#i feel bad about using ant poison

[irregardlessly-tish]

Ants attacked over night and reduced my sugar flower plant and one lily to basically nothing, I hope they are satisfied and don't touch any other plants because damn, they left pretty much nothing... I guess the lily will grow back if it's bulb is intact which I suppose it is? Not so sure about the sugar flower... I'm honestly kind of heartbroken 🥲

[sprintingowl]

How To Have Good Combat In Games Where The Combat Is Bad

I've been running 5e for about 50 sessions now. It does have some good points (like most big rpgs it encourages you to make a detailed character and dig into the fun of developing them,) but it also has bad combat.

Bad combat doesn't always mean a bad game, and what makes combat bad can differ from game to game. A lot of indie systems have bad combat because combat isn't their priority.

This isn't the case with 5e.

I'll go briefly into the reasons:

---It is common in 5e to spend a turn trying to do things, do nothing, and then end your turn

---The winning strategy in 5e, unless the GM specifically prevents it, is to do as much damage as possible as fast as possible

---Unique boss mechanics in 5e (Lair Actions, Legendary Resistances, save-or-suck effects) designed to counter the above issues instead amplify the problem

Other combat focused rpgs generally don't have these problems, but this doesn't mean that 5e (and low-combat indie games) are a lost cause.

You can still have good combat in games where the combat is bad, you just need to follow these principles:

---Ask Players To Make Choices (give them meaningful decisions. these don't have to be devil's bargains or involve rolls. do they rush to free the prisoners or chase after the zealots? do they stand in the center of a telegraphed AoE to achieve their objective now or do they wait until it's safer?)

---Give The Players Good Information (choices feel more random the less information the players have. skeleton ants will march from left to right across the arena, powering up the boss if they touch him. standing on blue tiles will switch the boss to arctic mode. hinting is fine, but you want the players to understand how a fight works so that they can interact with it)

---Crib Shamelessly From Videogames (without human-to-human roleplaying to compensate for the weaknesses in their design, non-ttrpg games that center combat need to make that combat at least interesting---and ideally good. MMOs telegraph attacks and turn fights into dances. SRPGs give rewards for focusing on side objectives. JRPGs start by saying "your attack hits" and give you a lot of different attack types to choose between)

If you're GMing in a system that doesn't have a lot of rules for combat, you can largely forget the third point, but never forget the first two.

You're breaching the house. Are you doing so safe or fast?

You're trying to subdue the werewolf. Do you care if he gets hurt? Are you willing to use things (poisons, a silver whip, tranquilizers) that might be traumatic for him?

Someone swings a club at you. Which bodypart do you use to shield the blow?

Any game can have fun combat if you work at it.

Of course, the question that follows is "should you?"

But I'm 50 sessions deep into a 5e campaign, so I can't answer that.

[sporesgalaxy]

what's uppppp I have some backstory writing for Pierre I've been fiddling with for aaagesss & I mostly like where it's at now. so I show you :)

short life history intro + Devil Fruit aquisition origin + little blurb from on the way to the Grand Line. enjoyyyy

warnings: animal death, bfrb (nail chewing)

•••

Tiny Pierra lets ants crawl all over her. She watches them tear apart a dying grasshopper in the garden, piece by piece.

Pierra looks with wonder in her eyes at a rotting fish covered with maggots. At a dead baby bird that fell from its nest too soon. At a bag full of bloody ducks her father shot.

Pierra gets too upset sometimes, and too frightened frequently. Pierra hides as often as possible.

When Pierra starts getting big, she wishes she was still small. She used to like squeezing into tight spaces; inside a box, under a small desk, under a bed. She doesn't fit anymore. Sometimes she feels like she's stopped fitting anywhere at all.

Pierra sneaks into places she is not supposed to be when she's alone, just to look around. Just to hear the silence.

Pierra takes food she is not supposed to eat, just to get away with it. Just to test how far she can go without being noticed. Just to be unnoticed on purpose.

When Pierra is 16, she goes to the market with her mother. While her mother speaks to someone, Pierra breaks off a tiny piece of the most interesting fruit at the stand. No one notices her do it this time. Pierra chews and swallows the piece of fruit, and it tastes bad, but Pierra is pleased to have learned what it tastes like without permission.

Later that evening, alone in her room, Pierra thinks she is dreaming, or maybe losing her mind. She wonders half-heartedly if the fruit was poisonous and she's dying. Then, she does what she always does when she thinks she is losing her mind: distracts herself and waits for it to pass.

It passes, eventually, but this won't be the last time. She learns that it's not madness, but the curse of a Devil. She learns she can't swim anymore. She prays for forgiveness. She tells nobody.

When Pierra gets too upset and admits it her mother a year later, she is begged never to transform again. To hide it forever, for her own safety. Human traffickers could be anywhere, her mother says, and Devil Fruit users fetch a high price. Pierra promises to keep hiding. Pierra wonders if it will be easier now, having someone who understands.

Pierra's mother goes back to acting like nothing ever happened. It doesn't get much easier.

----

Pierra Piper is currently one of many passengers on a large Navy escort vessel, which is in the process of entering the Grand Line through the Calm Belt. Pierra is trying very hard not to look at the water or think about Sea Kings. Her nose is buried resolutely in a short book.

The book isn't exactly comforting, though; it's about a man who transforms into a bug and finds himself useless and helpless and burdensome to his family, unable to continue working at his job or caring for himself. Pierra knew the book was about this, and chose to read it anyway. She reminds herself of that as she bravely turns the page rather than closing it.

It still feels surreal that Pierra is making a once-in-a-lifetime journey into the dangerous waters of the Grand Line for something as droll as her lab assistant job.

Pierra digs her nail into the book's spine restlessly.

She wonders if somehow, the Marines who interviewed her had known. Had been able to tell, just by looking at her, that she's been cursed by a Devil Fruit. Maybe there's some dead giveaway that she just doesn't know about.

More realistically, Pierra had been chosen for transfer despite her inexperience simply because she's big. She isn't especially athletic, but maybe being 7 and a half feet tall was deterrent enough for some pirates. Or maybe it was about being sturdy and able to reach things in a large laboratory.

Pierra chews her thumbnail and makes a great effort not to think about the sorts of biological research experiments she's read about the World Government allegedly subjecting prisoners to, or just how many prisoners the Marines have access to on the Grand Line. Those reports might not even be true. Pierra's thumb begins to bleed.

She wishes she had turned this job down. She wishes her mother hadn't been so encouraging despite the danger. She wishes her dad hadn't sounded so happy for her. She wishes the job didn't pay so much. She wishes it didn't promise a free return trip in 6 months. She hopes she'll meet a rich Zoologist while she's on the Grand Line.

