#i think they're garbage in case that's not clear :3

[kingfakey]

(uses the mug i got from morbid pod as an ash tray to let everyone who sees it know what i think of them)

[gentrychild]

BNHA 407 : AFO is a lying liar who lies

Today is a very sad day because I am about to do something I genuinely dislike: I am about to defend All for One. In order to cope, I shall make fun of him the whole time.

AFO and Yoichi's backstory is finally out, with AFO narrating it, and there are two possibilities: he is either completely lying about it (boring) or he is lying a little about it (very in-character for him) because he is also lying to himself.

Lie number 1: AFO was born evil.

The narrator (AFO, seriously, it's AFO) says things such as "The baby drained the lifeforce of both his mom and his brother.", "It was born an arrogant baby." and such but it really reads at AFO villifying himself to add to his own legend.

That's what babies do. Children, before they're born, kinda have to take their strength from their mother. That's why pregnant people aren't supposed to do anything taxing.

AFO and Yoichi's mother didn't die because baby AFO drained her like a vampire. She died because she was a homeless woman who had access to nothing and had to go in labor alone.

Same thing here: during twin birth, a twin is often bigger than the other (well, probably not to extent of Yoichi and AFO, but you get my point).

Lie number 2: AFO, as a demon baby, is shown killing for no reason, just because he can.

(First slaughter by Baby AFO shown in that chapter.)

There are two things that are strange in this scene (apart from... you know.... a baby murdering people...)

AFO had no reason to go after them because they don't have any quirks to steal.

It makes no sense for someone to attack a group of people with nothing to gain. I doubt that's the kind of behavior you have when you're in survival mode as you're barely surviving in the street.

However, a previous panel points at some context we might be missing.

The same panel that indicates that those guys don't have a quirk to steal also shows that they are wiling to do some "preventive attack" on a bunch of quirked people who might or might not be those who assaulted a protest group (reminder that in this context, that protest group are protesting the rights for quirked people to exist).

I could be wrong but odds are that they did something to be qualified as a threat to All for One and we are missing the additional context.

(Second slaughter by Baby AFO shown in that chapter.)

Now, the poor souls who just got absolutely wrecked by a toddler wearing what I suspect to be a garbage bag have quirks, which makes more sense than the previous scene.

However (and thank you for @aimportantdragoncollector for pointing that out to me), we also have this panel.)

Yoichi is shown with bruises on his face and might be broken teeth.

Probably because those same people AFO is shown killing attacked him.

Lie number 3: AFO never loved Yoichi because he can't love, he just considered that he was his. That's all. Nothing more.

(Just... Just ignore the rats.)

AFO didn't care about Yoichi so much that the very conscious first act of his life might have been to swim a river upstream while dragging his brother above the surface with what must have been the deathgrip of all deathgrip.

AFO didn't care about his brother so much that Yoichi was fed and clothed by an AFO who was malnourished enough for his ribs to show and who wore what's basically an improvised toga.

But he just keeps sacrificing what little he has for someone he doesn't care about one bit, that's just his first possession. Nothing more.

Okay, I am going to be clear: anyone who sees that panel and thinks that it's the proof AFO didn't like his brother... You just outed yourself as an only child.

Siblings punt each other for no reason. (There is a reason why the first recorded murderer was an older sibling.) In this case, the reason was Yoichi throwing a can at him.

AFO: "You're not inviting me to a fun activity? You're leaving me out, in the cold, unable to partake in brother bonding activity? Oh, vault for Little Brother! Vault for Little Brother for one thousand years!"

AFO: "Nevermind, we're reading together. All is well, I guess."

Lie number 3: AFO killed the glowing baby for power, because he could, or because the Glowing Baby didn't deserve it

Still laughing about AFO's flawless reasoning... "Comic books heroes' life suck. Better to be a villain. I already did the whole struggle thing, I want an easy life."

AFO killed the glowing baby because he was jealous. It's as simple as that. The glowing baby was considered the first official quirked individual (even though it's not true), was protected by his family (if I remember correctly, the mother of quirks was his mom) while AFO and Yoichi had no one but each other (EDIT: I was wrong, the Mother of Quirks was Destro's mother. thanks to the people in the tags), and had a ton of people following him (while, for some strange reason, people start running away screaming when AFO shows his quirk... What a mystery...).

The last panel was basically AFO saying "I want to be loved' but not having the frame of reference to even know what love is.

In conclusion...

While AFO is definitely a bad guy and a monster, he didn't begin his existence as one. He just wants people to believe that. Because his pride and his ego can't allow him to admit that he lived a childhood full of horrible trauma where he was a victim abandoned by society (to an even greater extent than the LOV) or he would probably combust out of rage and mortification.

Ergo facto, AFO is a lying liar who lies, especially to himself.

[samkat10423]

Sunset Vally

So today I finally tackled that Roomies lot. I've been putting it off, because I hate CAS. No lie!

