#i struggle a lot with allocating time actually

[angelpuns]

HOW DO YOU DO IT!

I'm over here struggling just to finish the gifs for my second panel of my comic, and you're here shoving them out!

I've been working on some of them over the course of a few weeks actually :') I just managed to finish a bunch this weekend since I wasn't really doing much else haha I also had them queued but then I accidentally messed up the queue so it like ;-; posted a bunch at once?

As for Kid Leo though I do 21 panels a page and do each step in the process as like? Idk how to explain it but one day I do lineatt, the next I do color etc so it helps with the workload :3 I've gotten a bit faster with practice + knowing how much I can get done on a certain step and allocating time for it ( coloring takes the longest cause it is so boring and I hate it so I usually spend a couple of days in a row on that )

Animated panels sound really time consuming!!! but also cool asf!!!!

[spooky-holtz]

I'll Be Home For Christmas

Melissa Schemmenti x reader

Genre: fluff (possibly alludes to smut at one point? If you squint?)

Word Count: 2.4k

A/N: I know Christmas was almost two weeks ago but this has been sitting in my drafts for weeks. So enjoy, even if my timing is a little off :)

--------------------

December. Quite easily the best and worst month of the school year. As another calendar year winds down, so do rigorous lesson plans, with most teachers at Abbott choosing to give in to the growing excitement among the students as the holidays draw nearer. 

Less time is spent actually teaching and a lot of allocated lesson time is spent watching movies on huge, outdated TV screens, students gathered around the devices on Eagles rugs that were so generously ‘donated’ by Melissa earlier that year.  

As the month goes on you find yourself spending more time inside your classroom, herding the group of preteens that make up the school choir as successfully as you would herd cats. Needless to say, it’s been a stressful few weeks of carol singing and rehearsals, trying to convince a group of kids that it’s not ‘lame’ or ‘cringe’ to appreciate music the way you do.  

As the resident music teacher at Abbott Elementary, you find it incredibly difficult to get young people inspired in the way you so desperately want them to be, often having to let go of the talent you see among some aspiring young musicians for reasons outside of your control. Though the budget doesn’t stretch to allow much in the way of extracurricular activities, choir practice is the one activity where you have your greatest tool already at your disposal; your voice.  

As much as you adore these kids, getting them to concentrate after a full day of learning is no easy feat, with them often choosing to sit around in groups gossiping or scrolling on Tik Tok rather than join you around the old piano that stands in place of a desk in your classroom, where you sit on your creaky stool, waiting for them to join in with you.  

After a particularly difficult lunchtime choir practice in the middle of December, you find your feet carrying you to the sanctuary you often retreat to during your breaks: the teachers’ lounge. You trudge along the hallway, the heels of your sneakers squeaking slightly against the polished concrete floor as you struggle to find the motivation to get you there, dragging your feet along the floor.  

As your hand wraps around the handle and you pull the door toward you, you’re instantly engulfed with the scent of burnt coffee and the sound of chatter as the little groups that sit around the room carry on their conversations, entirely too distracted to notice the door opening.  

Jim Gardner addresses the room from the small TV that sits on the opposite end, his newscast largely going unnoticed by the audience as they munch on leftovers or pore over today's newspaper. Much like Jim, your entry into the room goes unnoticed save for a pair of emerald eyes that you can’t help but glance toward.  

Melissa is already looking back at you over the rim of her glasses, phone in hand, the slight frown on her features already telling you that she’s noticed the lack of energy you carry. You can’t help but be drawn toward her, almost as if being pulled in by an imaginary force. She’s already pulled the empty chair by her side out by the time you reach her, and you collapse down on to it, sighing heavily, leaning your elbows forward onto the cold surface of the table in front of you for support.  

“Choir practice really that bad today, huh?” she asks, sympathy laced across her face.  

“I swear, these kids are turning me grey even faster,” you groan, bringing your hands up to cradle your forehead, “I mean, seriously, how hard is it to get through ‘Silent Night’ without laughing at the word ‘virgin’?” 

The silence that comes from the redhead is deafening as you turn your head slightly in your hands to catch a glimpse of her expression. Her lips are pursed slightly, and her eyes are a little too focused on your hair, doing everything she can to avoid eye contact; a telltale sign that she’s fighting back a laugh. When she finally reaches enough composure to meet your eye line, she can’t help but snicker.  

The sound makes you take your head out of your hands and throw her the most unimpressed look you can muster, though it’s a halfhearted glare.  

“I’m sorry,” she begins to apologize, “but that word was probably the funniest thing ever when I was that age too. Cut them a little bit of slack.”  

Great, so not only do your students think you’re a ‘nerd’ for making them sing carols but Melissa does too. Because having the woman you have an enormous crush on think that is exactly what you needed to round out your year.  Almost as if she can sense your descent into overthinking, Melissa breaks the silence.  

“Hey, I’m just messing with ya,” she says. She reaches forward, pulling you out of your spiral, and rests her hand on the thigh that sits closest to you, patting gently. “Besides, you’re cute when you’re grumpy.”  

Your eyes dart to hers at the comment and you’re met with a wink. The simple move turns you into putty, melting you to bend to her will. Her hand burns through the material of your slacks where it still lays against your thigh, her thumb rubbing gentle circles in an effort to soothe you. You’re sure your face is matching that same level of heat that radiates from it.  

She smiles back softly before turning back to her phone, leaving her hand resting against the patterned material you wear. The contact grounds you and helps you to think a little more rationally. While she’s distracted on her phone, you reach forward onto the table to grab Melissa’s worn Stanley Tucci mug and steal a swig of the steaming black coffee that sits within. The harsh flavor makes you wince, with you preferring your coffee with milk and an obscene amount of sugar to make it even barely drinkable. The expression you wear causes Melissa to giggle, the redhead having looked up almost knowing that your face would be a picture of extreme disgust.  

As she laughs the hand on your thigh squeezes and she leans into you, the lines around her eyes accentuated by the deep laugh that’s taken over her being. You decide that this is the most beautiful version of Melissa you’ve ever seen. Carefree, happy, and relaxed.  

The moment comes to an abrupt end as Barbara enters the room, both you and Melissa turning to the creaking door as it opens. Her eyes naturally fall to your table, much as your own do when you enter the teachers’ lounge, and her gaze lingers on you before she speaks up, barely giving herself a chance to sit down.  

“Oh sweetheart, you look terrible,” she says, concern laced across her features. She’s not wrong. You know the bags under your eyes are worse than ever, having forgone sleep to choose which Christmas carols are least likely to make a room full of elementary schoolers insult you. You wish you had just chosen to sleep instead because every option you threw at your group of angels ended with nicknames being thrown right back at you.  

“See, I told you that you looked bad,” Melissa says, the playful glint in her eye accompanied with the squeeze of your thigh letting you know she’s kidding.  

“You look like you need this Christmas break,” Barbara adds, “Actually, why don’t you come to the little shindig Melissa and I have here on the last day? Get that break started early for you.”  

It’s worrying how quickly you accept the invitation but Melissa’s hand on your thigh paired with the musky smell of her perfume makes it impossible to decline.  

“Of course, I’ll come! Do I need to bring anything?” You ask.  

“Nothing at all, we’ve got it all covered,” the older teacher replies. “Just bring your dancing shoes.” 

You’ve visibly relaxed at the prospect, which doesn’t go unnoticed by your company. While you’re distracted taking another, albeit smug, sip of Melissa’s coffee, Barbara shoots the redhead a knowing look, quirking her eyebrow as she does so. For a split second, Melissa turns the same shade of red as her hair, caught out by Barb and the confession of a pretty obvious crush she gave a few weeks ago. She quickly manages to regain her composure, hand still resting on your thigh and phone still in hand.  

You would think that a full week later, after hours of Christmas songs later, that you would be sick of carols. But you still find yourself sitting in the teachers’ lounge long after the rest of the faculty has left the building on the final day of school before winter break, with your usual duo and the addition of Mr Johnson. The room is filled with a warmth that doesn’t just come from the school’s subpar heating system, but instead from the situation you find yourself in.  

You feel a slight buzz from the copious amounts of wine you’ve consumed since the end of the school day, your stomach lined with Melissa’s incredible cooking and sweet treats brought in by Barbara. You feel that Mr Johnson is in the same boat as you as he mills around the room, plastic cup filled with what you can only assume is even more wine, swaying by himself to the record that plays from the relic of a radio that sits on one of the many cabinets in the room.  