[shmowder]

Is there a resource that says how old the characters are supposed to be? Or, how old do you headcanon them to be?

🐿️ anon, guilty of sending multiple messages so please, take as much time as you need to answer!

Yes! You can find the ages listed on the Pathologic Wiki here. They're sourced from VK posts the devs made.

It's not just the age, but also more abstract things like which animal the character represents, which body part and which colour.

Take Yulia, for example.

I adore the fact that she represents the ankle body part. It fits her extremely well since she was the one to design the roads to the town. Not to mention her limb and how walking can be painful to her and yet she is still the fragile ankle of the human body nonetheless.

The flamingo fits her too in a way. It's a bird that acquires the pink colour it's so famous for rather than being born with it. Did Yulia work hard for her genius rather than being naturally gifted? Does that affect her mental health?

She is a bird who can't fly and has to walk. She has a leg injury. She lives in a city where the river is poisonous.

As for the blue... I don't have much to say. I wish they gave us a hexcode instead of just slapping blue on it and calling it a day, yk? It would've been more specific since there are endless shades of blues out there.

Although, all of these notes and ages are about Pathologic classic characters. They might not all translate to P2, especially with how the timeline is changed there.

In P1, the polyhedron was built 10 years ago, and in P2, it was built 5 years ago. That drastically changes Artemy's age from 16 to 21 when he left the town.

Also. Do yourself a favour. Never calculate what age Nina was when she had Maria in P1. Ever.

And I absolutely love your asks! Never apologise for sending them or feel guilty. It made me so happy when I woke up the other day to them, and I'm writing up an answer to one, although it may take time to gather all the screenshots and my thoughts. You're amazing <333

Like fr. You're genuinely the only anon I have. It's dry af in this fandom. I only have two other asks rn which are requests for fics. Take as much space as you want lmao we're the only two people talking in this blog.

Sadly, Aglaya doesn't seem to have a VK post written about her. But in P1, she confirms that she is older than Artemy and of similar age to Maria in their reality. However, she mentions that she is older than him as a doll, but many parts of her body got replaced and newed, so it makes her fresher younger doll than his doll. If I had to give her a colour, it would be one from her image picked colour pallet here. Or maybe brown, like her eyes. Especially with how brown eyes are almost a symbol of humanity from how common they are and it giving it to the one character who is self-aware she is a doll and convinced she has no free will is funny.

For an animal, tho...hmmm. I'd imagine others to view her as a spider, but I think it's just a facade, even if it suits her.

An ant? A wasp?

a chameleon? Daniil says she changes her tactics with each person she encounters. How she used his anger against his to trick him while she used tenderness with Artemy who's guided by his heart.

A crane? They fit her colour pallete.

A crow or an owl? Any "Bad Omen" animal since inquisitors arriving is considered a bad omen in an itself

A mourning dove? They hold a lot of religious importance to rituals and she technically follows the church.

A dragonfly? They spend most of their lives in the baby stage, and when they finally look like what we consider an adult dragonfly, they only have 6 months to live. Aglaya spent all her life searching for an answer, and when she found it, her remaining days were cut short. They are a symbol of living life to the fullest.

Fox? I remember one of the characters describing her as one in P1. Or maybe it was a idom with "Foxy" that the translators added on their own to drive a message home. They are extremely cunning too. Can represent wisdom.

Which one is your favourite option? Or do you have another animal in mind?

For the body part, I'm thinking something that has to do with the heart or hands because I want her to match Artemy tehe. Maybe a ribcage since it protects the heart?

If we do go off of her personality alone and story importance, I feel like she represents the soul as much as Eva does but in her own contrasting way. Like in a left brain right brain type of way.

To even question your existence is a human trait. You can't prove the soul exists physically, and yet all of us at all times are aware of a soul. We are conscious and know something inside of us is doing this, but we can't find it anatomically.

Interesting detail, Aglaya's corpse in P2 doesn't have any organs. I checked it after the train death scene. She is the walking essence of a soul.

However, you find a gun in her body.

Is Aglaya a weapon? A tool for the hands to hold and use? Is that why she lacks organs? A dagger for Artemy's hand to cut open his enemies with?

So how could the steel dagger fall in love with the flesh and blood of the hands carrying it.

She might be the teeth, or the nails of the body in that case. Primitive weapons for the humankind before we invented spears. She might be the

I think she is the corpus callosum.

It's the part of the brain that connects the two halves together. You see, each brain half is fully functional on its own and controls one of each hands and looks through one of each eye.

The only reason they work in unison despite being two entities, is the thanks to the corpus callosum allowing them to communicate and act as one whole organ.

Cutting that connection, as in physically removing the corpus callosum, used to be a way to treat people who suffered from epilepsy. It's on the more extreme solutions when medication isn't working and the seizures are too frequent.

And it weirdly worked.

It fits her in a way, the anchor between two ships, the wires connecting the doll to the hand moving it.

I read from a different ask how she is your favourite alongside Yulia and Victor. You have amazing taste I tell you bc they are my favourites too! I am writing a long ass essay about it-

I'd love to hear your ideas about them and their symbolism animals/colours in the way. Also the look on your face when you find out that Victor Kain is 58 years old BECAUSE GODDAMN he looks so good for his age.

[mitsua]

𝑴𝒚 𝒌𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 & 𝒎𝒚 𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒓 | 𝐸𝑝. 5 𝑂𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔

Warnings: may contain bad grammar and spelling mistakes, overworking, stress, self-starvation, anxious thoughts and symptoms, fatigue, mentions of reader having a rude attitude

Series: Boku No Hero Academia Pairing: Y/n ✕ Sero Hanta

Y/n's . . . GN! Words' count: 0.41k

Previous chapter Series' list

You decided to work extra harder since that revealing and eyes-opener day you shared with Kirishima and Mina.

Exploding your body with extreme physical activities and your quirk extending your resistance time using it by more than a 10% in just a week of training.

Leaving behind hours of sleeping to remain studying and doing homework to get the weekend to train your body. Eating much less than necessary by the queasy feeling you got by looking at your plate and yourself in the mirror.

It was as if it was never enough. As if getting the best grades, a second grader could have never gotten in the whole U. A.'s records kept, were not enough.

This, of course, for everyone else was unbelievable. On your way to the top, some encouraged, some congratulated you, and some got jealous. You didn't care anymore.

You got the news from Mina that Hanta had broken up with that girl two weeks after they got together. I don't care. You kept on repeating.

I don't care. You said when looking at your reflection in the mirror. Eyes looking tired and full of many unexpressed emotions.

I don't care. You said when starving yourself for the fifth time in the week.

I don't care. You said when Aizawa made a new sparring match and you ended being paired against Hanta.