Anyway, I found this remake of their lot over on Youtube by Powersims. At least, I think that's the name. It was late. I was binging Chinese dramas and drinking wine. What can I say?

The ground floor consists of 2 garages and a laundry room. Then the next floor up is the apartment where the 3 girls now live with their cat Grumpy. And the top floor is where the guys call home. I did remove all the furniture that was in it and redecorated it with the sims who live here in mind. But otherwise, the shell is hers - his? I don't know.

Here are the original sims after I took them into CAS. Mostly all I ever do is give them custom skins, new hair and make-up, and new clothes. I did put Emma Hatch on a diet - she's actually very pretty. Not sure why EA f'd with her. The other 2 girls now work as firefighters. I had more than enough cops and athletes in this town and no firefighters, so they drew the short straw. Tamara is a safety instructor while Blair is at the bottom of the career ladder. To help her advance though, I gave her the coward trait. I'm nice that way. Other than change out his skin, I left the sim with the weird name alone - mostly because he's sort of iconic.

Then - since I had room in the guys' apartment, I added this sim. He was originally hired as a gene therapist at the hospital, but again, I have more than enough doctors in this town. So, I made him a conspiracy freak who works as a ghost hunter. He shares a room with the weird guy, and they are BFFs. Birds of a feather and all that jazz. That ghosthunter van is his. (I found it over on Mod the Sims in case anyone is interested).

Then - where that Working Girls apartment was - I placed the town salon. It's called the Body Shoppe - because I used Sandy's signage and that's what it says. Anyway, this build came from Mod the Sims and was called Ink and Dye. I changed out all the windows, used new siding, and relandscaped the place. Inside, I tweaked the furnishings to cause less lag and prevent stupid routing issues because sims be DUMB!

On the other side of their apartment - where the spa was - I placed Lili's Washboard Laundry. Inside, I used Sandy's Laundry set - THANK YOU, Sandy! In that little pink part of the build is a tiny cafe where sims can hang out while they're waiting for their clothes to do their thing.

Then - where the art museum was - I built this emergency services lot. Since I'm super lazy and proud of it, I used EA's firehouse lot, skooched it over to the one end, then plunked down that hospital RH from Supernatural, then landscaped it so they look like they go together. In the back of the lot, there's room for a couple of ambulances to drop off patients. Although in the mystical land of EA, gunshot victims, poisoned sims and ladies ready to pop out their worms all drive themselves to the hospital - as one does in a medical emergency. Stupid EA.

Across the street - where the original hospital was - I put Lili's modern art lot. The fountains and planters were there, but I added all the rest. That garbage from Katy Perry actually works good for "modern" art. Who knew! Inside, I got rid of her basegame art and replaced all of it with stuff I have. I have Arsil's generic desk on the ground level so I can assign a sim to be a security guard.

And finally, this is the new gym. I think this was created by someone called Plumbob - again from over on Youtube. Inside I cleared areas so I could use Twinsimmings spin stuff and Olomaya's Get Pumped mod. Where that Americana house was, I put a separate Yoga gym for Twinsimming's yoga set. Thanks to both modders for their lovely addition to the game.

And that's all I got done today. Because as I tell you guys, over and over, I'm lazy.

[edoro]

dunno if you're particularly into the series at all, but if so, I'm curious about your feelings on the sibling/familial dynamics in gravity falls

oh anon, i was very into Gravity Falls! i have three fics published to my main ao3 account and a hidden disused tumblr full of spicy problematic shipping fics because i am who i am.

i think they're really good! there's a lot going on there. i like the tension between Dipper and Mabel, how one of them wants to grow up too fast and one of them wants everything to stay the same, and the way they clash and argue but are ultimately always there for each other. they clearly love each other a lot and have a far more supportive and functional family structure than the Stans did, but they still have their issues.

Stan and Ford meanwhile are an on-fire garbage can and i love it. these two are soooo fucked up. these twins have every single issue. love their wildly dysfunctional and abusive upbringing (cannot BELIEVE a number of people sincerely argued that their dad was not abusive lmao) and the way they both project so bitterly onto each other. love Stan's clingy codependence because he doesn't feel like he has any value outside of being attached to Ford, and Ford's simultaneous enjoyment of having a built-in scapegoat and hanger-on and someone to feel superior to AS WELL AS being smothered to death and wanting to just escape and create his own individual identity.

i love how messy and difficult the Stans' relationship is too even as adults, like, how they just can't let go of all the pain and wounds of their childhood or all that deeply held resentment towards each other. i have to say that insofar as i'm on anyone's 'side' here, it's Stan's; i understand Ford intimately, and get exactly why he felt and thought the way he did (and does throughout the series), but he's an asshole who scapegoats Stan as the cause for every single bad thing in his life because that's easier than examining 1) the larger systemic factors 2) the role their Entire Family Dynamic played in it 3) his own responsibility and also 4) the fact that while what happened with the project and his dream college chance sucked, for sure, having to go to a shittier school and work hard is... idk just not that fucking bad lmao.

like sorry dude but the pain and trauma of having to attend a second-rate college and really devote yourself to standing out does not compare to being kicked out of your home at 17 and made homeless, and it's something that tons of people deal with, and frankly i think a huge amount of Ford's anger about that imo is based in the fact that he feels like he's better than that and deserves better, and has spent most of his life seethingly furious about the fact that the world around him does not recognize his talent and superiority.