Your attention is immediately drawn elsewhere when Melissa’s cackle fills the room, her and Barb sharing stories that they’ve no doubt already told each other a few dozen times over the years. You completely miss the anecdote, but you still can’t help a smile from breaking out on your face at the sound of laughter, the noise acting like music to your ears – it’s far better than anything that could possibly be played on that radio right now.  

Almost as if by cue, the pair finish their story and the older of the two decides to rise from her chair, beckoning to you as she does so.  

“Come on, I wanna start to shake my groove thing,” says Barbara, already swaying slightly from the few glasses of wine she’s consumed herself. You raise your eyebrows, incredulous, matching her action and standing from your chair yourself, moving further from the security of the table as a swing version of “Jingle Bell Rock” continues playing. “I need a dance partner and you’re the perfect height so get yourself over here.” 

She doesn’t give you a chance to respond before her hands quickly mold you into shape, moving one of your own to her hip whilst the other grips your open palm.  

“Wow Barb, at least buy a girl a drink first,” you grin as she swats at your shoulder, giggling along herself. The bells on the front of her extremely festive bright red sweater jingle as she does so. The swaying of your ‘dance’ lasts for a mere few seconds before Barbara interrupts it herself.  

“Melissa, I think we may need to swap places,” she says as she glances at where Mr Johnson stands, eyes still closed and nursing his plastic cup of wine. “I have a feeling Mr Johnson may need some assistance.”  

Melissa mumbles her response as she comes nearer to you, seamlessly swapping places with the elder woman. You completely miss the wink that is thrown her way from Barb, eyes still focused on Mr Johnson’s one-man party.  

When you turn your head back to face in front of you, you’re naturally drawn to the bright green eyes that sit slightly below your eyeline. You feel your heart stutter in your chest at the sight, rarely getting to see them this close. It always baffles you how many shades of green, blue and brown come together to create a colour that can only be described as ‘Melissa’. You realize you’ve been staring a little too long when a change of song and her words break you from your thoughts.  

“Come a little closer, you can’t dance properly if you leave enough room for Jesus and the 12 disciples,” she says, her tone playful and smile wide. You can’t help but throw your head back in laughter as her hand snakes from your hip to the small of your back to bring you in closer. There's no mistaking who is leading who.  

When you bring your head back Melissa is considerably closer than before. She’s so close that you can see each individual eyelash under her thick layer of mascara and eyeliner, along with the slightly smudged edge of her lipstick, the deep red of the wine making the colour even richer. The smell of her musky yet floral perfume invades your senses as she looks up toward you. You move your hands from her shoulders to link together behind her neck, her red curls tickling your wrists.  

You can feel every slight movement she makes as Frank Sinatra croons at you both as you sway slightly in place, too scared to move too quickly in case you scare each other. Her thighs almost touch yours and your chests are almost entirely pressed together. You hope she can’t feel your heartbeat; the speed and intensity of it would almost instantly give away your feelings toward her. Her body this close to yours makes your head spin, your mind racing with possibilities of other situations you may find yourself this close to her in.  

You can feel every breath she lets out against your lips, making you aware of how little it would take to connect them with her own. You’re pretty sure she’s noticed too because of the way her eyes keep flicking down to look at them every few seconds. You can feel her hands burning a hole through the material of the shirt against your back. As if she can hear your thoughts, she moves them slightly lower, coming to rest against the waistband of your trousers and dangerously close to your backside. What you wouldn’t give for her to just bite the bullet and slide them into your back pockets to pull you impossibly closer to her.  

“You know, I, uh, never wished you a happy Christmas,” she breaks the tense silence, almost whispering as if anything too loud might startle you. “So Happy Christmas, Hun.”  

She wears a slight smile on her lips, suddenly dropping the hard exterior she always carries to become the softer, more vulnerable version of herself you’ve come to fall madly in love with.  

You can’t help but melt at the sight, your head dropping forward to lean your forehead against hers. She welcomes the move with ease, closing her eyes as you both sway slightly to the music, never moving from your position.  

“Happy Christmas, Mel.” 

[breedbun]

` ` and here he is, the love of my life. ` ` - me, probably.

warnings; none, this is part 1! :)

desc; hi guys!!!! this is self indulgent because it was my birthday at the end of last month so i deserve to write about my favourite icy blue man!! js a sweet preschool teacher reader, who adores children and teaches english, science, and art. kaeya, just dropping klee off.. in turn, wants to put kids in reader!.. i mean, reader did say he liked the idea of having kids. (⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧ too bad y'all gotta wait!! *winky wink*

(edits/notes; 00:59 — 13:59 — 14:17 (i slept) this is inspired by an oc of mine btw i felt like being silly )

These past few weeks, you've been tasked with caring for the "terrorist of Mondstadt" by Acting Grandmaster Jean herself — Klee. As bad as people exaggerated her to be, you knew Klee absolutely loves you, even tolerating the fact you disallow her to bomb random things. You don't know why she loves you so much, but you're obviously not complaining at all, hah..

In the daycare you manage, you tuck Klee in for nap time, and ruffle her fluffy blonde hair gently. You let out a sigh of relief, because finally getting Klee to actually sleep was one hell of a task. Your fingers slide behind your waist, wrapping around the apron knot you tied. You grabbed two loose fabrics sticking out, and pulled on it hard. Once you tightened your apron, it was now time to prepare the snacks for the children once they woke up.. and then the activities, as well as outdoor free play. You've sure got a lot on your plate, but you're the true miracle of this daycare.. you're the only one who can herd every kid under control within minutes.

You sped up, walking past small mattresses with sleepy children, to a few large boxes at the back of the room, grabbing the one on top. Spinning on your heel, you struggled slightly to maintain both balance and speed as you rushed out the nap room. Closing the door with your foot, you then speed-walked to the many colourful tables and chairs with scribbles here and there. Opening the box, you start distributing all the snacks, and you can hear a few of your colleagues behind you scurrying over, attempting to aid you.

Everything took a while to prepare, but within nap time, you thankfully had at least 15 minutes left to relax. Usually it'd be 5 minutes or less, but you've got more hands today due to the new interns. Of course, you sat down in a short chair as you reached for your already half empty water bottle.

Though there were a few hiccups throughout the rest of the afternoon till the evening, you made it through the day with happy children and happy parents as always! You personally escorted Klee to the unlocked childproof gate, told her to grab her bag and stuff from her allocated tray. While you waited for her to pack some things, you glanced over at the parents in curiosity. Besides the loud giggling and chattering currently filling the room, you find a strangely familiar figure standing not so far from you. Blue hair, eye patch, tanned skin.. Right! That's Kaeya, the Calvary Captain. He had quite the reputation, both good and bad.. though, you've worked with him during your previous job, and you briefly know what type of person he is. Your thoughts are interrupted by Klee's tackle against your legs, and you nearly fall over, if not for the counter you held onto beside. You simply place your free hand on Klee's head, laughing as you try to find balance.

"Klee, is that your uncle Kaeya?" You speak endearingly, as you look up from her and up to that blue-haired man. Kaeya seemed to make eye contact with you, and you look away for the sake of your dignity. Sure, he was handsome, but you don't think he's into guys.. He's pretty popular among the ladies, too.

Klee ran over to Kaeya, babbling about her day while you follow behind slowly. Kaeya seemed almost surprised, but he had a smile on his face as he knelt down to listen to Klee with full attention on her. His gaze shifted to you every so often, you could tell, but you quietly walked away and hid yourself behind the counter. He watches you momentarily, before Klee starts dragging him away. Kaeya finally takes his eyes off you, and his mind swirls with you while he attempts to keep his mind on bringing Kee home.

What a strange man, what a charming man. Blue hair, an eye patch, and pretty eyes. You swore you saw a vision too.

@breedbun • kaeya's no.1 fan+husband fr

[lil-vibes]

Hi! Sorry for notification spamming you but wanted to tell you that your TROD tags made me lol, I LOVE your art so much and I’m interested in your AU too. Anyway, love your blog!

P.S. maybe I missed it but you said somewhere that your Narinder was pretty messed up for a few years post revival. Could you give some more details on that? Did he try to hurt them? Who had to take care of him, the lamb? What’s been the downstream effects? Basically, how is this cat still messed up lol.

dont be! everytime i get a notification i go yuppiee!!! im glad you enjoy my art :DD

okay okay its prime yap time under the cut oof i love my fucked up cat sm

Lambert, mainly, took care of him! They made sure that every comfort he needed was provided and were worried out of their mind the entire time. Their disciples helped watch over Narinder when he was unconscious, just so he wouldn't bolt the moment he awoke, and Witness Allocer stitched some of his wound and prepared a special painkiller blend for him. (in my au the high priests, aka the mini bosses, and the witnesses were very close to the bishops! Allocer made the same painkillers for Shamura as well.)