I don't care. You said when you got close to him feeling daggers stab each fibre of yourself with poison, making it impossible for you to stop attacking with tears feeling your eyes as if in reality you didn't want to hurt him.

But he deserved it, didn't him?

I don't care. You said when he ended passing out, winning the match in less than ten minutes and being scolded by your teacher about making the student unconscious.

After this event, plus your unrecognizable attitude, everyone came to fear you, so excepting your sweet and accompanying friend, there was no one else for you.

Your once dreamed boy over-analyzed for days the intensive fight you showed on the training fields. Making him feel useless and as if a tiny ant in comparison to you, who kept on growing since the day you 'broke up' or so he ended convincing himself about.

But specially, those months he got to know you, helped him realize that look you had in your eyes.

Those tired eyes seemed like they couldn't bear any of this longer than little more.

Why was that hurting him?

Next chapter

[jllongwrites]

In Which a Queer Pseudo-Christian Attempts To Process His Good Omens Feelings

I. I Want to Be Loved

The first novel I ever tried to write was a romance novel.

It was a very bad novel. I was twelve years old when I started it, and it absolutely read as though it was written by a twelve year old author.  I only ever wrote a handful of chapters. I don’t remember much about it now. But I remember that the main character was a frightened, self-loathing mess who scrambled to hide his brokenness behind walls of sarcasm and pretending not to care.

It was the middle of the 1990s, and at twelve years old I knew, the same way I knew that the sky was blue or that grass was green, that nobody would ever love me. Not romantic love. Not the kind of love I wanted. I had not yet learned the word “transgender”—it would be four more years before my household even got the internet—but I knew “gay.” And other words. Already, at twelve, I’d learned so many words for what I was. Freak. Pervert. Abomination.

Unloveable.

Untouchable.

So I wrote stories. I wrote stories, and I created new worlds, worlds where love could exist. Where love could heal and redeem and sanctify. I wrote about monsters, about mutants and aliens, about every sort of non-human freak of nature, and I gave to them all of the love that I knew they deserved. I gave to them all of the love that I hungered for, and I told myself it would be enough to close my eyes and just be able to imagine how all that love might taste on my own aching tongue, how it might feel in my empty belly. It would be enough. It had to be.

II. I Am Loved

Today I am forty one years old.

I’m married. We were married more than ten years ago now. In the morning I wake up and roll over, and my wife is there, still sleeping, and I bury my face against her shoulder and wrap an arm around her waist. I breathe her in, and she’s warm and soft and there and real. I’m happy. I’ve been happier for more years, by now, than all of those years where I wasn’t. Than all of those years where I didn’t think that happiness could be meant for someone like me.

But there are memories that live deep in the bones. Like poisoned arrows—you can take out the arrowhead, but the poison’s already seeped inside. It’s still there. And perhaps you survive that poison, perhaps you live on, you recover, but you’re never quite the same as you were before they shot you down. How could you be?

III. Still I Want to Be Loved

On my forearm there is a tattoo that reads “Beloved.”

It’s in the handwriting of my former pastor, a tiny lipstick lesbian who’s still a good friend, who’d written it on my arm in Sharpie during a Sunday service several years ago. She invited all of us in the congregation up and wrote it on all our arms, marking us as children of God, and it was the culmination of that week’s sermon. I didn’t know then, just as I don’t know now, that I believe in anything like God or in anything like God’s love, but for at least a few hours on that one Sunday morning, I wanted to believe.

I asked her if she would mind if I got the word permanently tattooed, and she said she’d be delighted. So I did.

There is such cruelty in the world, such suffering and such hopelessness, and so precious little of anything like justice or mercy. 

My wife told me once that she couldn’t conceive of believing in anything like a personal god who knew or noticed or cared about individual human lives. It would be like a human being caring about, knowing about, an individual ant. You can care about ants as a species, can care about their place in the ecosystem, but you can’t know the heart or individuality of one specific single ant on the other side of the world away, not even if you wanted to.

The Heaven of Good Omens is cold and cruel and empty, and so is its Love, a blasphemous Love that is nothing at all like love. The Hell of Good Omens is cold and cruel and empty, and so is its Hatred, a hollow and passionless thing that is nothing at all like hatred. Neither Heaven nor Hell even sees humanity, as a whole, let alone any individual human being, and “ineffable” is just an airy word for bullshit.

But in this same world there is also an absolute disaster of a demon and the idiotic angel that he loves. They love the world. They love each other. And it’s not Love–not some vague, abstract thing, limp and lifeless—no, it is love, warm and flawed and personal and real. They love the world, because the world has delicious crepes and beautiful music and top-shelf alcohol and gleaming automobiles you can drive way too fast. They love the world, because they love people, individual people, stupid and weak and infuriating, as well as people generally, because it was people who invented crepes and cars and the Velvet Underground. 

They want to save this world and its people, because they love them. And despite the opposition of both Heaven and Hell themselves, despite all the fumblings of human beings, despite how the demon’s a broken drunken mess and the angel’s a blind well-meaning fool, sometimes they actually do save the world. Sometimes they even manage to save each other.

I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in Heaven, and I don’t believe in Hell. But, romantic fool that I am, I still believe in love.

[ikjun]

i think most twitter armies are just so used to their faves being praised and being untouchable??? because for four years they were. but now other groups are coming in and breaking records and at first they just would shit on these other groups but now bts isn't gonna be doing anything ot7 until at least 2025 (and that's a tentative estimate) so now they're bored and are looking for new faves to be weird about. the problem is that no other kpop fandom is as crazy as bts stans because we learned how to be humble and NORMAL and they just. cannot do that for some reason??? which is so funny because they'll start preaching about skz while last week they were calling them ugly dogs and bts-wannabes... like girly???

pick your poison, i guess. bts fans move the same way exols did a decade ago, just upping the ante and nonsensical behaviour to a toxic and dangerous degree. bts have never been the underdogs, not even when they started. they won several awards right out of the gate bc the music was good and was very much state of the art back then. bighit was just supremely underfunded as a small label, which made it tougher to get sales / streams (well, sales more back then) bc they couldn't afford a lot of promo. most of the monetary gain went straight into making bts happen, the company basically either was in the red or barely managed a black 0. i hate to say that bts was better when they had something to work for, bc no one should depend on their life-hood to such egregious extent they have to watch their back every time while doing what they love. but it does say something that the quality and sincerity of bts' music has declined in the past few years especially. like. i'd rather they write me bragging rap songs over their success than these hypocritical diss tracks or americanised feel-good pop.

bts fans becoming skz fans is the least surprising thing ever, same with them becoming ateez fans too despite ripping on both. but svt has ben the big enemy for years now, so it really feels a whole new level of hypocrisy has been unlocked there. fandom spaces have been toxic since the dawn of time, even within one fandom, but the way a lot of kpop and online fandom (like the pop divas or even for tv shows) has moved the needle closer to how army as a fandom space operates. i remember when i had people calling me a bad fan for not caring about shinee's sells during their last comeback when like ... i could not care less about that and i know tons of people who don't. to see army actively move into new fandom spaces and pull them into this direction annoys me, is bad for online spaces and communication as well as concert etiquette, and means more groups will drop mediocre shit. which, well, the last part is just me being annoyed untalented people are bankrolled to release music solely bc their faces are objectively nice.