(which is very much a coping mechanism for feeling like the only thing he has going for him IS his intellectual abilities - nobody values anything else about him, and it feels like his only way out of a future of grinding misery, so of course he retreats into self-obsessed misanthropy. i understand it very well, but i have enough distance from my own period of Being Like That to recognize that it's a selfish and assholish way of viewing oneself and the world, lmao.

and to be clear i'm not bashing Ford here, i think he's a lot of fun and an excellent character and very relatable - he's very human, and i love that. he's messy and kind of shitty and struggles to be better, and it's extremely understandable.)

i think the way that we see Stan recreate his own childhood dynamics with Dipper is interesting too... the way he treats the twins is very, idk, i guess it's a very familiar sort of pattern to me. Mabel is a girl so he can form an emotional connection with her, that's safe, and she can be his silly special princess who he loves and spoils, but since Dipper is a boy, they can only connect through the Rituals Of Masculinity, which especially in Stan's case are extremely toxic and damaging.

so Stan ends up perpetuating his own abuse on Dipper, albeit less severely - i 100% believe Filbrick physically abused his kids, and i think sometimes Stan might skirt that line, but i don't think he'd ever raise a hand to either of the twins. he is absolutely emotionally abusive towards Dipper, especially earlier on in the show before they kind of reconcile in terms of Dipper thinking Stan hates him.

that's just really interesting to me! i always love that examination of like, how this sort of thing echoes down generations. you can see the fingerprints of Stan's father in how he treats both of the twins, the attitudes he brings towards them...

also Ford is like, wildly irresponsible lmao. the whole thing where he starts like, taking Dipper into his confidence and having him keep secrets and trying to get between him and Stan and Mabel... like i don't think he's doing it on purpose or has malicious intentions, he's just lonely and kind of stunted and really likes this kid and sees himself in him and is not really able to look past that self-projection to who Dipper actually is and how they're different, but oh man.

(the potential for writing it AS deliberate grooming is off the charts tbh. i'm still waiting for someone to come up with that fic because there's just a lot of potential there.)

so, anyway, tl;dr is that i think the sibling/family dynamics in gravity falls are really good and complex and layered, with a lot of pain and tragedy in there, but also a lot of love and striving to do and be better.

[sdyuteiaok]

Ah, man, our final MH3 draft was a trophy! This was the first time ending on a trophy, usually they're supremely miserable 0-3s or something, which makes it extra infuriating cuz you'll basically never get another chance at the format. But this is kind of a positive frustration cuz I feel like I had my finger on this format reasonably well. My Untapped win percentage closed at over 60%, even! I ended up buying the Frog thing, so that plus the regular battle pass and today's Daily Deal with a draft token means I actually have 3 in the tank! So we're looking good for some Bloomburrow drafts, and then since I'm skipping the Eldrazi lands, I'll also have a good buffer of gold in the meantime, too. From my packs, I opened a Special Guest Fury, so I went in for the others in the cycle, too, which I had planned to anyway. And I also managed to get exactly one of each fetch land, minus one, so that was an easy craft, which turns on all my alternate arts for those, so I can season any of my decks with fetches. But, as I feared, the monster amount of Mythics in all these subsets and stuff--including Big Score, which is annoyingly Standard-legal, means we're quite a ways off for Mythic single completion of Standard. But we're now Timeless singleton complete for Uncommons, and we have maybe 10 commons, but we'll just scoop those up next Pack Day. But, yeah, we've got quite a few mythics to get through, so I just used some on some flavor grabs, including the Evoke Elementals' stunning Special Guest treatments, a Brazen Borrower since I can't stand either of the present version (and actively like the Jesper version), and then a couple Big Score cards I might want to plop into my monogreen Brawl deck at least. So we'll just chip away at the outstanding mythics, and we'll get there eventually, no rush. I'm closing in on getting Singleton complete in Explorer, which remains my goal for now, anyway. So with three Draft tokens, I was thinking about maybe doing an early-morning MH3 draft, getting one last bite in before the set leaves, but then I'm just asking to 0-3 that one aren't I? But we've still got a number of uncollected cards from that set, too--and forget about Thunder Junction. I only lightly drafted that set, and it shows, so, again, it'd probably be wiser to draft Thunder Junction, but in any case, sitting on three Draft Tokens when there are two high-demand sets currently up doesn't feel like the wisest allocation of resources, but at the same time, it can help us swing into Bloomburrow pretty well, too, so maybe it'll all work out. And then winning more packs there of course translates to more wildcards, which helps us clear the massive mythic count. I could get them all right now, of course, but I do prefer not spending Wildcards beyond a certain point. Why, we'll never know, but I still like to have a safe buffer. Currently I have less than 100 common wildcards, for example, and that doesn't sit well with me. Now that we're Timeless singleton complete on Uncommons, we're sorta in garbage time with those now, so I finally have not only a ton of uncommon wildcards, but crucially no real use for them, which means I can quasi-ignore them going forward. Soon that'll be true for commons, too, and then we can maybe burn them on a set before draft, using that old vault-boosting trick. And then eventually we're of course working our way towards getting singleton Explorer complete and then after which, we're Timeless-bound eventually. But for now, minus the massive mythic count, I'm reasonably pleased with our progress. Maybe I should get those Eldrazi lands...I only really want the Swamp, and the Island and Forest look good, too, but even buying those later as a "Deal" would still be cheaper than buying the bundle, assuming it's the usual 4k. Oh, and as for the Frog shop thing--I indeed didn't have enough tickets for absolutely everything, but the sweet thing is that the three cosmetics I absolutely didn't want were the only things left--and I coulda afforded everything but the sleeve, even.