Okay so obviously his wrists and ankles were pretty fucked up from being chained for a thousand years and he's got a lot of internal damage as well bc some of the chains went through him (og Stychu hc that I adopted bc it's so good). Also just general wounds from the final fight and the unfathomable pain of shrinking down from his godly form.

Upon being spared, he did attack them in a post battle adrenaline and hate fueled delirium, right on the indoctrination stone and not only broke his arm (bc he put too much weight on it), but probably gave himself a heavy concussions by slamming his head on said stone seconds after the break happened lmao. After waking up in,,, just a Haze of agony he tried to get up and run away bc he was scared that the lamb would just keep him existing in this special Purgatory and shattered his opposite calf so there's that as well. Unlucky tbh

He bleeds like,,, constantly. All of the time, for literal years on end. From his eyes mostly, but also nose and ears and he throws up ichor a lot in the beginning as well bc his body is adjusting rapidly to being smaller and there's just No Space for the ichor to go, other than out. He’s constantly exhausted and spends a lot of time sleeping, and is very frail physically, if snapping two bones by simply putting weight on them didn't make it obvious enough lol

All and all not a great shape to be in, but! His wounds aren't actually what caused him to be bedridden for so long. It was the fact that he no longer saw himself as a god while still being one and suffering injuries befitting of one!

His body/the Red Crown isn't healing him as much as it’s literally regenerating parts of itself while he suffers everything that comes with that, alongside being out of the Veil/Gateway for the first time in forever and emotionally dealing with the deaths of his acolytes and the supposed betrayal of the one he allowed himself to trust after his family. In fact, Narinder barely heals at all for a while bc he was just mentally stopping the process. And also unconscious for a lot of it.

The other big reason is that god hearts are a great power source, but his heart has been in Lambert's chest since Silk Cradle. So he is Struggling ™ but he’d actually rather die than take his heart back he’s a simp like that smh

After he inevitably breaks and he and Lambert finally talk, he gradually starts seeing himself as a person again and his healing process gets easier. He still has chronic pain for his joints but eventually everything else heals alright :3

On a side note, his siblings bleed excessively and are disoriented for the first couple of days but are ultimately fine within the week. They are kind of horrified to learn that their brother is STILL struggling with the side effects of his imprisonment

[marzipanandminutiae]

Hello I was just wondering if you've seen Imani Barbarin talk about not voting (https://x.com/imani_barbarin/status/1747723080917492020?s=46&t=55h0eHrgY7FtQI8ej54maw)? I saw you reblog the post about "not waiting for the morally pure candidate" and I think that's a willful misrepresentation of what Gen Z is feeling

We've not seen Biden address ANY of the things the post claims (climate change is the only one I remember without scrolling back) but we have seen him approve more oil licenses than trump, drop more bombs than trump, support a genocide, abandon disabled people and any Covid mitigations during the second highest surge since the start of the pandemic (with less testing so odds are things r even worse than we can tell), bring back student debt, etc etc

As a Gen Z'r, I genuinely want to understand how y'all can believe "no vote is a vote for fascism" when both candidates are horrendous? Why is the onus on us and not the politicians to do better instead of pointing fingers and saying "at least we're better than Trump" when that is categorically untrue?

I'm sorry if this is too rant-y I'm just so furious and frustrated with my perception of older voters' complacency with being given utter shit instead of organizing for better

I am trying very hard to be reasoned and understanding about this- bearing in mind that we want the same things in the end and I'mnot jazzed for Biden either -when it's extremely, EXTREMELY obvious to me that Trump is worse.

Like.

If he gets elected there might not be another election. The man was theoretically willing to use military force to quell protests if he lost the 2020 election (why he didn't, I don't know; but I'm not willing to give him that chance a second time).

Trump has called himself a dictator, proudly, in the same breath as saying "we're closing the border and we're drilling, drilling, drilling." Biden does NOT remotely have a perfect record on either of those things- he was locked into some construction of the border wall by how the funds had already been allocated by Congress during the Trump administration, but not everything he's done in relation to it, which also pisses me off. As for the oil thing, it's a bit more complicated than it seems on the surface: not as simple as "he doesn't actually care about the environment" even as it's definitely not a good move or in line with his stated climate goals.

As for those climate goals, I found this interesting article that rates key areas of climate action and how they've fared during the Biden administration. It was updated in January, and it is not sycophantically uncritical across the board. But that is LEAGUES more progress than we'd get under a system of "drilling, drilling, drilling" with absolutely no concessions to the climate crisis at all.

His handling of the situation in Palestine...yeah, I struggle with that, too. I know he's been trying to talk their leaders down, to some degree, but it's not nearly enough to me. And I STRONGLY disagree with us selling them weapons. However, Trump's statements on the matter- calling for a ban on Gazan refugees in the US, calling pro-Palestinian protestors "barbarians," and saying he'd revoke the student visa of anyone he deemed "anti-American" -makes me believe that letting him get into power is not something my conscience would allow, vis a vis the fate of the Palestinian people. Because it would be exponentially worse.

I also think the material good that has happened under the Biden administration has been...MASSIVELY under-publicized. Because like. He HAS addressed things. Lots of things, in fact.

this article from last year was too early to include pardoning thousands of people federally convicted of simple marijuana possession (again, not perfect, but still very good), setting new rules to limit methane emissions, capping prices for at least some major insulin producers, partial student loan debt forgiveness (tried to do more, but got hamstrung by Republicans), cancelling oil leases granted by Trump in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (not enough given the leases HE granted, but it's not nothing either), and much more I'm sure I'm overlooking. Because, again, nobody's been talking about it. It sells more news subscriptions to feed readers an endless stream of what Biden is doing wrong- which I am not denying! -leaving people with the dangerous impression that both sides are the same. Republicans would not have done any of this. That's just the truth of the matter.

Look, I would like a better option, too. I would love to actually LIKE a presidential candidate in my lifetime. I'd love one who wouldn't make concessions to the interests of selfish, heartless people with ledgers where their sense of human compassion should be. I just don't see that person coming to power between now and November.

And I'll take someone who is Standard US Politician Slimy but at least makes some improvements (unfortunately, I doubt there's anyone with a chance of winning in less than a year who doesn't support Israel to some degree, since this country have a long history of that) over someone who might actually stage a right-wing military coup, and who would kill me and other marginalized people himself if he thought it would get him more fame and fortune.

Some people say their conscience won't let them vote Biden. I can't tell them what to do. But if he gets the Democratic nomination, my conscience wouldn't let me do anything else.

[homestuckreplay]

kill them with bladekindness

(page 575-586)

9/3/2009 Wheel Spin: Parent Bad :( Verdict: It’s The Background Texture

9/4/2009 Wheel Spin: Long Pesterlog Verdict: Dave Should Pester John About This

Not much actually happens in these pages, just picking things up and putting them down, so I re-read all Dave’s POV sections so far to experience his uninterrupted slow descent into puppet madness. And it was actually very enlightening and is probably a good way of re-reading for character development/analysis now that character switches are happening so regularly.

But today I was just trying to figure out how the fuck hash map works.

Dave brags to John a couple times about being a super hardcore genius sylladex user, and he’s exaggerating, but not totally lying. As well as already having his strife specibus allocated, on p.576 he does a smooth box catch after seeing the fireworks ejected out the corner of his eye, and on p.579 he shows off by intentionally ejecting and then dodging about ten shurikens. Even though there’s way easier ways he could have accomplished that – such as GENTLY GATHERING (5) the shurikens to free up card 5, then taking the box.

Except, it makes sense if we assume Dave is practicing. In the past we’ve seen Dave mess with his sylladex in his room and in the bathroom, but this is the first time he’s used it in the public areas of the house – and with the Dude Dodge and demonstrations of using different words for the same item and dealing with collisions, it’s almost like he’s putting on a performance. On p.386, he tells John: ‘you should look into weaponizing your sylladex. my bro is always getting on my case about it but man its not as easy as it sounds.’

We’ve now learned that Dave’s bro stocks the kitchen with weapons, which could be there specifically for sylladex practice. Dave’s bro, who it’s been implied also uses hash map, could have been practicing the shuriken-dodge maneuver for years, to use if he ever gets into a real fight. (Or is there a league? Is sylladex usage a sport and Dave’s bro is like a former high school football player who’s trying to train up a younger family member to relive their glory days)?