[lord-radish]

The Chibnall run of Doctor Who really bums me out because I really liked what it was trying to do, but something always seemed to bring the show down.

The new monsters - fine at worst. I remember speculating with a mutual about whether other Stenza take other body parts of their victims as battle trophies. I liked the P'Ting, and I LOVED the dudes from Demons of the Punjab. The giant spider was mid and the time-travelling racist was a cardboard cutout, but I felt like the earnest attempt at trying something new in series 11 was good and they could have done more than just a P'Ting cameo later in the run.

I like that they tried to have a larger crew of companions, even if the writers seemingly couldn't write four main characters and decided to sideline one of them every episode. I feel like Mandip Gill put a lot of character into her performance in series 11, even though Yaz was the most sidelined character in favor of Ryan and Graham's "granddad" arc. I was disappointed that Ryan got sidelined for most of series 12 while Graham seemed to mourn Ryan's nan more than he did. Then Dan came and went.

I can appreciate that they tried to up the ante with the Flux season, but it was such a precarious watch where one episode would be one of my favourites since like 2008, and the next one would be underbaked in that Chibnall sort of way and frustrate things. Boring invincible villains, a whole sideplot starring new characters that barely ties into the season's arc, and mangling the Timeless Child plotline - but also the one Weeping Angel episode that I was genuinely entertained and gripped by, and a fantastic Sontaran episode too. If it stuck the landing, I would have forgiven the bad stuff - but it didn't! The season just ends with a thud!!

And at the centre of it all, like glue holding the entire thing together, was Jodie Whittaker's Doctor. She's my favourite Doctor since Tennant, and she elevated the material that she worked with. But the material just... wasn't there. Demons of the Punjab is a GOATed episode, but Orphan 55 might be my least favourite episode of the revival series. I didn't like most of Moffat's run, period - at best, Orphan 55 ties with Sleep No More as my least favourite episode - it depends on whether you prefer dull, uninspired storytelling in the former or a cynical attempt to cash in on trendy, creepypasta-esque horror storytelling in the latter.

But none of this is in a vacuum. Chibnall tried - I genuinely liked the Timeless Child stuff at the end of series 12. The script writers and episode directors tried - Demons of the Punjab and Village of the Angels are fantastic episodes of the show, period. The VFX crew tried - the first episode of the run looked great, the title sequence was fantastic and the effects in that final season were outstanding. The actors tried - Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill and Bradley Walsh were high points of this series, while I felt like Tosin Cole got totally shafted. And fuckin Sasha Dhawan? Seriously? Dude owned.

And I liked the approach that the show was taking after the overly self-serious and self-aggrandizing vibe of Moffat's run. I thought searching for the TARDIS was a fun little arc to start the run. I liked the whole "ancient pre-Time Lord alien races" thing that Chibnall does, even in The Power of Three (despite that villain sucking). The security drone Daleks were lightyears better than the New Paradigm Daleks. The Doctor felt like she was sharing the experience with her companions, instead of portraying herself in this loud, egomaniacal way where she has to assert how awesome she is. But the run STILL fell below expectations.

And the worst part is that because the run was so heavily politicised and so much of the hate came in the form of review-bombing and ideological "culture war" horseshit, it was next to impossible to have a productive conversation about Chibnall's run for ages. It's like the right-wing shitheads who poisoned the well with The Last of Us Part II; I couldn't have a productive conversation about that game for years because the haters were doing shit like analysing in-game cafeteria menus and using them to disprove the possibility of a buff woman in a zombie apocalypse, despite thinking the game was like a low-range 7/10 at worst.

So much of the backlash was ideological and political that people would rather blame a shitty episode on the fact that the Doctor transformed into a woman than the fact that it felt like a rejected SyFy Original Movie script with a single rubber costume.

It's just so disappointing in hindsight. At least they broached the topic of Thasmin with some tact, even if they didn't go through with it. Honestly, I stan Yaz forever.

[adultswim2021]

The Venture Bros. #35: “What Goes Down, Must Come Up” | July 13, 2008 - 11:30PM | S03E07

I throw this episode in with what I consider a slump for the show, but this one has a lot going for it. Jackson Publick calls this a “kitchen sink” episode, which Doc Hammer balks at in the blu-ray commentary track. What he means by this is that he cobbled together a story out of disparate ideas from his notebook of ideas. Most of these ideas are based on references. We have an Ant-man, a Hal-9000, and various characters cut from a VH1 Classic cloth all populating this episode. 

Both Rusty and Brock wind up getting trapped underneath the Venture Industries compound during a mishap trying to remove the Venture Industries drillship out of storage. Rusty winds up in some underground tunnels, menaced by a shadowy figure (later revealed to be a guy who resembles the guy from the Firestarter video). Brock winds up locked in some kind of control center, where he encounters a shrunk-down man who’s apparently been down there for decades. He’s the result of an experiment by the Sr. Jonas Venture and forgotten about before his untimely death. 

Meanwhile, Hank and Dean enlist Orpheus who enlists the rest of the Order of the Triad to help find Doc and Brock. While on the hunt, Orpheus feels an evil presence. This turns out to be MUTHER, the aforementioned Hal-9000 of the episode. She was created both as an personified operating system for the fallout shelter under the compound and also as a potential mother-figure for Rusty in case World War 3 breaks out and they have to move underground. Jonas also left behind copies of his video education modules he made just for Rusty, educating him on various aspects of hygiene and how to put on a condom. Jonas was a real “kids need both parents” bumper sticker kinda guy, I guess. 

MUTHER had gone self-aware and was taken offline after an incident in which she spitefully pumped a toxic amount of mood-altering gas into the tunnels. Team Venture and a visiting tourgroup of orphaned children are among those effected. Jonas helps Team Venture out of there, but they callously leave the orphans behind.

Their brains permanently poisoned by trip-out gas, the orphans wind up developing a cult based around the video modules left behind by Jonas, believing him to be a god-like “father”, whom they worship. They also, as laboriously explained in a post-credit scene, receive VH1 Classic, which explains why they’ve each taken on the dress and manners of various 80s and 90s pop stars. This is why Rusty is eventually kidnapped by the Art of Noise and the little girl who yells “HEY!” from their one video. I remember the first time I saw this, I lost my mind. What a reference!