[the-firebird69]

This is what the idiots are doing today and they're going to get plowed over they said. What they're doing is making up these charges no he didn't know what the gun was he didn't know whose it was and he is going to file an appeal because the judge was ridiculous and this is what the trumps do to people and they're sitting here doing it to our son and we are going to fire them. They're going to die permanently and they get into it with Tommy f and it's over the ships and they plan to do that take them with all that armament and he figured it out no but he's a huge a****** and he's got to go down. We're going to tear him apart and for example the septic has a simple fix all you have to do is dig out one foot by 3 ft patch of grass and then 3 inches below it that soil and put the grass back and it will drain and the thing will stop backing up. And they won't let stand call and they won't let them do it it's been going on for 2 years while our son was here before that it went on for about 5 years now the idiots are s******* and they're sitting in s*** and crap and bugs and sees two morons and they just keep it getting clogged up and I think it's a fun game what will happen is our son would just keep calling and eventually they'll have to fix it because he can't fix it anymore and he'll say it I just can't fix it and then just s*** everywhere and that's the way it is and Stan will get to it but really he's got to defend himself so he pulls the question again and it's very clear that's all it needs and it keeps jamming up because of the water seeping through and it's the same issue in the same solution and he said it won't jam up over again and this is actually the problem and the payments is protecting the septic and it's leaking and that was the idea of doing it that way in this low-lying area and didn't say it that way but he said this is how it's supposed to work and it made sense and it's a smart way to do it but right now it needs to be replaced it does not need to be replaced all it needs is three shovelfuls of dirt or for taking out and it will drain and the guy sits there with the shovel up back and he's threatening not to have at work and it's threatening our son and I got a yada yada and he's going to end up dead in a pyramid and yeah it's going to go to the max for us or some foreigners and that's how it is and they'll find out the max you're taking them and they already are and it's going to be a fight against this idiot Trump who's screwing around with everyone and holds on to no one so he got the tons of attention everyone's going to see what's happening anyway he ran it on them but he's going to have to die to do it any strength of stuff like that because he can't stand life for the most part and you really shouldn't be able to so we're going to come down on him a lot of people are right now actually doing that and they want to see it fixed and they're having the problem with them all over Florida

Thor Freya

Olympus

You're a huge useless retard from Trump and I mean it too you don't really do anything of value and it used to riding the coattails of my clan and you're worried about it and you should be cuz you're useless and I'm cutting you loose because I can and you don't think I can't and all this other garbage comes out of your week little youthful juvenile crap f****** face you are useless human being to your people alive but when you die it's going to be worth something

Zues Hera

[fadebolt]

Sooooo, we're getting the 10 option polls for this round, aren't we? Well, then, this is gonna be a short and sweet one. It's weird to think how this round will end before Artfight, when you consider the length of the others.

I don't really have anything else to note, except that the things I've said at the start of round 3 apply even more here. In this round, the amount of rooms I don't feel positively about, is at most in the single digits. They're gonna be getting low placements for the smallest of reasons (as well as personal biases, cus those will absolutely play a huge part in these lategame polls :>)

Alrighty then, back to business as usual!

Personal room ranking:

1 - Metropolis: splitpath 2 - Undergrowth: C02 3 - Five Pebbles: D08 4 - TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOBS: Andrew's Basement 5 - Outskirts: B14 6 - The Rot: LAB8 7 - Outer Expanse: RUIN25 8 - Outer Expanse: RAIL02 9 - The Exterior: D01 10 - Submerged Superstructure: bittermironest

Extra comment: Well, you guys have an interesting taste here, that's for sure.