These kitchen violence pages pair well with Dave reading the Midnight Crew on p.329-331. ‘A familiar feeling stirs. That feeling is overwhelming, soul-blackening rage. It's the sort of rage that'll make a man feel totally justified in sporting an unnecessarily elaborate assortment of fancy blades’ is a line referring to Spades Slick, but Dave lives with a man who sports an unnecessarily elaborate assortment of fancy blades, so I wonder what soul-blackening rage Bro is feeling and why. It makes me think about how a hyperviolent character in a piece of media can be very fun and likeable, but that same trait in a real person, especially one you live with, is terrifying, and certainly gets different reactions from Dave.

Page 585 shows some different options for hash map point scoring, and I wonder which is most user friendly. Scrabble points is fun, but only helpful if you’ve memorized the Scrabble score system. 2-point consonants and 1-point vowels, which Dave has been using, is pretty easy to calculate numbers for, but certain cards seem like they come up a lot more than others. A short, 3-5 letter word will probably occupy cards 5 through 9, and it gets harder to fill up those low numbered cards when calculating in a hurry. The system where A=1, B=2, C=3, etc, probably solves that issue, but involves working with much bigger numbers, which (if playing TTRPGs has taught me anything) lots of people struggle with. A good hash map needs to be easy to calculate and leave items naturally well distributed among cards.

The most effective hash map, I think, wouldn't depend on function but would have a standard set of 20-30 items that you regularly captchalogue and know the values for, along with ways of retrieving them. So when leaving the house, I could have my KEYS in card 6 and use them to OPEN the front door, plus my WALLET in card 0 to EXCHANGE MONEY for goods and services, but when I go home I can switch them out for a BAKING TRAY (6) that I could use to COOK dinner, and a LAPTOP (0) to easily BROWSE the internet. (If I wanted to leave the house with my laptop, I could captchalogue it as a PORTABLE DEVICE (2) for SURFING THE WEB). Getting to know these items really well, and the ways they might be used as weapons, would probably be way easier than just figuring it out as you go.

Of course, when losing a sylladex battle, you can just hit that eject button for a near guaranteed win. It’s possible this counts as a forfeit or is just bad conduct, but with a sylladex full of shurikens it might just be worth it. ‘detect collisions,’ in this context, feels like using training wheels on a bike or those railings over the bowling lane gutters. You should do it to learn, but some assholes will look down on it, and it’s totally not allowed in competitions.

I also noted on this reread how it’s very common for Dave to have the tiny flashing exclamation point above his head when he gets a sudden shock. This might have happened once or twice with John or Rose, I’d need to reread more to check, but it’s definitely a lot more common with Dave. He could be easily startled, it could be an artistic way of showing his emotion when he wouldn’t show it on his face like other characters do, or this could be where Dave stores his unused exclamation points that he’s too cool to put in chat messages.

Finally. I love the bit on p.581 when the picture of Sweet Bro or Hella Jeff gets knocked off the fridge and slowly floats to the floor.

[quendiviner]

what's the universe of cynosure like?? the involved corporations etc, what do they do / what are they famous for, what's the level of technology like, how would you describe the universe's aesthetics? 👀

OUGHHH THANK U FOR ASKING HEHE <3

Cynosure happens in late 2200's and obviously the world has. well. changed a lot! But not that much and they even still have like, actual phones and some even still use wire headphones.

I think I said something about it being a soft scifi story with cyberpunk-ish vibes which kinda explains it? Well. The technology isn't that much different than ours due to some big problems Earth had to deal with first before getting back to making consumers suffer fulfilling individuals' needs. They have more cleaner energy now, and space travel, and stuff like that, yay! But the state of society has also started to go in a not-that-good direction, causing inequality to rise again little by little, while the power struggles have also caused the corporations to gain more control over what's happening in society and politics, which also makes them (maybe a bit too violent) rivals.

This turned out very...um...long. So I divided it into parts that are

Technology (+ side tracking to societal reasons)

What to expect if you were to live there

State of society in late 2200's

State of society in late 2200's but this time it's about corporations

Happy reading 🤍

Technology

Since I mentioned phones and all, I should probably start with technology JFBNGBFBFJFN UM. It has developed a lot, but the technical development (especially during mid 2000's - late 2100's period) have largely been concentrating on things that are more community/society related than on individual consumer items like phones and shit like that. One of the biggest breakthroughs was finding a specific mineral in space that functions like an extremely big solar panel and has thus advanced the clean energy sector. No one wants another climate catastrophe hahaha. ough.

The phone network is now everywhere, so there won't be a "oh no there's no signal in these woods" moments. or will there. and why is it so necessary anyway, hm 🤨 Public transport is thriving but so are the cars and bikes for some reason. Bikes and electric scooters have obligatory sound they make so people will get less driven over by them and vehicles will be less prone to not notice them and drive over them. No flying cars for consumers but ppl like paramedics and firefighters have helicopter-car combos that are 1) quick and 2) capable of carrying tons of stuff.

Another thing they've learned is quick space travel. Earth has many colonies in different parts of space, though some are actually ex-colonies (like Mars). This doesn't really show back on Earth in any way other than "hey my friend's friend's uncle's cousin's etc moved to x planet". Many people seem to want to move away bc there's this idea on Earth that the colonies are doing much better (they're not in most cases). People moving back to Earth is very rare and is viewed as, well, very weird.

Now, you may wonder why did I phrase the network part like that. Well! Like I kinda mentioned, there was a climate catastrophe. While people did manage to get to safety (some also just moved to the first colonies on other planets, either bc they wanted to or. well. bc they were chosen to 😬) and survive, what followed was chaos because of all the danger and new things that everything started bubbling over. Tons of crises at different parts of the world, and the inequality going sky high. A united planetary board was created, which then managed to allocate resources in a way that would calm the population and solve the problems. They made sure that from now on the budgets corporations and institutions get for their research will be based on how important their idea/innovation could be for the people, which then led to actually rebuilding the whole Earth society into something more united and more healthy.

One of the other things said board decided on, though, is the surveillance. Every person has a little device in a wrist (of non-dominant hand), containing their personal information, ability to pay, and also working as a small data disk. Peiple can choose what info they want to make public (for example, name and pronouns and stuff line that), and also share files with each other. While most opt to use their phones/tablets/laptops etc to confirm payment or see the data they have, later on people developed a modification that allows a small hologram of "screen view" to appear after a specific finger tap sequence. A small minority even manages to do their work stuff somehow... ANYWAY where was I. Right. That sounds somewhat easy, right? Yeah, well. The thing is, whenever you walk into some public building, the scanners at the door scan the device to identify who's inside or who left. It can also, in some situations (legally) be used to pinpoint a person's location when they, say, break a leg on a forest walk. I say legally bc while that was originally the idea, by the time Cynosure happens things are a bit different. :))

As for individual, consumer use related tech, companies started to pay attention to developing it again starting mid 2100's when things got much better again. Personal devices like computers and phones were made more durable due to the directives the Board had set, and also started to have even more powerful processors/graphics and larger amount pf data storage. Of course, most of these upgrades hit the markets much later after the institutions & corporations had them for years, partly bc solving world problems requires devices more stronger and powerful...

Cybernetics are not popular, but aren't rare either. They're expensive as hell and are mostly available through needs based programs (in which situation the government pays for the most of it). Most are health related, and other popular ones are more like devices that monitor person's health and medicine use etc. Health influencers are also big fans of these.

Later on (~early 2200's) some big corporations started to offer some special cybernetic implants for their workers, like hormone and medicine controllers to be more productive. Or things that will give advantages in *looks at notes* violent work encounters. Those are mostly offered to people who work a lot with other corporations or who have a higher risk of getting assasinated.

Unlike cybernetics, what actually are popular are new solutions to change certain parts of one's looks, like hair color, eye color and height (this one requires expensive cybernetic implants though :/). You can now have pink hair without going to the hairdresser every month.

Other things still seem almost same as nowadays, though there is more "smart" tech available. As in, the "your fridge knows you're running out of eggs and you planned to make an omelet for dinner. it has taken its liberty to order new pack of eggs. the grocery shop bot will be there in a moment."

OH THAT REMINDED ME! there are in fact robots and androids in there, most of them also used as some kind of employees. They're usually used at places with possible danger to humans, but some places have also started to use them as waitresses/baristas/customer service, alongside actual human workers. AI is highly regulated and it is illegal to make an actual, human-like intelligence paired with a very human-like body. G*ner*tive AI (censoring simply bc i don't want this to show up in search 🤪) is mostly forbidden, not counting occassional smarter chatbots.

There's also fun plasma guns and specific non-lethal weapons. People find a way how to make them lethal though.