The good news is, MUTHER has been taken offline. The bad news is, one of the boys plugs her back in. She demands to see Jonas, and to show that she’s serious she threatens to deploy a nuclear warhead. Meanwhile, Rusty is ironically deemed a non-Rusty by the cult, who all call themselves Rusty because the Jonas Ventures edu-tapes address “Rusty” directly.

The real Rusty pulls the video out of their machine attempting to intimidate them. This doesn't work, so he has to flee from their wrath by hiding in the missile silo just as MUTHER's bomb is about to be launched. He clutches the nosecone of the missile, which does not actually launch successfully. It teeters over, and the warhead pops off, spilling sewage everywhere. Turns out the cult were storing their waste in there. In a post-credits scene, we see Brock set up a monitor in front of MUTHER with one of Jonas’s video modules playing. She thinks he’s the real deal and awkwardly interacts with it.

The story is pretty solid in this one, but it still feels slightly overstuffed. The Antman guy feels tacked on. This episode suffers a loss: a scene featuring H. Jon Benjamin as the master, who is now in the form of Doug Henning. Apparently that character model was used in the VH1 Classic Cult crowd scene without Jackson or Doc’s approval. The deleted scene is on the DVD, and like most of the deleted scenes it was deleted before animation was done. This was also done before they recorded the radio play for the episode, so Jackson is doing a scratch-track that sounds like he’s doing a Pete White voice. 

I don’t think this is one of the best episodes, but I do think it’s pretty good, and has some really inspired moments. A lot of season three episodes feel like the humor is an afterthought. The jokes in this one are good enough for me to not think that about this one. But this being a high-point in season three says more about season three than it does about this episode.

[rabbitindisguise]

I spent today learning about animals on youtube, and here's my fun facts for the day :D

snakes are mostly spine and have very little tails (snakes are about 80% spine and maybe 10% tail and 10% head)

chickens are dinosaurs, and therefore reptiles, which is way better known lately but more importantly they're also most closely related to crocodiles and if you watch them you can see they blink very similarly

there are snakes that can growl (???)

snakes are mostly spine because they use their ribs to move around (!!!)

this isn't a snake fact I learned today, but when I held one last weekend I was really surprised that they were cold and felt like very buff snake skin handbags (I think I though that maybe skins would feel different than the animal because leather feels different? also now I want to use one as a icepack for my head when I have a bad migraine)

hognose snakes are like dartfrogs where they're full of the poison from their prey which dissuades predators from eating them

there are snakes that can get over 28 feet long and still can't eat a person because of the way their jaws work (they don't actually unhinge, they just don't meet in the middle because they don't have a chin which is way less intense than praying mantises)

jumping spiders are actually super common and live in most parts of the world (excluding Antarctica because of Reasons) and you might even be able to find one nearby to keep as a pet for free if you want

there's something called a blue death feigning beetle and since they live in the desert they have a waxy coating to retain moisture, but they're actually black they just look blue (which you can see when their waxy coating rubs off sometimes when walking or touching things)

fireflies are actually beetles, not flies, and velvet ants are wasps not ants

the horned lizards that people might have heard of from people like Steve Irwin that shoot blood out of their eye likely use it to fool predators who are hunting via scent (which might be obvious but I thought it was really cool!)

[full-course-identity]

I already tried to say this (somewhat successfully) on Twitter a few months ago, but one particular post here (that I don’t even necessarily disagree w/) keeps popping up on my dash & I really wanna comment on it but I also reaaally don’t wanna start an argument on accident, so uh, here goes -

To preface this: like everyone else, I don’t… love the ant’s attempt to colonize contort DD:DNE into something they’re “Allowed To Access” (it’s esp cool when they use the tag themselves while still, y’know, actively hunting DD:DNE creators for sport); I think their conflation of DD:DNE w/ [mild darkfic you feel shame reading &/or writing, yet still try to self-justify by making sure the bad guys aren’t sexy or w/e (unlike those EEEVIL PROSHI’S)] is contradictory to the entire Goddamn point of the tag, & I really wish the root-rot of moral panic didn’t have to poison & permeate every good thing within modern fandom.

… but maybe we don’t need to reject every aspect of current-day “DD:DNE” communities?

This is still kinda hard for me to formulate for some reason, but like — I’ve been using DD:DNE (both as a tag on my own work, & as a loose “genre” to browse on AO3) for many, many years now, & “in order to use DD:DNE correctly, every single aspect of it must be properly tagged & warned of in advance” is only true if what you Actually mean is “either tag the content, or give the reader a head’s up about a lack of thorough tagging, that way they can still choose whether to risk a trigger potentially popping up later”.

I know that those statements aren’t that different from each other. In fact, I’m actually pretty sure most people reblogging posts phrased as the former innately agree w/ the latter.

… but “no you LITERALLY need to fine-tooth-comb that shit for every potential kink, trope, reference, etc” is the wording that keeps gaining traction!

oh fucking fuck this fucking post wasn’t supposed to post yet fucking Goddamn tumblr I clicked save draft

Look. I know most people probably understand this. It’s not a groundbreaking take.

But I began second-guessing my understanding of DD:DNE entirely (never an issue prior!) when this rhetoric started gaining traction, so indulge me for a sec:

If you, for w/e reason, don’t like extensive tagging (I prefer going in blind & actively cultivate an audience willing to do the same), then… you don’t have to!

There are alternatives to giving up your full hand, y’all. You can talk about it in the tags, the authors notes, the summaries, etc. — you just need to make damn sure the ambiguous-ness of the risk factor here is clear to potential viewers, bc otherwise, yeah: it defeats the whole point.

[antvnger]

((Actually! Since I mulled around with timelines just a bit, 95% of the arc reactor stuff takes place while Scott is in prison. Technically, the arc reactor was created months before Scott was arrested, and then everything else takes place before Scott’s release. By the time Ant-Man comes into the picture, the arc reactor is only seated in the suits until Tony makes the arc reactor model we see in Infinity War, which I say he made a lot earlier in this AU because he just needed it but that’s another meta headcanon for another time.

And technically, according to the MCU timeline, the arc reactor’s umm…arc actually takes place over the course of 2 years. A quick google search shows the events of IM1 actually are supposed to take place in 2010 and IM3 takes place in 2012. And Scott was incarcerated from June 2012 to June 2015, so I just merged some timelines together.

So short answer, all the arc reactor stuff took place while Scott Stark was in prison, and he found out about the arc reactor and the poison and the surgery long after it all occurred.

See below for how it went down.))

Finding out about all of that was scary for Scott Stark to say the least.

