very good care of himself during this time. when zane returned from chen’s island, he let pixal explain everything to cyrus, who was just glad they were alive, but the whole situation took a really long time to get over. 

when he’s hyper focused he forgets to eat/sleep etc and can run on fumes for hours before his body suddenly becomes a wet paper towel in a parking lot at 3 am and he has to konk out at his desk. thankfully he has people looking out for him, and he’s slowly getting better about it, but once he gets started sometimes the only way to stop is by brute force. 

i absolutely love @alanshee’s amazing cyrus headcanons, so you should totally go check out her takes. she has some really cool headcanons about his 16 robot children [in reference to a line where cyrus mentioned pixal was the 16th iteration, i believe] and they always make me smile so big. a lot of my headcanons are inspired by her stuff! 

[sorry for the late ass reply it’s been a crazy week and then i forgot rip but thank you sm for the ask!!!]

[morphogenetic]

Mediaposting 2023, #35: Banana Fish (anime)

[said while vibrating very quickly and typing out like 20 different bullet points] i like this series a normal amount

okay so. non-spoiler thoughts:

step 1 YOU SHOULD READ/WATCH THIS. it does have content warnings for literally everything you can possibly think of as needing a common content warning (drug abuse, sexual assault, racism, and thats absolutely just the tip of the iceberg) but my fucking god. no wonder it's been such an influential piece of media on literally every jp anime/manga crime story (especially the BL ones) written since

for a series that is literally one of the early genesis points of BL as a genre i was ABSOLUTELY expecting more actual BL than was in this LOL. not that i'm really upset, bc honestly i really like the way that ash and eiji's relationship is written in a shoujo-y "they obviously care about each other a lot but it's not going to be outright romance" kind of way. bc like, honestly? that makes it way more emotionally satisfying (and devastating). i think it would actually make less sense if anything more happened In the story (though more happening in the epilogue wouldnt hurt LOL)

how the FUCK was this published in a shoujo magazine

the time period change to modern day from the mid-80's has both helped and hindered this series bc like. on one hand. much easier to do everything with a phone. also the update to shorter's character design was excellent,10/10 no notes. on the other hand. the Everything About It makes it so obvious that it was written to be a product of its time.

speaking of ^ ash turning from A Guy Who Knows How To Use A Computer into a hacking genius is so. why. i mean you can update it for sure but Why Like This

god i wish this had more room to breathe sometimes bc the exposition goes WILDLY fast sometimes. why did they try and do 19 volumes in 24 episodes. the 39 episodes that the director wanted would have been so nice to have

that said: the emotional moments that i actually give a shit about and that make up the core of the weight of the story are given what they deserve. at least up to volume 5 they are. gestures at ep 9? and 22 with a pained smile

i literally could write an essay about why it works so well as a spin on the american-style gangster story even while it definitely has flaws. and how its influenced so many fucking things. my god.

it has flaws for SURE but the rest is so good that i don't care. which is rare for me (gestures at nirvanai/neo twewy being other examples)

spoiler thoughts under the cut (like full-very-ending-of-series spoilers) but YEAH UH I LIKE THIS THING CAN YOU TELL BY HOW MUCH I WROTE ABOUT IT.

it does kind of annoy me that literally all of the canon-MLM (probably gay but you know) guys are horrible people lol. like wow love how the gay predator stereotype is on full display here. feeeeels baaaaad. i know i know asheiji homoeroticism i am ON THAT TRAIN

however yut-lung being feminine out of a wish to carry on his dead mom's legacy is kind of a slay. ive seen people go "ugh it sucks that one of the villains is a feminine man' but while he is definitely not a good person hes one of the less terrible villains, just like. as a person. hes also a teenager in shitty circumstances just with way more power and sway

here's the part where I admit that I was spoiled on the ending so it didn't hit as hard for me OOPS. however. the anime DOES leave it open-ended and it fucking irritates me that anime-only people are like "boo i hate the ending bc ash dies!!!" when it is LITERALLY AMBIGUOUS. i have heard that the manga is less ambiguous about it but :') oh well. anime-onlys what are you doing

speaking of ^ i actually like the ending. like i think a lot of people who absolutely hate it must not have a lot of familiarity with gangster movies as a genre bc it is a genre convention that the Main Gangster dies in the end. granted this was a hayes code thing which the manga definitely did not have to do LOL but its definitely supposed to feel unfair bc ash's damn LIFE is unfair.

however i'm glad the anime makes the ending ambiguous bc that feels like a more fitting end. like ash's life was always in limbo, considering what he was doing, so making his life in limbo at the end too? Good. Yes. Do That

the fucking. everything with shorter and the sa-yo-na-ra bit. i die. that shit is so emotionally painful

i know this sounds weird but i kind of wish they dragged out the "what the hell does banana fish mean" thing a LIIIITTLE longer but by that i mean like, halfway point of the series. like they could have used a little more time to figure out what it is. also that would have let shorter live a little longer ay lmao that said this criticism also almost definitely applies to the manga soooo. you know

[otherworldseekers]

@starrysnowdrop tagged me to list 7 comfort movies and I’m sitting here staring at it like...