I'm genuinely very surprised that RAIL02 is holding out this well. I mean, do get it, but also… it's not a very popular room to visit, is it? I have been around OE a couple times (doing all the endings, and finding all the collectibles), and I think I have only went there once, and it didn't really stick with me. But that absolutely can happen. Sometimes, you get a fan favorite thing in a video game that just doesn't click, while something that nobody enjoys ends up becoming the thing for adore. And what do ya know, this ends up happening to me quite frequently in every video game I play, and Rain World is certainly no exception. (Because, as a reminder - I'm like, one of the only people in the community that wouldn't rank Past Garbage Wastes as an F- region. I actually sort of enjoyed that place, especially when I got to utilize the acid in combat)

Basement and C02 getting through makes much more sense. Sure, you could call the authenticity of the voters into questions, but those rooms do have enough going for them, that I'm willing to look past their iconic nature, of being 'the MSC team graffiti' and 'everyone's new favorite Echo'. Especially because the way C02 works with its Drainage System counterpart…. it's fricking masterful!

…..aaaaaand this is where I'd normally end it off, but I'm just noticing that there's a bit of a change, and that we're actually getting 5 rooms through, instead of having the threshold at the usual 10% or 15%? That's…. an interesting way to go about it, for sure. But I'm a bit confused on how this might work, since the 5th spot is currently shared between 4 rooms, meaning that you're either bringing 8 to the next round, or just 4. This is why the cutoff point worked so well, since the distinction between the winners and the loosers was always crystal clear. I suppose the goal here was to increase the amount of rooms that will get to the next round, since we've most commonly had 3 or 4 per poll before (we've seen some 5s and 6s, but they were quite rare). And if that's the case, then the tying rooms should probably all be allowed through, cus otherwise, we'd be back at less than half rooms getting through on average, just with a little more leniency.

But it's still your call, of course.

I don't think I have much to add to the other ones, since them being on the lower end of votes does make sense. Except splitpath. Y'all are sleeping on that one. It's such a unique and well thought out and surprisingly memorable place. It's a very important part of the introduction to Metropolis, too. But I'm not gonna ramble more about that, the reblog is already quite long xd

Pick Your Favorite Rain World Room, Day 272 R4a

Only 5 highest voted rooms will go through!

There is a hidden slugcat in one of the rooms (they can be in any color). If u can see it comment or reblog with where they are and if u are first, u get a cookie!

Credit for game screenshots goes to: Rain World Interactive Map, Rain World Wiki and me

[spitdrunken]

OK LET'S SEE IF I CAN RECREATE THIS FROM MEMORY and not have tunmblr throw it in the garbage this time--

Emmet told himself it was only going to be one time at the glory hole. Obviously, he was lying to himself. We all know this man has no self control. He hates that other people get to fuck his brother in the glory hole; he wants to hog Ingo all to himself, so he watches and waits for Ingo to go again. It doesn't take long--only 3 days later--before Ingo says he's going to take his lunch elsewhere one day. Emmet doesn't pay attention to where, he knows Ingo is lying, and confirms it when he watches Ingo head towards the glory hole on the cameras

OFC Emmet knows the quickest way to the secret area the glory hole is located. He makes sure to get there before anyone else can, locking the door behind him so no one else can see his older brother like this. I imagine he's prepared either a cock ring or some aphrodisiacs this time as well. He can't repeat what happened last time...

Once Emmet's cum enough inside of Ingo to be satisfied, he walks away from the glory hole, and manages to radio Ingo back from his "break" early. He races back to the office and does his best to look like he was there the whole time Ingo was gone. There's a sick satisfaction in his gut, knowing that Ingo is full of his cum right now, even while he tries to strike pleasant conversation with his brother. (Ingo makes up some flimsy excuse when asked about the limp in his step; something about tripping up the stairs on the way to the local deli. He misses Emmet's smug smirk in response to that.)

Of course, this all brings into question how often Emmet could get away with going to the glory hole without anyone finding out. The mirror situation means that people KNOW they're fucking Subway Boss Ingo on the other side, so if people saw Emmet disappearing into the glory hole area at the same time... Makes me wonder how far Emmet will go to hide this from others and eventually try to prevent other people from visiting the glory hole. Then again, how long would it take Ingo to figure out that he's been sucking and fucking the same cock over and over now? And how long until he realizes how familiar it's starting to look to him...?

WANT TO START OFF BY SAYING THAT I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!! i can’t add much to the earlier parts of this cuz honestly it’s just perfect already!!! I was thinking about!!!

notes: incest, not x reader

Emmet knowing exactly when Ingo is frequenting the place, so he makes sure to leave a note right before he typically arrives. (I’m imagining he makes one of his Pokémon put it inside when it’s empty, because it’s at least a bit less clear that it’s him who left it.) It has something written on it, clearly addressed to Subway Boss Ingo, about having created a special, different place for him- With more privacy! Ingo honestly can’t frequent the gloryhole even as much as he wants to, because the chance of too many people knowing about it and it leaking out to the general public + the awkwardness of running into a challenger who fucked you is just too awkward!! So maybe he could see the appeal in that.