He of course knew about the arc reactor. How could he not since he’s been around Iron Man more than once and has been shown the arc reactor.

The same arc reactor his grandfather first envisioned that sat larger than life in Stark Industries could now fit in the palm of his hand. That was wild.

But what was crazier? Scott learned it all from Cassie.

It was actually when Cassie had swiped his helmet to play with and when she had blue construction paper taped to her shirt and definitely after Scott sent the photo of her to Tony.

“Daddy, did you know that the arc reactor kept Uncle Tony’s heart alive?”

Scott froze, unsure if he heard that correctly. “...what?”

“Uh huh," she replied, unfazed by her dad's sudden shift in demeanor. "When those bad guys took him, his heart got hurt, and the arc reactor kept ‘sharpnal’ from getting into it and hurting it more.”

Hurting it more. Or worse actually. “...what?”

That’s when the phone call happened. At least, as soon as Cassie was out of earshot anyway.

“Tony, why the hell am I learning about you having shrapnel in your heart from my kid instead of you?”

Well shit. Tony had been hoping to protect Scott from that. He knew how the news of his kidnapping threw Scott into such a panicked mess, thanks to Pepper and Maggie, that Tony knew he wouldn’t react well to the truth about why the arc reactor was miniaturized in the first place.

“Had,” Tony corrected gently. “I had shrapnel in my heart, but surgery took care of that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it’s nothing to worry about anymore. It wasn’t anything to worry about before you even got out of prison. The shrapnel, the hole in my chest, the poison, all of that is behind me now and nothing you need to worry about.”

He lost Scott completely at poison. “Poison! They poisoned you too??”

Shit! “Actually it was the Palladium in the arc reactor which was accelerated due to me using the suits–”

That did not help at all. Scott's jaw dropped. “You poisoned yourself?!”

“No! Well I mean not intentionally. I didn’t know though, okay? I didn’t know until it was spreading and I was starting to feel the effects.”

“Until you could feel it killing you, you mean.” Scott’s starting to panic now, temporarily forgetting that this was a past tense discussion of events.

“Scott buddy, listen. I’m fine. The poison is gone and cured, thanks to a little diddy I like to call Badassium which cured the poisoning. Turns out Grandpa Howard actually was some merit to me after all. And the shrapnel is gone, and I’m okay. I’m fine, Scott,” he said slowly, calmly. “Breathe, Scotty, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“You promise you’re okay?”

“I swear on DUM-E I’m fine, and the things you’re panicking about right now aren’t worth your time and effort. It’s okay, Scott. I’m okay.”

Tony’s relieved to hear Scott take deliberately long, slow breaths. “That’s it, Scotty. Atta kid, it’s all good now. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

After a moment of quiet on the other end, he heard a soft, curious voice ask, “Badassium, huh?”

Tony chuckled and nodded. “Next time you come over, I’ve got some pretty impressive holoprojections to show you. It’ll give more depth to the name.” Then after a beat, he asked, “You okay?”

Scott nodded even though Tony couldn’t see it. “Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry I freaked. That was…”

“A lot thrown on you all at once and without warning, yeah I get it. Sorry you found out that way.”

“That’s okay.”

“I just thought–”

“No, no, I get it. Why make me worry about something already said and done, right?”

“Exactly. You sure you’re alright? Anxiety worked out of your system?”

“Yeah yeah, I’m fine now, Tones. I'm good...and I’m really glad you’re still around, ya know.”

Tony smiled softly. “I know. Thanks, Scottster. I’m glad you still let me be around,” he teased gently.

They eventually hung up the phone, and Tony sighed as he looked at the schematics of new arc reactor models.

He really was better than what he was, and he didn’t need the arc reactor to stay alive. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he couldn’t let the arc reactor go completely. Not just for Iron Man but for himself. For whatever reason, he still felt like he needed it.

A whisper. "I'm fine."

[jodilin65]

I'm glad Andy doesn't read my journal because he's always been a bit fragile and I know this would hurt his feelings, but I am definitely not going to be looking in on his wall anymore. Same old stuff. God, Stevie, paintings, God, Stevie, paintings… To each their own, but while the paintings are nice, he can keep his delusions and immature celebrity infatuation that most of us outgrow in our twenties.

Speaking of celebrities, I saw an old movie with Jennifer Lopez in it. She was my kind of hottie back then, famous or not.

I'm a bit tired and I'm not sure if it's because I had bread yesterday to make peanut butter toast with (I got so hungry at the end of my day for some reason and this was a convenient thing to have), because I took melatonin, because I woke up a lot, or all of the above.

The more I think about it and the more research I do, the more I'm convinced I don't have sleep apnea and that my problem is caused by too many years of nasal spray use. It can cause a collapsed septum which I think is responsible for the snoring I've been doing. My throat structure has always been what it is and I've only gained a pound or two since coming here so I can't believe it's connected to my weight. Besides, I'm not that big. I'm kind of stuck in a catch-22 because stopping the spray means my nose is less stuffy and dried out, but the congestion then builds up in my head which causes problems with the eustachian tube in my bad ear, so I'll have to find some other form of decongestant, preferably one that won't leave me drowsy. If I can't figure it out on my own, then I might have to begin the work of trying to get into an ENT.

We found out exactly what's been burrowing at the side of the driveway, and the snake would have been the better deal. Tom noticed more digging activity and I could hear this weird sound coming and going. Well, they’re cicada-killer wasps! He flooded the hole to see what, if anything, might come up and something sure did. When I first saw what seemed like a humongous wasp, my first thought was that it was one of those killer wasps that was invading certain areas of the country and I went to run indoors, not knowing if a million more of them were going to erupt from the ground. In my panic, I fumbled with the lock code.

We immediately got to work researching and learned it's almost certainly cicada-killer wasps which are deadly to cicadas but not humans. Still, hundreds of flying things with stingers is nothing I want to deal with so he's been spraying the ground and today he got a special powder for wasps, ants, and similar insects. It can take a couple of weeks for the eggs to hatch and then another couple of weeks for the new wasps to emerge from the ground, so we're going to be treating it for the next month to make sure they never make it up. He filled in the hole with dirt and it rained which helped pack it in and push the poison down, so more than likely they're already trapped down there. The females don't have stingers so the males fly around the opening to protect it. With any luck the female and the eggs are dead. It should storm again later and help pack it in even more.

We picked out an outdoor bench for in back. I'll listen to music through my headphones on days when the planes fly by every few minutes, which is most days, unfortunately. I want to get about 10 minutes of sun every day that I can. It was $45 and is made of a combination of metal and plastic. It looks like it will also be easy enough to stand on its side if we need to throw it in the storeroom in the event of a cane. Funny how they said this was going to be such an active hurricane season, yet the only serious one we’ve had was Beryl. It’s still a bit early in the season, though.