What to expect if you were to live there

There are some things that are better! All education is now free (unless you want to/your parents make you go to some fancy university that thinks it's hotter than others) to make sure that people will have a lot of knowledge to have better chances at getting by in their life. The Earth Board has also made a directive of universal social security, additionally with some special needs based benefits. Cities/towns are walkable and mostly connected by public transport. Cities also tend to sprawl into big areas to make sure there aren't too many people living in the same area. There's also lots of parks and many trees and plants planted in the middle of the streets.

Despite the social security and knowledge, there's still inequality, and it started growing even more since early 2200's due to the local political power slowly sliding to big corporations. :/ They tend to pay more but also tend to choose people from more prestigious universities and schools, often also having preference on people's earlier careers. That leaves most people to work in smaller corporations or public institutions. While robots or androids do many blue collar jobs, some people also choose to work there, and their salary is very good due to the nature of such jobs.

Farming and overall agriculture has become popular, too, due to tech that makes it even more easier :)

While most of the climate catastrophe problems have been solved, there's no denying that weather has changed and became more extreme. Where Cynosure happens, it is a normal thing to have rainstorms at least twice a month, some very severe and often resulting in people having to stay at home. Summers are hot but quite humid, making them not so bearable. There's no "snowy winter" anymore, and many of those who's lived there since their birth have never seen snow in their life.

Pets are still allowed! But, well. You need to take a course of pet care practices to get a license to do that, mostly to prevent pet abuse, illegal/unethical pet adopting practices and easy spread of animal-borne illnesses.

Schools tend to have additional classes that teach children and teenagers about adult life (to make sure no one ends up not knowing how to do x bc their parents didn't/couldn't teach them etc). Many hobbies are made more accessible, though some parents still find a way to get their children into more expensive ones that require a lot of time and tend to be more professional...

Dealing with officials and bureaucracy has never been easier. Is it the fact that your personal info is always with you or is because customer experience is a number one priority for them? I don't know, man.

Health care is more accessible and doesn't cost a lot, but the "downside" is high progressive taxes. There's still enough money to live well though, most of the times. Big corporations tend to have better health insurances and thus their workers are able to get more higher quality med care than others. Some even have their in-house doctors. Some non-big corporate entities try to fix this by having their union give discounts on those for their members.

People tend to be more liberal about sexual & gender identities, partly because Earth doesn't want people to mass move to Mars bc of its more progressive views. HRT and surgeries are available, some corporate headhunters even try to get some young people come work for them by promising full coverage of those + paid leave for gettting better.

Alcohol and weed are available for sale to people over 18. Nightclubs and bars are popular, some streets being just full of them. Working for a corporation in a stressful environment? They might also prescribe you some other stuff if they think it would help productivity/worker's wellbeing. Public sector workers don't get that due to strong regulations.

Media is a big part of how people spend free time. There's tons of tv shows and movies, comics, books and video games. People also love talking about them. Fast food is also still a thing and all. The food is almost the same too hehe

um nothing more comes to my mind rn so. well. maybe i'll come back or y'all can ask abt something u want to know :]

State of society in late 2200's

Before I go into actual state I need to explain how government works probably? Like I already mentioned there's this United Planetary Board (aka the Board) that's made up of different specialists from different scientific fields who represent their own field for 2 years (chosen by scientists in their field and brings whatever said field comes up with on their own meetings). The Board's idea is to decide on the main points & directions for Earth's development and sometimes make up law directives which is probably the only practical thing they do that ppl should care about.

Then we have national governments that basically function in a night-watchmen state-like way to see that the laws work etc etc. They also make some specific laws sometimes that overrule local governments' decisions.

Local governments are more, well, local, and decide about things of a specific area. Due to their importance and heavy effect on basically whatever is going on in the territory, some big corporations have started getting their own representatives there, and also mayhaps pay the other representatives to support their ideas as well.

Like I mentioned before, despite all the social security/nordic welfare state stuff, inequality is starting to rise again bc some people just want more for themselves and manage to charismatically get into local governments., making social security services poorer and lowering taxes etc etc.

This then shows a bit in the crime rate. Crimes haven't been that visible for a century, but are now resurfacing back to the streets. Gangs and organized crime is also getting more and more foothold and starts to be visible. Some big corporations also tend to (unofficially) support some of them bc they help each other. Homicide rate is still a bit lower, but a somewhat big part of it happens between corporations or in corporations...........

Corporations in 2200's

Remember when in the beginning I said that the Board decided to fund those institutions and corporations that pay attention to Earth problems that need to be solved? Yeah, well. Bad idea in the long run.

This decision led to certain corporations becoming awfully big and power hungry, allowing them to throw their competitors off the market and also become incredible lobbyists.

Most of the big ones specialize in biotechnology, defense, pharma and energy, or a mix of those. There are smaller ones that hang out in such fields, too, but they're not that important. Public institutions also still do research but they're not as popular and often looked down upon as "less important".

Obviously back in mid 2000's the Board also made rules that help people see how exactly does a corporation spend money, but century and a half later most of the transparency has been lost and corporations are back on their secretive path. This also means that things like anonymous whistleblower channels are also often forgotten or not paid attention to in big corporations, or they're just not that anonymous. Lucky ones who manage to contact media to bring something up are often left with ruined career and barely any safety. Corporates have their own "investigations" for a few months if not years, and they mostly end in favor of the corporate or the worker who has more friends there.

I gotta admit I need to work more on corporations bc I only have one (1) planned out a bit. Will probably do some kind of intro for them later hehehe <3

[multiplicity-positivity]

hi there! maybe you have some advice for this: how do you convince your system you probably have a physical disability?

im being kind of vague because im not 100% sure but its really exhausting to deal with this. everyone in our system but me and a few others are ignoring the clear signs (of a specific thing i dont wanna name) and i dont know what to do to convince them to AT LEAST look into it and try to get help. its tiring and frustrating to be the only one trying to do anything, especially because i only really front when we're having particularly bad/noticable symptoms.

its just, theyre all treating it like its fine? like its just a joke? when its not? i think everyone is just in denial and doesnt want to aknowledge the possibility of also being physically disabled because theyre worried about "taking away from people who are really disabled" as if we arent.

tldr: system is in denial about us having some sort of physical disability for sure, and i dont have the energy to do ALL the research and such on my own. help?

Hi! This sounds like a lot for one headmate to deal with on your own. We’re sorry to hear that you’re having trouble getting your headmates to take your concerns seriously! There’s a few things we can think of which may be able to help you here.

1. Could you call a system meeting and be up front with them about your suspicions? Often systems have symptom holders, and they may genuinely not be aware of the full extent of y’all’s symptoms because they’re just not experiencing them like you are. So perhaps some clear and blunt communication about what you’re going through and what your thoughts are might get through to them! If there are others who are also taking your concerns seriously, maybe you could try to speak to them beforehand to see if they can have your back during this meeting. You can say that you are not being heard, respected, or taken seriously by your headmates, and tell them how their actions are making you feel!

2. Could you get some outside help? Whether or not you have a loved one who knows about your system, could you voice your concerns about this potential disability to a friend, family member, doctor, therapist, or other trusted person? This way, you become less reliant on your headmates who don’t believe you about this disability and are able to receive some support from someone else. They may be able to help you get in touch with a specialist or someone who could eventually diagnose your system, if diagnosis is something you want!

3. Could you keep a symptom log in a visible place where other headmates can see it? When you’re struggling, record it! Keep track of your symptoms and how they are affecting you. Then perhaps leave that log in a place where you know other headmates may encounter and read it. If you are a symptom holder, they very well may not be aware of the full extent that these problems are affecting you. So leaving a record that clearly expresses your distress and discomfort may help them start to understand what you’re going through.

4. Could you remind them that ignoring a disability doesn’t make it go away? In fact, doing so can cause it to worsen over time. We recognize that you may definitely understand this fact! But it may be worth it to remind your headmates of this at every opportunity. Until they take your concerns seriously enough to get y’all to someone outside your system who can help you, keep reminding them that, if your suspicions are correct and they continue to disrespect you by denying your concerns, the whole collective may face dire consequences in the future.

Also going along with this point ^ one person being disabled doesn’t “take anything away” from other disabled people. If you all have this physical disability, then you are already disabled, whether they want to admit it or not! You won’t be taking away resources allocated for “actually disabled” people by at least looking in to the possibility of having this disability. There’s not a set limit of disabled people who are allowed to exist in the world. ALL disabled people deserve resources and support, even those who are questioning, undiagnosed, or have seemingly “minor” disabilities.