He obviously keeps one of his Pokémon out there while approaching, so he can defend himself in case it’s just a trap. But it really is just a more tucked away, typical gloryhole situation: A simple hole in the wall, no mirrors or anything. (Which Emmet dislikes, but it’s necessary to keep this up for longer. And prevents anyone else from taking his beloved twin.) The most important thing is that it’s in a kind of blind spot among the cameras… So both of them can frequent it as much as they want.

But it doesn’t take too long for Ingo to notice that he’s always been fucked by the exact same person… They’re good at it, he’s not complaining, but that makes it just so intimate somehow, in a way that has him all kinds of flustered. If he realises how similar the stranger’s cock looks to his (or maybe even hears Emmet moan too loudly?), he’ll go inside the room as usual, but Emmet will find him waiting on the opposite side of the room, ready to see who’s been shoving their cock inside him daily for the past few weeks…

How it ends would depend on whether you’d want Ingo to be into it or not LMAO It could be very angsty or unrequited or they would just have sex for the first time without a wall in between them <3

[thecrackedbead]

Adventures with thrift beads... - 5 dubious cons and 8 equally dubious pros

I like to keep an eye on places like Craigslist, Facebook marketplace and thrift stores for unwanted beads and badly made jewelry to turn into something new. For example...

---

I was so proud when I tracked this down. Ironically, I only kept 20% of them.

---

It can be an time consuming hobby. Not merely because of the shopping. For me, the shopping is the relatively easy part. (Emphasis on the 'relatively', I'd probably save money renting a tow truck and a harness when I go craft shopping.)

So what are the harder parts?

1. You get what you get.

Sometimes nothing there suits your taste. Sometimes everything does (see tow truck and harness).

2. Sometimes the person or store are selling an item for way more than it's worth.

*cough*ValueVillage*cough* Even though the bracelet is broken and they sure as he'll aren't going to fix it and when you offer to buy it for a discount because of this, which is still more than its worth, their manager throws it in the @$%$ing garbage because god/goddess/gods/celestial force/flying spaghetti monster forbid the item sold at less than $10.

3. Little to no planning ahead.

As per #1. Having a pattern won't help you if you can't find the right item. You have to tailor the designs or create designs based on what you find. This means you often have to spend a fair bit of time more time on designs made from thrifted items than you would otherwise.

4. Hard to make multiples.

You often cannot make tons of multiples of a product as there may not be enough of a thrifted component. Timewise, it is much faster to make ten items of the same design than ten things of ten different designs.

You may say, if I like a design why don't I go out and find more of said beloved component?

To this you replay, I didn't ask you bloody know-it-all for advice in the first place... also I couldn't find/afford/was too lazy to trackdown more of it.

5. Overall...

It seems like a business plan from The Bad Flamey Place, n'est pas?

So why do it?

1. It is possible to save a lot of money.

When crafters are destashing, sometimes wish they wave a wand, mutter 'Evanesco' and make all the extra stuff disappear. They'll end up giving things away or sell things for a fraction of what it's worth. The faster it disappers the better as if they're anything like me, they don't want to look too closely, lest they second guess their giveaways and violate the laws of physics by somehow ending up with more stuff than they began with...

(...Though if I think about it, mass and energy can be changed from one to the other. So perhaps the energy from exhaustive attempts to purge beads got converted into more beads?)

...Add to this estate sales and thrift stores may not know what they have in the first place.

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...Definitely not familiar. From HumorFlow.

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The core of My Hoard of Doom (TM) was bought when I wanted a few tools for jewelry making from Facebook with little thought to the stuff that came with it. Sure, I knew that there were a few beads as part of the deal, but there weren't many clear pictures of them. I figured that they were the cheap kind. It quickly became apparent that few was actually 'few' when I hauled out two mall but heavy moving boxes, and cheap was 'cheap' when I spent most of the night googling at their contents.

I ended up with a whole lot of semi-precious stones, aquamarine, tiger eye, carnelian, amber, unakite, peridot, quartz, tons of jasper, a few moon stones, opals, etc. In short, I estimate that I spent $100 on what was likely more than $1000 new. Keep in mind, this is an extreme case of thrifting success but it can happen.

2. You can make money on your finds without making jewelry

As people who sold the beads and other jewelry items for below market price, it is possible to sort through your finds put them in groups and sell the groups, bit by bit recouping what you spent plus interest. (Warning: This works best if you live in a city with many potential customers. Even then, this can take a fair bit of patience and you'll likely still sell them for much less than what they are worth.) Personally, I advise against having this as you main reason for thrifting beads as there's no guarantee. If you are buying someone's stash of beads, you should mainly like the. Sift out and attempt to sell the ones you don't as an afterthought.

3. It forces you to experiment with new styles and learn and approve new techniques.

Alright, alright, you may not feel this a good thing. However, logically know you know it is. Like when you struggled through learning to read rather then continuing to eat paste.