I also saw a video on how to propagate lucky bamboo, so we’ll see if I have any luck with that.

[survnet]

🎙️ and 🥪 for the ask game!

sorry for the absolute yapfest incoming and also that this is a week late. It took a bit to write all this out. and also irl stuff happened but ykkkk off topic

🥪 (Tell us any random headcanon/s you have!) : okay im doing this one first because. uh. well.

prism is really into model building. she originally only did it for planning and prototypes and such but she realized she enjoyed it so she started to do it in her free time for fun

hivemind vehemently despises every other bug apart from bees. whenever theres an ant/etc infestation he devises the most cruel painful saw trap ass ways to exterminate them and giggles manically when they die.

charlie throws motolov cocktails at birds for fun

solaris likes classical and orchestral music. esp after leaving zoraxis. it reminds her of fabby

zor secretly really likes disney movies. everyone who learns this about them gets executed instantly

anna and solaris used to stargaze together. fabby joined when she wasnt busy (not often.)

🎙️ (What’s your favourite (used or unused) voice line in the games?) : time for the reason this ask took so long to answer! I did NOT listen to the fact that it says voice line singular! god i hope this readmore works

literally all of handlers jokes. theyre so bad but they come from handler so they make me happy

"What was it that turns screws again? A... screw-turner?" and every other time he says smthn snarky... hes so funny he does NOT have time for the agents bs ❗️❗️❗️

all of zors voice messages in friendly skies. esp the birthday one. its your birthday its your birthday dr zorrrrrrr :3. OH and the one from their evil conscious. zor going to a support group is rlly funny i think

"That's a fine airplane, Agent. But don't forget to save the world?" no time for joyous whimsy smh...

"Invalid code! Goodbye!" and honestly literally everything the escape pod says. shes so happy about your imminent death! (also shoutout to her in-game voice actor tiffany. i hope you are still alive 🙏🙏🙏)

"I hate to say I told you so- ...No, wait. I love to say that! I told you so, Agent!" rude as hell...

"It appears Zor's minions have unionized... Good for them!" "Hm... Transmitting it has apparently alerted Zors assassins to your position. Good for them!" good for them<3

"It's fine. I won't reprimand you for destroying a decanter of 16-year-old single malt scotch. It... doesn't bother me." he is so bothered <3

handlers phone message at the beginning of first class. solve my riddle agent☝️☝️☝️

"Ah, the old gun-through-the-mail-slot trick. I used to do that at the office when I was an agent! ...I was asked to stop." "Ah, the old spear-through-the-ceiling trick. Never got a chance to do that one at the office." looney toons ass shit

"Just so you know... I am allergic to bees-" "Just drill that hole!" hivemind needs to be rude more... rude hivemind is my favorite hivemind

"ONE AGENT, EXTRA CRISPY!" this line repeats in my head 24/7 its actually crazy. i dont even particularly like the line its just Stuck in my brain

"The Hivemind is gonna be here! Ha, bees. He's gonna be here in like five minutes!" ha. bees.

all of hiveminds puns. especially "I spy with my little eye something that is, mm... BEES! MWAHAHAHAHA!" he didnt even try with that one its abit funny. i love him

also every other charlie and hivemind line (fork found in kitchen) i just would feel bad abt putting all of them.

all of solaris' lines when the death engine fires. shes objectum idgaf its canon. to me

"You should really enjoy the view instead of staring at that screen so much!" its because youre always on that damn computer

"'You're glowing!' Is normally a compliment. But... not in your case. Get it? Because radiation poisoning? Ha... That's a good one." not funny at all but for some reason i still giggle . i think its bc i love her

solaris' lines where she reads the agents files... teehee..

solaris' calls with zor... 'fineee🙄'

all the lines where handler nerds out abt jj

handlers voice line when hes in the crowd and gets shushed during stage fright.

"Don't raise that curtain before we're ready! I will resort to violence." violence! my favorite! the delivery here is real funny

"Ugh. No, no, that's not a good look for you, love. It's completely wrong for the shape of your face. Maybe if you- Nope, not the time. Back to work!" me when beautiful woman calls me love

"The TOLL! The great CLOCK! DOWN THE HALL!" from jj when you mess up the cue in stage fright... and the other messed up cue lines but that one is the funniest methinks

the voicemails from the interviewer in jet set. something wrong with juniper i think.

"Only the best chefs in the world can prepare that dish safely. Lucky for you, I employ the best chefs! Hehehehehe..." ONLY for the laugh at the end. why is he giggling deviously. hes probably rubbing his hands together evilly too cartoon villain ass

fabbys lines when she leaves her workshop at the beginning of eaves drop

also all of fabbys voice tapes.. esp the 5th and 6th ones

the guards in party crasher. just in general. theyr underrated. esp fred hes silly.

all of junipers lines in party crasher when u send up the wrong stuff. esp "Wine, Gibson. Not plate! Wiiiiine." why is he talking to gibson like a baby gibson is probably twice his age "Sherry, Gibson? Are you joking? Sherry? Really?" u can hear the smile in his voice near the end its kinda cute

of course, the classic "ARE YOU WEARING ONE OF MY MASKS?!" my first ieytd fanart was based on this line so for me its more nostalgic than anything. its still a good line though

"It's me! It's me, I promise! Uh, lets see, your favourite color is, uh... Y'know, you'll just have to trust me on this." he dont know shit abt phoenix...but he still care s for them... killing myself?

every juniper-as-handler line in safe and sound. only time i get the appeal of juniper in an attraction way. Especially "Don't do that, Agent. You might hurt yourself!" hoooly moly. can handler turn evil just so we can have more of him like that

also junipers monologue near the end of safe n sound. esp when you interrupt him...

handler b4 rising phoenix when he calls them by agent phoenix for the first time KILL ME NOW

all of handlers lines during th tutorial in ieytd3. esp the beginning. starts sobbing.

"Let's see... Ah, my to do list today is just... Y'know? I have to... Dust, or something. Always busy!" "Relateable! I dust 3 times a day myself." 1. robutlers delivery is sooooo funny 2. what is wrong with handler

robutlers jokes and handlers reactions to them.. "Hm. I didn't like that one."

"Heh, if I were a mean robot I'd be pretty mad right about now. But I'm nice! I'm nice..." so trustworthy

"Supervisor, remember when you said you couldn't tell us apart because our voices were so darn similar?" "Darn wasn't the word... It was-" the word was FUCKING ❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️or maybe just damn idk

"That... was in someone elses mouth. I need you to know that." "That gum is beyond disgusting. I don't like that, and I'm beginning to not like you." phoenix is insane

"Whenever I fix pipes I usually use a wrench. Sometimes I use my bare hands. ...I prefer the wrench." ...im normal

"Sooner or later we all get lasered. Or something else kills us. One of those two things will happen sooner or later, just you wait and see!" this is factual.