Movie? Does it say movies? That does not compute. It must mean books, right?

Ya’ll, I don’t even watch movies. Who has time to sit down and stare at the tv for that long when I could be staring at the computer for considerably longer?

On the other hand, I do read books for comfort. I mean, I read books literally constantly. I do not know how to exist without a book. Apparently you’re supposed to grow out of that as you age but I never have. (My husband used to be the same but he has since betrayed me.) I still read 2 or 3 books a week. 

I’m rambling because I cannot think of a single comfort visual media experience. Am I weird? I feel like maybe I’m a relic of another time. I guess most people don’t ever reread books but I’ll reread my favorites like once a year.

Anyway, let’s try 7 comfort books...

1. Any Discworld book. Particularly ones about the Witches or Death. Thief of Time is my fave. 

2. Anything by Tolkien. Obviously something with Hobbits is best. But I also enjoy digging into the early HOME volumes for comfort. 

3. Tatakau Shisho light novels. This is for when I’m depressed. Because these books are fucking depressing and I find it cathartic. 

4. The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson. I would not recommend this book to anyone but it’s a work of such staggering imagination that it takes me right out of myself. 

5. From Far Away manga. It’s just the complete package of perfect romantic fantasy and only like 12 volumes so easily read in a day. 

6. Lord Dunsany short stories. Also works of staggering imagination but on a smaller, more easily digestible scale. 

7. Something I haven’t read by an author I've read and enjoyed before. 

Not tagging anyone since I cheated. But if you want to pick this up and list 7 comfort media, by all means do!

[notfinancialadvice]

I've talked about institutional traders, and in general there is a lot of public rambling about "you can't beat the big systems, they have latest-tech internet connections and literal atomic clocks" etc.

Here is a real-world example of what happened about 5 minutes ago

Stocks operate on an auction system: "I have 100 shares, I'll sell them for $1/each."

"I want to buy 50 shares, I'll buy the for $1.00/each."

"I want to buy 50 shares, I'll buy them for $1.02/each."

(me, slower than the second person) "I want to buy 50 shares, I'll buy them at $1.00 -- ARGH!"

If you're not an institution, your order needs to either fit within the pricing (had I said $1.01) or timing.

You can offer whatever you want, you don't have to increment your order by a penny, this is just an example.

Fictionalized accounts of the real world make it sound like you never win (hence the writing of this).

The truth is more, you win when you're lumped into the timing and price of an institutional order, which is very common considering the oceanic volume.

There is not 1 or 2 institutions at play. There are a lot, thousands, if not more.

And there are teams and individuals within each institution that are similarly competing internally.

I am not clamoring around my computer or phone waiting for the split second to scream "BUY" or mash buttons.

Which is a good thing because I have neither the patience nor temperament for something so dramatic and serious.

One of the ways around this is to have an open limit buy order (there are open limit sell orders too, which are the same thing in reverse). This can be for "today only" or "for the next 90 days" (other brokers may have different time frames, I don't know, I've always dealt with these two options).

You can also specify, for either, "only during the hours the market is open" or "extended hours, which is a little bit before it opens and a little bit after it closes, but only on market days."

Using an open limit buy order, set for 90 days, set for extended hours, using the above real-world example, my order is waiting for this stock to drop low enough to trigger the order automatically.

Which, if it does successfully, will be done in a batch of some institution handling their business or solo if I am pricing it between institution orders.

If this doesn't happen in 90 days, or if I get tired of waiting and want to do anything else with the money, I can say "you know what, cancel this."

The money goes from "pending" back into my account and I can pursue another opportunity or just withdraw it from the broker all together.

In either instance, 100% of the order funds return to me. There is no charge with my broker or the market itself.

I hope this has been another installment of demystifying the stock market! May you risks be tolerable, may your gains be mighty, may your losses be within your measured tolerances!

[honestlyvan]

for the headcanon meme - mindmeld sex?

(Note: Red is one of my best friends so ne gets special treatment and gets multiple answers in one)

Transformers: 🙂I genuinely have a lot of fun with it, but it's left on the level of "yea okay" because I have other headcanons that contradict it heavily that I'm more invested in. Like, from a computing-based framework it's probably my favourite of the porny options for the entire franchise even if it doesn't really make as much sense on a "I know computers" level as people think it does, but I'm someone who tends to prefer the more magitech versions of Cybertronians so. Whatever. (Now, if you consider sparkmerging to be mindmelding, which I don't, that's a full 💯😍)

Xenoblade 3: 😍 it fucks and I've only seen it done once or twice. More weird Ouroboros orgies please, if you'd have the chance to feel all the pleasure of two bodies at once wouldn't you be on that shit all the time? Because I would be on that shit all the time!