We know that a lot of these choices may end up causing a bit of conflict, but for many systems, conflict is unavoidable. It seems to us like your genuine concerns for the safety of your body and your system aren’t being taken seriously… and we really hope that this will change in the future! We’re going to link our post on handling in-system conflict in case it may help you in any way:

We hope this helps! Again, we’re really sorry you’re going through this. We hope that your fellow system members will be able to start taking your concerns seriously very soon!

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Can’t wait to read your thoughts on Lottie’s book. I just finished it myself and agree that a lot was said, without much new information coming to light. I think the biggest thing the reader found out is just how integral Lou T is in Lottie’s life. All the best Ralph :)

I've read it and have more thoughts than I expected. For now I've divided them into three. First just sort of what she shared and what she didn't.

The things that interested me most say more about me than the book. Learning that Louis advocated for Lou T to be able to work with a baby was fascinating. And I was super curious what it meant that Lottie didn't get paid for working as Lou's assistant (like she'd need to have money and she was going on holiday - was she getting per diems? Was Louis providing everything?).

And in some ways Lottie revealed more than I expected. I was sorry to hear that Sam, her ex from Made in Chelsea, had been emotionally abusive. She was very open about her Dad's alcoholism - something that I think had previously been mostly guessed at. I enjoyed her descriptions of her Mum - and felt it depened my picture of Jay.

But obviously there was lots hidden. She had a falling out with Lou T in 2020, the relationship between her family and Dan Deakin was much messier than she allowed, and obviously lots about what was going on with Fizz was smoothed over. That's just stuff I know - and was all left out reasonably elegantly (I'm sure there's heaps of stuff I don't know about that is also elegantly hidden).

But I also thought it was funny how comfortable she was just not talking about in quite an unelegant way - particularly with her and Lewis getting together. She made a few oblique references to him also experiencing grief - and then at one point said something like "I guess most of you know about what happened" and didn't actually reference it at all.

I was also struck with some of the writing choices and they made me think about the ghostwriting process. There are whole chunks where the book is just 'this is what Sue Ryder says about grief' - they're not interesting or well integrated. There are also aren't a lot of stories and at times the stories there are don't seem well told (there's a story of almost being kidnapped by a taxi driver that really brought this out to me).

It made me think about the ghost writing process. I assume that different projects have different budgets for ghost writers - that basically amount to different amounts of time allocated to do the work. It seems likely to me that anyone who is working as a ghost writer could do a better job of what that section is trying to do (presumably promote Sue Ryder, convey information, and give a larger meaning to the book), but that it would probably take more time.

The third main thing I thought was the way she talked about her body. Which unsurprisingly made me really sad and infuriated, both for Lottie and that it was being put out there in the world. I hate everything about beauty and diet culture and the pressure it puts on women. And I hate even more where a veneer of body positivity and choice is laid on top of this radioactive culture.

The entire last chapter of her book was an advertisement for her new business - a subscription wellness platform, which is very explicitly weight loss equals health.

For me it brings up something I really struggle with - which is how to understand and talk about individual women's role in replicating these structures. My underlying politics are pretty profoundly influenced by what was called the pro-woman line in the 1970s (Carol Hanisch's essay is a good introduction). And while I still believe the underlying analysis that feminism needs to be about collective resistence - not blaming women for how they navigate our society. I've really struggled when thinking about how to understand beauty influencers. I can't quite get behind Jessica DeFino's line about individual disinvestment - even though I'm glad about her interventions.

But I do think what Lottie is doing does a lot of harm in the world - and a subscription service promoting weight loss is quite an explicit further step from being an influencer. It all makes me sad - and wish I had a better idea about how to fight the standards of beauty and the power given to them.

[vro0m]

Seeing how confident McLaren is about their car and their drivers makes me nervous. I saw that Toto extended his contract at Merc through 2026 and it just feels like same sh*t, different toilet. I think Toto should just be satisfied as the owner of the team and step aside and let another TP come in and change the culture at Merc. I think that could potentially attract new engineers that could help with the development of the car.

Lewis is struggling with his qualifying times and George is overconfident. At this point, it's starting to feel like Merc is just not that girl. Why are they starting all over again with their car? I'm fairly new to f1, but I thought it takes years to develop a championship-winning car, yet they're developing a brand new one over the winter? That doesn't feel right to me.

Also, I didn't understand TeamLH bragging about Lewis retaining Monster as his sponsor, when Monster jumped ship from Merc to McLaren. Isn't losing sponsorships a bad thing, since the team is losing money that it would likely use to develop the car that would help Lewis win his 8th WDC? A loss for the team is a loss for Lewis..unless I'm wrong.

I truly hope Merc proves me wrong, but something's gotta give. I just don't have confidence in them.

Do you think that Merc needs a major overhaul or do you think they're going to make progress continuing on the path that they're on?

Okay i was gonna answer this in the morning but i can’t sleep so here we go, sorry if it’s a bit unhinged.

Here’s the thing. In my book, the second rule of F1 is never ever listen to a team principal. (The first rule being, of course, you always, always have to do better than your teammate.) So I’ll believe McLaren’s confidence is warranted when I’ll see it. Hell, I’ll believe they really are confident and it’s not basic 101 PR when I’ll see it. And mind you, Toto seems pretty confident too. (The only thing I’m happy about here is that he also said they’ve been working on their pitstops but due to Rule 2, I’ll also only believe it when I’ll see it.)

They’re starting over with their car because, as you noticed, the past two cars were Not Working. So no real choice here but to get back to square 1 rather than spend a third year trying to make a car that doesn’t work, work. Building a championship-winning car is less a matter of time (I mean especially nowadays with the costcap and windtunnel allocation etc. it’s getting irrelevant), and more a matter of getting it right. RedBull got it right and they won. The problem is : the others need to develop to catch up to them because they didn’t get it as right as RB, and that takes time and resources and is very complicated. And if you have a bad starting point, it’s that much more difficult. Basically there were too many things that needed changing with this car concept anyway. So they’re starting over. But it's also not like they don't have data and experiments from the past two years. They know more about these regs and cars than in 2021. Are they gonna win the ‘24 championship with the W15? No. But they weren’t gonna win by keeping the last, dysfunctional car concept either anyway. At least now they have a chance to develop in the right direction.

I did not read anything about the Monster sponsorship because i really, really don’t care. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I don’t think Monster leaving Mercedes is gonna make a dent in their budget. First of all, there’s a costcap now, so they can’t throw money at a bad car to make it good anyway. Second of all, they have a lot of other sponsors. Third, they’re the second most expensive team in the paddock. And fourth, their parent company is worth 85 billions of dollars. Lewis’ 8th has pretty much nothing to do with Monster or any sponsorship.

To answer your main question : no, I don’t think Merc needs a major overhaul. Given that you’re fairly new to F1 I concede it might not look like it in the current context but changing TPs is actually Not All That. And it generally doesn’t really solve anything. If anything I’m against major overhauls. Imho a stable ground is the best ground to build up on. Toto is... Toto. But he’s not the reason why the car is bad. It’s a whole team. 2’000+ employees. You can’t pinpoint any of the problems they have on one singular person. I mean Ferrari has had 5 different TPs in the last 10 years and that has solved exactly zero of their problems, and they still haven’t won a championship since 2007.

They are making progress. All of them are. It’s just, it’s F1. We’re talking about such tiny tiny differences in performance now, millimeters off of a piece of carbon fiber, milliseconds off of a time sheet. The time the pecking order could be turned upside down from one race to the next has been gone for decades. It’s all about the long game when the differences are so subtle. Even more now that they, again, can’t just throw money and wind tunnels at issues. It’s frustrating when it’s not your driver/team on top but success is mostly cyclical in this sport. Right now it’s RedBull. Next who knows. Merc is just not that girl, at the moment. It is what it is.

ETA : btw I think firing Toto would really throw Lewis off so. Another reason not to imo.

[inkydiamonds]

14 15 21 32

14- What's the fondest memory they have with their friends?

I'll give you two:

Laying on her back, looking up at the stars and long, arching rings with [mystery character], listening to him point out the brightest stars and the constellations they make. She could listen to him talk for forever.

Bright in the morning, hearing the birds chirp their wakeup calls, Sully leads Mal out the second story window and down the earthen path she had lifted from the ground the previous day. Sitting on the dewy grass, Sully opens the pages of a book which she had read through a thousand times before. It was peaceful there, and they might have stayed there for a little longer, if only a distant plume of smoke on the horizon hadn't interrupted them.

15- What's a painful memory they have of their friends?