Every interaction prism has with her robots...esp the ones with right robot in blind spot... they make me sob

"I'm in the van in front of you. Don't worry, I only crashed 3 vans when I was a field agent." he cant drive

"Try not to go into the fire, Agent. It's not good for the car." "Fire is deadly when it's all over you." and basically every other time he says obvious shit all matter of factly. like no way... fr...?

"You know what they say! Give a robot a hot dog, feed him for a day. Teach a robot to hot dog... Wait, I messed that up." I think about teach a robot to hot dog every day

Every line from handler during the squid battle in hot water. esp "Hm, probably just... the wind. Underwater wind. Haha. Yes, anyway, grab the- No, there it is again!" he is abit stupid "EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE! The giant squid knows how power generators work!" smart squid:)

ollie. in general. love you ollie

"Fireworks are the pinnacle of undercover operations. Any passerby will simply think we're celebrating." this is true

"This is... not even remotely a wrench." Im trying my best roxana :(

every zor line. all of them. their voices (both from 2 and 3) are so cool it makes every line of theirs a favorite. especially the monologue at the end of kboom hoooly shiiit i got fucking chills when i first heard it...

"Look at those driving gloves! I bet you could drive anything with those, and look good doing it! Even one of those little... cars clowns like to drive. Ha... Even that." u can just tell hes imagining phoenix driving it

"Do you trust that sandwich? Not its quality, more like... Would you tell it a secret?" what the fuck is he talking about

"You look ready to be the life of the party! Now we just need to get you invited to a party... Not my strong suit." hes so me

"I can't say I approve of you wearing any kind of Zoraxis branding on your clothing, but I do approve of you not catching a cold. Care comes first!" eeuueeueueuue he cares abt them. kills myself.

"You're a sight for sore eyes, Agent. My eyes aren't sore, mind you. It's just an expression. Perhaps I should say that you're a sight for perfectly healthy eyes! Just to clear the air of any confusion." my handler autism hc grows more canon every day

"Ah, you're here, Agent! I have a question for you. Here it goes: Which hand is your favorite? That one? Really? No, no, you can't take it back, I feel like I know more about you now." again what the fuck is he talking about

[theboywithburninghands]

The Mood of Plastic Beach

So, this isn’t really a review or anything. Gorillaz have been very beneficial to my mental health lately, so I decided to write about how the two albums I’ve listened to the most make me feel and what imagery the songs conjure up. It’s not like, a ranked list or anything, I don’t really want to say one song is better than another, but I may have more to say about one than the other. Read it if you like, if you don’t, that’s fine too.

1: Orchestral Intro- Beautiful, feels like a pink sunrise over an enormous ocean.

2: Welcome to the World of The Plastic Beach: Chill, synesthesia inducing cadence. Feels like Snoop is gonna tell you a cool story.

3: White Flag: Starts off like you’re on a sailboat in a crystal blue sea, but then you and your friends find a cool, isolated island full of trash and you interact somewhat peacefully with the natives. It’s a new discovery for you.

4: Rhinestone Eyes: Tickles the brain just right, despite invoking imagery of a beach being invaded by the military and nature being poisoned by forces way out of your control. Definitely a song about bad news but it feels so good.

5. Stylo: Feels like a long drive down a neon-lit highway in a constantly chugging city. Bright and colorful but kind of grimy.

6: Superfast Jellyfish: Feels like when you walk into a convenience store or fast food joint at like 9 am and you’re starving, you can smell the cheap food cooking and you want it all. You know it’s bad for you and the environment but you’re hungry goddammit.

7: Empire Ants: It’s weird to explain how this one makes me feel. I used to work a long way away from home and would have to leave early in the morning when it was dark and cold. I’d be cold and unhappy, but eventually I’d fall into this sort of zen when my car would warm up and it’d just be me and some other headlights and a thermos of something warm to drink. That’s what this song feels like.

8: Glitter Freeze: Feels like a digital blizzard you’re running through. Pretty and all, but you gotta keep moving.

9: Some Kind of Nature: Groovy and relaxed, but sort of sad. Kind of like an old guy with depression talking about the sorry state of the world, but he has a really good sense of humor.

10: On Melancholy Hill: A bittersweet and completely genuine love song. Two people that are on and off in love with each other and don’t have the best lives, but stick together anyway. Beautiful.

11: Broken: Feels like you’re out at a beach at night and looking up at the stars and city skyline, and you feel bad, but the sort of introspective kind of bad where you realize everything is messed up but it’s messed up for everyone, not just you.

12: Sweepstakes: You’re in a city and everything is constantly moving and loud. Sort of like Wall Street where everyone is trying to hit it big and is dressed nice and walking fast and you feel out of place.

13: Plastic Beach- Sort of the thesis statement of the album. It’s a beach that’s incredibly polluted, but oddly clean. You feel safe swimming in the water and laying in the sand even if you know there’s trash all over the place, just out of sight.

14: To Binge: You just got really bad or disturbing news, but you have a day at the beach planned. So you go to the beach and you enjoy yourself but every now and then you get a reminder that something awful happened.

15: Cloud of Unknowing: Feels like smoking by yourself on a balcony, or like a clear sky after the world ends. Something happened that has you depressed. So you need a long time to think about it and cry. Things could get better or they could stay bad.

16: Pirate Jet: The world is out of control, there’s new information being chucked in your face every day, and you’re one person. So you live the life you got knowing things aren’t working right, but you need to live too, so you just enjoy what you have. Things are okay. For you, at least.

[turtle-to-eternity]

Day 140 - Tech Terrors

Calories: 1990

Today was interesting. Work had a major issue with some servers that prevented a lot of people from working at all for the first half of the day. Even after things started up again there were plenty of strange issues going on. But still, despite the disruption the day wasn't bad.

Writing for today:

Today's evening felt a bit wasted. I just kind of doomscrolled while keeping a game running in the background, and multiple times I forgot I even had a game running. Still, a good idea to give Minecraft a break.

My dogs have been low-energy lately. I guess it's been getting warmer and they don't care for it. Less snuggly as well, though. I hope neither of them are getting sick.

It's getting very close to time to cut grass again, and by no means am I looking forward to it. I long for the day that I no longer have any grass to cut, ever again. I swear the fire ants have only multiplied after putting out poison. I don't want to use the harsh stuff though, it would be dangerous for the dogs around this neighborhood. Especially my own.

Today I got up a bit late, but couldn't get into work anyway. Things eventually got sorted out, and the day was pretty typical after that. I did feel a good bit frustrated about my indecision this evening though.