Infinite Dendrogram: 🙂 This is very ship-dependent, and I already consider Master-Embryo ships to be basically self-cest anyway, but definitely a thing certain Maiden's Masters probably have a lot of fun with. Also, with all of sensation in Dendro being simulated, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't sex mods that let you do that shit over TCP/IP. The future is a wonderful thing

.hack//GU: 😍 Literally how else am I supposed to read volume 4. To quote the best thing I ever wrote that got no attention: #are you bruised from where you fell entangled or is that rope burn from the red string of fate

[chill-chikku]

Ppl often think working as a Dollar Store like employee is easy bc the stores are often messy and bad and the employees apathetic or rude.

I work at a…General sort of Dollar store. In a very small town 4-5 hours from Chicago and an hour and a half from any major cities.

So, this What I do for 14.75 an hour as a part time keyholder (just above cashier):

As a keyholder I an open and close the store, handle and create deposits, balance registers, do pick ups, void transactions, tell the cashier what needs done, and do refunds. Most of what I do is mandated to me from the 2 managers.

Other stuff:

Freight rolltainers (huge metal carts full of boxes of product) and organize it into their homes or label it for overstock and stack it in a certain way on an empty rolltainer.

Corporate also mandates that we finish 1 for every hour of our shift(these are boxes that vary from 1lb to 20lb to 50lb). Eight hours shift = 7 Rt, no less than 6.

Thankfully, my store manager and assistant manager are not insane and instead expect 2-3 done from whoever isn’t on register depending on the day, and they also do everything I do plus a lot of paperwork shit, so they are in the same boat.

Assistant manager gets paid 18 an hour, SM is salaried and I think she had it worse despite making more technically.

Anyways, I’m also Rotating and recovering the stock in several aisles from 5pm till an hour till close (9pm for us) to check for expired foods and make the products look good on the shelves and be in their proper place.

We are also getting ready for upcoming Inventory which means recovery has to be done extra well.

I also have to make time to do proper pick ups(if a register is over 260 it’s a dangerous life for robbery) at the registers.

I’m also cleaning incident messes and helping customers find things and if it’s just me in the store, checking them out

(we don't have a self checkout. Too much shrink, according to corporate).

Then I do things like clear sky shelves, damages (recording everything that has expired or been damaged with a little computer scanner and then throwing it away) and culling produce.

Keep in mind It’s only 2 ppl in the store (3 at most which is always a relief) except Fridays after truck delivery Thursday morning.

Not to mention if it's fresh truck day and we have to unload all the frozen and cold goods within 2 hours or they will go bad. Thankfully now that the crew is larger, we’ve been able to bring ppl in for part of the day for that.

We also check in vendors, scan fed ex packages drop off and pick up, break down boxes and stack them in empty rolktainers, fold up rolltainers we aren’t using and take them outside to be collected on truck day.

Then there's totes which is like boxes of filler stuff that doesn't come in boxes, like medicine and toothpaste and what not that doesn't have enough volume per shipment to be efficiently transported in a box.

Get at least 15 every Thursday shipment.

So, Every truck day we get like 10-13 rolltainers and at least a dozen totes. All of them are mandated to be done by the end of Saturday.

It used to be way worse when I started. only 1 person in store most of the time (2 at night bc it's legally required)

doing all of the above

And I’m sure I missed a few things

I almost quit a few times, but I literally have no job alternative at the moment since I can’t transport mysekg. (I can’t even work from home, internet here is terrible)

thank god we got some very competent team members on board (shout out to my AM ur a real one) and now things are much much much smoother.

Anyways all that to say, that store is bad and the employees apathetic bc they are each expected to do the work of at least 2-3 people.

It’s almost impossible to catch up if you don’t have a superhuman manager or two who can figure out how to positively motivate everyone despite the low pay.

I think my motive is:

1. I need money.

2. We are the only grocery store in town and very important for our poor, disabled, and elderly in the community.

3. I am absurdly obsessed with being perceived as useful, responsible, and having a strong work ethic.

4. I feel awful if I make a mistake or slack off bc it always means a coworker has to fix it or do what I was supposed to do. Especially with such a small crew.

And honest to god?

I don’t even dislike what I do! In fact I have found myself enjoying the challenges that come with being a shift leader and working out how to get things done and prioritizing things.

Plus it’s all very in the moment, makes me think on my feet, but with a lot of rules and guidelines to fall back on and extrapolate from.

I even like all the manual labor! I like having a reason to move around, I like organizing things and making them look neat!

Plus? I am an extroverted freak who loves helping customers and chatting with them and getting to know the ppl in the community! I really do care how they are doing! It’s a privilege to be in a small town and get to talk to people all day!!!

It’s just the understaffing and the low pay that gets me! I can’t even be mad about other stores bc it’s hard doing all that work.

I’m also single and childless. If I had kids to think about and a partner to consider and more bills to worry about on top of being overworked for low pay? All my enjoyment I do have would be sucked away.

So…I can’t be mad about other similar stores having apathetic employees and messy stores. Behind the scenes they are peony constantly scrambling to keep the doors open and paychecks secure.