Unfortunately, there's more of these than the former. What comes to mind is session 8 when she was under Alloces's Suggestion, struggling to move her mouth, trying to tell Mal that she really *doesn't* want to do the ritual while Mal rambles out apologies she doesn't need to give.

21- Are they a physically affectionate friend? With certain people or with everyone?

Ooo, touch is complicated for Sully! If she trusts you, she won't hesitate to grab your hand to take you somewhere, which I've even shown in the campaign. She grabbed Hans away gently in session 2 to split up the party to search for a secret letter (back when she still trusted him- he was actually the party member she trusted the most), and she definitely has done the same with Mal (session 5 during the scene where she showed Mal her prayer book and session 8 when she wanted to talk after the inter-party fight happened). She probably picked up this grabbing-hands-to-lead-you-somewhere move from [mystery character]. Interestingly, Anawrete once grabbed her arm to lead her out of danger and she whipped it away (they bicker a lot. I love them <3). But uhm. Other than hand holding? She is currently pretty adverse to physical touch, but that could potentially change.

32- Which friend would they go to with their darkest secret?

I was hoping this question would be asked! :)

It's a bit complicated, because her darkest secret isn't exactly..... accessible right now. But even if it was, she never told [mystery character], she never told anyone in her Monastery, and she wouldn't tell it to anyone in the party, not even to Mal (though she may tiptoe around the fact). However, as the stakes continue to rise, this secret will definitely not stay buried forever.

Also, there's like the uh burying people alive thing, but that is well known by the Monastery (as well as fucking SILEN. Why was bro there, not once but TWICE-). She immediately reached out to Jenevra when the battle with Ansa was over, and they took care of it from there. ... Sully also has no plans to tell this to Mal. Mal doesn't need to see that side of her.

[rindragon-from-twewy]

Meant to post this on halloween itself but I got busy so what's a single day of lateness?

This is my oc Crystal, I draw her in her 'creepy' clown costume every year are a means to kinda monitor my growth as an artist? She's not really all that silly actually, she's very shy and struggles with elective mutism so her being a clown is intended to be ironic. Its 'creepy' cuz she wears a single black contact lense in the eye she usually keeps covered and likes to spook people with it! She means a lot to me though so I figured I'd share this lil tradition of mine now that I'm "on the internet" for real!

There are parts I really love in this year's version as well as parts I already know where to improve on for next year so I'm super excited to try again in 2025!!!

Last year's version under the cut! <3

Wow look at all that improvement I've done in just 12 months!!! 2023 I was still getting kinda used to using an ipad/procreate to draw but now I'm fully comfortable with it! Plus my skills with anatomy and colouring have both improved significantly! My goal for next year is toooo... maybe allocate some time to doing an actual background! All this void floating- she deserves to be in a scene, I think!

[abubblingcandle]

UK Teachers Strike

As I sit here at home on a Wednesday in term time, I still find myself writing a list of all the work I have to do to even break even with my deadlines for this week. And that is choosing to not do anything to help my non-striking colleagues.

I know a lot of people I know on here aren’t from the UK but please support the Teachers Strikes. 

We are not striking just because we are underpaid. We are underpaid, don’t get me wrong. But we are striking because the government has abandoned us and yet at every turn we are the villains of the story. 

So here is my vent (this turned so much longer than I anticipated) but also to try and bust some myths of what us teachers are going through and why we feel the need to get some change:

“Teachers just work from 9-3 and get 6 weeks off at summer” - No teacher, and I will stand by this, who is doing right by their students can work 9-3. To start off with we have staff meetings before and after school, parents evenings, pastoral care meetings and conversations with parents about their children if their children are struggling which can’t be done while teaching. As a 2nd year teacher I get 7 hours a fortnight of in school prep time. During that time I have to plan 50 lessons, each one adapted for that specific group of students (in my experience each lesson takes about 15-20 mins if it is pre-planned, 45-60 mins if it is from scratch). So just that alone if we assume all these lessons have planned planned last year and can just be adapted it would take me 12.5 hours a fortnight to do this. I also have to deal with problems within my form including observing lessons with them in, talking with support staff about how we can best help them and behaviour/attendance monitoring. That takes up an hour a week on a good week. Then we have marking and data entry. For KS4 classes it can take me 40 mins to mark each paper, for KS3 classes less time but there are more of them. Assuming this is a test fortnight, I have two ish classes in each year for each subject so we’ll say 60 kids x 20 mins per test = 20 hours. So the basics 34.5 hours a fortnight of work that isn’t teaching ... and 7 hours allocated. Then if we assume I get home at 4, go to sleep at 10 to get a full nights sleep that is then 6 hours on an evening, 30 hours from weekdays. To do all the work I need I need to work all hours in a school day and most hours on an evening. But then at least I have weekends free! Then we have the pastoral care. Teachers are people children trust. If you are a good teacher then children will trust you with their problems. So on a lunch time and break time (my time to decompress) I find myself instead being a counsellor helping pupils deal with anger, sadness, discovering who they are, learning how to be teens and the problems that come with that. So most days I don’t get a lunch break and instead have to use my planning time to eat if I have a planning lesson.

“The average wage of a teacher is £48k” - The average wage of all teachers might be £48k but that includes the heads of trusts who get paid over £100k. As a second year teacher I get paid £28,900. With taxes and student loans etc. taken off from it I get a take home pay of just over £1.8k. The average monthly take home pay in the UK is £2.5k. I genuinely almost might not be able to pay my bills this month because of striking one day. 

“Teaching isn’t that hard, parent’s did it fine during lockdown” - Parent maybe taught one child using work that was set by their teachers. That is not comparable. Someone today who is also striking said something that stuck with me “imagine being a hairdresser and every day having to argue with the client that they need to take their hat off to have a haircut”. Parents hate teachers, children hate teachers, but good teachers want what is best for your children. Things children have actually said to me this week:

- “They should get some other teachers in here because you’re shit”

- “This school is shit and so are you”

- “You’re so strict, don’t you have anything better to be doing with your life”

- “Are you actually going to be teaching us something interesting today?”

- “I don’t need to know this so why should I bother listening to you?”

- “You can’t made me do anything, deal with it”

- “Being here is torture, you’re torturing me you know”

All of those ... were for doing my job. Most of those were for either making them open their books to write or the audacity of asking them not to talk over me. 

“Teachers get to strike and have the day off but if I take my kid out of school for a holiday then they are fined for losing vital education time. How is that fair?” - It’s not but it’s not teachers who are punishing that rule. It’s not teachers who benefit. Your child will lose out on valuable teaching time. They will lose out today. But if a strike doesn’t disrupt then what is the point of a strike. Don’t be mad at us. Be mad at the government that is making us do this.

[ten10dou]

Shimokura Megu

This took way too long than expected. There were days were I was drawing very little because of laziness (ᴗ_ ᴗ。) and there were days were I did a lot of things particularly for my work (Christmas parties) and I also didn't allocate time for my morning drawing, I slept. Anyways, I really liked how this ended up despite the obstacles I faced. I struggled with her pose a lot because I find it quite awkward especially with her legs and fuck it I just noticed that I hid the layer that has her shoe lace holes and that I already posted the photo all throughout my social media sites. Fuck. Anyways I'll be more vigilant next time. I'll take this as a learning lesson because it is! I also struggled with her eyes. I noticed that most of the time I actually struggle about it quite a lot. She has so many details in her official art that I tried to incorporate on my version of her that made me take a lot of time but honestly I'm just glad that it turned out really good in my opinion. I still need to study fundamentals and rendering. I'm planning on spending the remaining days of this year focusing on learning more about the fundamentals (Anatomy, Figure and Gesture drawing and rendering particularly hair and clothing folds. I also need to study the eyes and hands) I'm not sure if I'll be posting my studies or keep it private. I'm planning a lot of things actually, things that I don't want to disclose yet hehe. I'm just really glad that I finished a new illustrations and so far I have finished 9 Blue Archive characters. This rewarding feeling for me is intrinsic. Yes I won't lie that I feel good if someone liked, retweeted, commented on or shared my art like anyone does but it's the fact that I started drawing, finished it and posted it online that amazes me. The act of drawing is what makes me feel happy and starting a new illustration is quite exciting now that I think about it, it's hard of course and I still struggle but it's rewarding, you know? Actually what I'm looking forward after every illustrations is journaling about it here in tumblr :D Writing has always been my biggest passion and it shows with how much I just word vomit here every time I'm going to post and illustration. I'll do something that involves in writing soon :D For the meantime I'll hone my drawing skills first through studies and practice ૮₍ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ₎ა

[katieqnmr]

Keeper? I hardly know her…

Apologies. I can’t help but echo the stupid joke that ping-ponged around the set of Keeper…Dumb enough to laugh at every time I heard it. (Wonder whether the folks working on Popper had the same issue…)

I think being a 1st AD on set was a very different viewpoint from any other I’ve had on any set. (Okay I techhhnicallly 1st AD’d Nat’s ‘about that one time’ documentary but I really had no clue what I was doing… I think I booked some kit…(?) (sorry guys) ….