God/goddess/gods/cosmic force/flying spaghetti monster knows I had no particular plan to start working with large beads at that point in time. Until The Hoard of Doom™ came into my life, I did seed beading with a miniscule of dabbling with larger beads but my wire work and knotting abilities have improve immensely since I was buried under a landslide of them. Did you know it is possible to be absolute crap at opening and closing jump rings? I did not. I did know I wasn't good at them but it wasn't until I crawled into a toilet, that I realised I came from the sewer.

Tangentially, having a lack of materials makes you more creative with them.

4. You can learn from other people's work.

When working with thrifted jewelry, whether you're planning to rip apart a piece for beads, remaking it or bringing it to its former glory, take a moment to really look at it and think. What don't you like about a piece? What do you do? If it's broken, how did it break and can something be done to stop this from happening again? What methods and materials do you think were used to make it? It can give you ideas of what to avoid and ideas for the future.

Crystal Cluster gave me ideas of what to do with crystal and chip beads. In fact, prior to purchasing it, I thought crystals were not and never would be my style. Remaking Catching Pearls and Iron taught me that inconsistent bead sizes don't massively affect the outcome of bead netting and that am never, ever working on something made with such thick monofilament again. (My poor, poor beading needles.) Stretched out elastic bracelets are why I use beading wire or thread instead of elastic. (Fiy: I'm told it is possible to keep the elastic lasting way longer if you roll it off and on your wrist but I'm a lazy bastard.) Sure you can, and I recommend, looking at pictures of others' work; however, you get a much more visceral experience when holding a piece and people rarely highlight their mistakes when taking photos of their work.

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Catching Peals and Iron might look pretty but the sacrifices involved...

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5. You can rescue lovely jewelry.

Thrift stores in particular often cannot tell the difference between a well-made item and badly made costume jewelry. I found Crystal Cluster selling for $2.99. Another one of my current projects, which I am tentatively calling The Three in One Bracelet (I'll post later), is made from a set of simple but elegant bracelets whose elastics were breaking.

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Crystal Cluster. Not yet for sale as it requires some repairs.

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6. Recycling is good for the environment.

Hopefully a no-brainer.

7. Hunting is fun

It can satisfy a deep instinct too. Couple problems here though. As I don't own any guns, bows, traps or likewise and the local constabulary had some words with me after they caught me running downtown hurling my umbrella at pigeons...

So, beads it is!!!

7. The obvious reason

As crafters, our dad isn't our dad. He isn't a mailman or repairman either. He's a magpie and for us everything is beautiful.

Original artist unfortunately unknown. Found at Know Your Meme.

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[griimhilde-a]

you always make mal the bad guy, but evie ignores her in the second movie and never cares about her feelings. they're friends, mal was suffering, and evie only cared about cotillion and being happy in auradon. think about that.

wow that’s a lot to unpack so i’m going to try and write this out as clearly as i can so there are no misunderstandings here !!   i’m also going to only speak on canon, not my divergences in evie’s dynamic with the core four just to make it less confusing. 

1. i never make mal the bad guy !!  all i’ve ever done was point out canon things mal has done, whether from the books or the movies. i don’t make anything up !!  with mal and evie, specifically, did mal try and kill evie twice in the books ? yes, she did. does nearly being killed twice put a damper on relationships ? most definitely, i mean, i wouldn’t feel the most comfortable with someone that actively tried to kill me. twice. i have other reservations about mal throughout the movies / books, all of which are about her canon actions. i don’t want to go off about them and make this post way longer than it’ll already be, so i’ll stop there.

2. something i really don’t like is people dragging evie, carlos, and jay for what happened in d2. let’s put this into perspective: the first book is actually where the core four get acquainted for the first time, and where mal tries to kill evie twice. the timeline between those events and d1, is only a few months, i think ? so it’d be weird to claim that they were a family and super close friends by then, when it’s very obvious that they weren’t, not even in the first movie. circumstances brought them together, and that’s that. there’s a clear unbalanced power dynamic. 

so, why is there this wrong idea that evie, carlos, and jay knew mal inside-out ? why are people blaming them for not knowing what mal was going through in d2 ? they don’t owe her anything. they can’t read minds !!!!!  do you know how incredibly toxic, disgusting, and entitled it is to blame friends for not knowing something is wrong when you don’t EXPLICITLY communicate with them ? it’s gross !!! and nasty !!!  and no, mal being like “but don’t you guys miss being on the isle and stealing and breaking things” is NOT communicating her feelings. 