So this was a BIG STEP UP. And a key difference…Ben actually asked me to 1st AD Keeper, I didn’t even think I would be a part of his film!

But Ben ended up explaining his vision for what a good 1st A.D. was…and I kind of felt like I could manage what he was describing. Also, lots of what he wanted was a good attitude, patience and clarity. Things I felt I could manage okay. But…. I could feel the ADHD demon stirring within me at the idea of… organisation(!!!) now… it’s not that I can’t be organised… but I know that I am easily distractable. I mean I actually struggle keeping these blog posts coherent a lot of the time, always wanting to start new thoughts in between old ones, which means I lack a … level of detail. Which I think is quite important as a 1st AD. However Ben assured me I would be fine. And I think generally I was!

^ We had meetings where I arranged the strip board for scheduling (which would inevitably change as days went by and we had to re-assess some things 😃😃)

I also was in charge of call sheets, which I’m afraid to say went out pretty late each night… but in my defense I got home at 11-12 each night..! But I should have had them all ready to go so I could send them out from my phone… lessons learned. The thing is, we changed so many timings each day that any pre-prepared call sheets would become rather irrelevant so I’m not sure what the fix is there.

Also the main difficulty of this shoot: we had for almost all days (pitch days) we had from 19:00-21:30(MAX) to shoot all our footage for the day, as the venue needed us OUT by 22:00, and we had to shoot at black for the shots to all match (and for Ben’s vision). This was a huge challenge for everyone, and Alex and I discussed at one point any alternatives- more shoot days possibly? But with good old British Summer Time approaching and the clocks going forward (yayy!!!) there was bad news… the darkness that we so needed would be another hour gone. Realistically I knew we could get everything shot in the days we had allocated, and we did. But I do feel bad that I had to really be on everyone as though they weren’t being fast enough, when it was actually just the parameters of the shoot.

What did I do right?

I think I was generally keeping to task. If I hadn’t been there, they would have overrun by miles… there were a few times Ben and Alex gave me this face when I told them the time…

I think it just goes so fast! Especially when it’s not your job to keep track of it. So it’s good that I was there, I made a material difference whooooo!! 🥳🥳

I think I also was pretty encouraging to everyone, and was able to call all decisions that needed to be. There was one time on day 3 where we had shifted some times around and basically Ben was hoping we would get way more shots on that day. I had been observing the last few days, felt pretty well acquainted with the patterns of shooting and thought ‘hang on, that’s never going to happen.’ But I didn’t crush Ben’s dreams and we talked about how it might work. I promised we could try his plan, because if it didn’t work out we could shoot what we hadn’t in the next 2 days, and there was plenty of time for them. As the day went on I was becoming increasingly stressed, and I had to pull Ben aside at dinner and tell him that we could not get those shots done. He at first was determined we could, but eventually I think he realised that it wasn’t possible. He very gracefully promised to trust my judgement in the future, and apologised which was really kind. I know it’s not easy at all to cut things from the schedule especially when you’re in a creative mindset. I know in Saint Catherine’s I was always asking for a a bit more time where I could.

Other good things:

I was able to reunite with Monica the 2nd AD!!!^

And a tonne of people on Saint Catherine’s were also on Keeper, so it felt very homely when I was missing the set of Saint Cats.

(Sorry this photo just makes me laugh)^^

Some things I could have done better:

I was pretty distracted (mainly Monica’s chats were pretty enthralling, and sometimes I forgot where I was(!!) but luckily we had so much prep time (arriving on set at 3pm). Constantly hounding them to be ready felt really patronising and uncessesary, so I would check in with them to see their ETA’s but there really wasn’t much I could do besides that. I would remind them of when would be good to start, but basically we were constantly chasing time when 7pm rolled around. It was quite frustrating, I think I wonder what it would be like to AD on a set with less of a shooting time constraint!

I also was not hugely confident, I think I don’t command an air of respect hahaa but the crew and supporting actors/cast were all very good at listening. I also wasn’t hugely keen on running the main meetings because it felt like all the words disappeared from my head as soon as people were looking at me. But I did manage them okay……..

Also the weather did not play nice on the 3rd day particularly (wow that day was hard) - it was raining hard and it was the sort of cold that stopped your fingers from moving. I wanted to make sure all cast and crew were safe and dry (especially those cast/SA’s who were wearing shorts!!) so this meant we lost a lot of time having to usher them in and out constantly for each different shot.

I think overall it was a really fun experience, and I’m really glad Ben trusted me. Everyone was so lovely to work with, and the film was looking (and sounding) beautiful! Even through freezing rain and darkness, everyone’s spirits were up.

Thank you Keeper,

From Katie xxx

[bluebudgie]

random ask and dunno if you said this anywhere else before, but how did Lahpp and Luqqah end up together? How was their relationship?

Lahpp seems the kinda guy who doesn't know where to start with anything romantic and somehow fell into it without knowing why (and why Luq went for him in the first place), and I'm curious to know.

Hi anon!! Glad you ask :> (Edit from Future-Budgie who has answered the ask: Oops this got long! Enjoy, I hope.)

They were assigned to work on the same project together in Thaumanova, a fairly standard asura tale I imagine.

The first time they met was... memorable for Lahpp at the very least. So he's introducing himself in the most proper way imaginable, mentions that he wonders if he hasn't seen her before - they did both go to Statics but considering he's a few years older they never shared classes directly. Still, might have crossed each other at some point.

Now Luqqah's introduction is essentially "Oh. You. I know about you. I looked through your medical records as part of a thesis-" Which, considering Lahpp's been trying his damn hardest to keep his medical history a secret from pretty much everyone at all costs, kinda makes him want to dematerialize on the spot. Until a second later... "Ultimately I decided to study someone else's case, yours was too mundane. Nice to meet you."

And for a moment he's not sure if he should be offended that she has the audacity to imply everything he's struggled with all life long is too mundane but... quite frankly he's just relieved to know she doesn't care. His biggest fear, dismantled right there. Off to a great start!

--

So they start working together in the following weeks, work goes really smooth, communication's spot on, they find out they've got some interests in common (mainly music theory), the chemistry's just right, you know. No pun intended. So they decide to give it a go, why not after all? They're stuck together for a while anyway.

Suboptimal decision, as they'll find out later. Their relationship is... a mixed bag. Platonically they're absolutely on the same wavelength, no issues here. Now the whole romance and intimacy part on the other hand.... ...that's pretty damn miserable. I'll leave the details up to your imagination but let's say there's... not much going on. For a good while they try, talk it over and over, really - Luqqah especially is invested - but it's so, so awkward everytime.

They still have amazing quality time sharing hobbies in the little spare time they've got allocated but unfortunately the longer the Awkward Romance drags on the more it seeps into the rest of their relationship and just... kinda sours the overall experience a little. Apparently not enough for either of them to end it. Perhaps it's the underlying fear of losing a good friend.

--

So they're in this kinda miserable "we would really be off better as friends" relationship for what... 2... 3 years? Luqqah goes having a little affair in the meantime (Inquisitor Dunnh, anyone?), time goes on, and on a fairly mundane but fateful day (that I won't describe in further detail now because this is already getting too long once again) Lahpp finally has the realization that'll free them both: "Oh I'm gay."

At this point he really doesn't wait much longer and just sits Luqqah down to have a talk. He feels like he owes her a quick end now and not waste her time much longer.

And he's so anxious. The generally collected, at this point fairly well-adjusted guy is stammering his soul out of his body dancing around the actual break up. Starting with the all time classic "I promise it's not your fault" and going into long-winded spirals of "you still mean a lot to me, but..." Lots of apologetic blah-blah that's going nowhere. Very unlike him. Anyway, Luqqah decides to gently cut him off with "Just get to the point." Well, turns out he thinks he may be gay. She stares. It's quiet for a moment. She smiles. "Well that explains a lot."

It's still a little awkward for a few weeks after that, but they remain close friends. Their relationship gets better. More relaxed. Oh, and Luqqah does tell Lahpp she cheated on him. He doesn't hold it against her.

And then some time later the reactor blows up and they go completely separate ways. After 10 long years they meet again during the events of End of Dragons in Cantha :>