something i also see a lot is that they, “especially evie” should have realized that something was wrong when mal changed herself completely during those six months in auradon. aside from the fact that people go through phases and it’s a very real thing ( like i had blue hair for two years and i regret it but i was so into it that if someone questioned me about it, i’d probably cry ), let’s break that down : during coronation, mal publicly chose “good”, turned against her mother, publicly declared she wanted to be with ben, and blah blah. in d2, you can see that even evie’s changed the way she’s dressed a bit and is throwing herself into designing clothes for basically all of auradon. jay and carlos are in r.o.a.r. and tourney          they’re all adjusting to life in auradon. why would it be wrong to assume that was also the case for mal ? if the argument here is that mal was internally struggling, wouldn’t them being like “but mal, you don’t like dresses ! why did you dye your hair blonde ? why are you doing so-and-so ? ” be just as discouraging if she genuinely liked and wanted those things ? if anything, you could say they were being supportive of her decisions. auradon, to them, is the place where they could reinvent themselves, be someone they didn’t have the chance to be on the isle.

evie, jay, and carlos are not stupid nor apathetic nor self-absorbed. i’m sure if they’d gotten more than “don’t you miss being criminals !!!!” they’d be more receptive. so. i’ll say it again : evie, carlos, and jay owed nothing to mal. they cannot read her mind. it was not their responsibility. even if they were super duper close friends, it is still not their responsibility.

if we’re going to talk about them not checking in on mal or validating her feelings, what about d1 where jay admits he might like it in auradon and mal shuts that down, tells him it’s wrong, and that he’s supposed to be evil ? hm. 

mal canonically never listens or asks about them, so why is it expected that they do it for her ? and specifically for evie, i don’t think mal has ever asked her how she felt ? correct me if i’m wrong !!

3. cotillion wasn’t all that evie cared about, but it’s kind of ... really sad that you’re implying she can’t be happy in auradon because mal isn’t ? that’s basically saying, “you’re not allowed to be happy because i’m not. and if you are, you are a BAD person and a BAD friend.” it’s so wrong and mean and just          no ? also, cotillion wasn’t simply about herself ? she was making a dress for mal !! she was making dresses for like, all of auradon prep !!  evie’s entire life was being isolated in a castle for ten years with her abusive mother and always having to watch out for herself, and now she can sleep peacefully ? and only worry about something as “insignificant” cotillion instead of where she was gonna get her next meal or who was going to kill her ?  

i can’t speak for carlos and jay since i don’t write them, but i know that evie doesn’t want to talk about the isle at the start of d2, it’s canon that she tries to ignore that part of her, which she admits during girl talk. all of this focus about how she didn’t pay attention to mal is garbage, why didn’t mal pay attention to evie ? it goes both ways. 

this post got so much longer than i intended but i’m realizing i had a lot of feelings about this. 

[skaldish]

Absolutely, because it's an extremely sticky issue.

Frankly, this is something I would've never understood without living the experience.

It's now blatantly clear to me that most cis men probably experience chronic emotional malnutrition. They're deprived of social connection just enough for it to seriously fuck with their psyches, but not enough for them to realize that it's happening and what's causing it.

It's like they're starving, but don't know this because they've always been served 3 meals...except those meals have never been big enough.

This deprivation comes from all sides of aisle, by the way.

In the case of women: When I'm out in public and interact with women, all of them come off as incredibly aloof, cold, and mirthless. I have never experienced this before even though I know exactly what this composure is—the armor that keeps away creepy-ass men.

As someone who used to wear it myself, I know this armor is 100% impersonal. Nobody likes wearing it, and I can say with absolute certainty that women would dump the armor in favor of unconditional companionship with men if doing this didn't run the risk of actual assault. (Trust me when I say women aren't just being needlessly guarded.)

But I only have a complete understanding of this context because I've experienced female socialization. If I hadn't, I would've thought this coldness was a conspiracy against me devised by roughly half of the human population. Even now, with all that I know about navigating the world as a woman, I'm failing to convince my monkey-brain that this armor isn't social rejection.

And as for male socialization? Again, it seems taboo for a man to be platonically intimate with men for reasons I have yet to fully understand, but I think it boils down to a) the fact society teaches boys that it's not okay to be soft with each other, and b) garden-variety homophobia. Our media only shows men being intimate with one another when they're teamed up against a dire situation, and I'd bet real money it's a huge reason why men gravitate toward activities that simulate being teamed up against an opposing force.

But men are not machines of war. Yes, testosterone absolutely gives you Dumb Bastard Brain, but that just makes you want to skateboard a wagon down a hill or duct-tape your friend to the wall, not kill someone.

The human species looks so much colder standing from this side.

I can see how men might convince themselves that their feelings of emotional desperation is personal weakness as opposed to a symptom they're all experiencing from Western* Imperialism. Because this human connection, this frith, is as essential for our wellbeing as water is.

So sick. How sick. I want to destroy this garbage.

* EDIT: Had this written as “White Imperialism” originally, but a few people interpreted this as me blaming a group of people as opposed to a system, so I’ve changed this for clarity.

Still bothered by the US cultural idea that men can only be non-romantically intimate with one another in war-like or competitive circumstances.

[bixbythemartian]

home grade pizza cutters suck.

I'm not joking, they are so terrible, I've used expensive fancy ass ones and cheap ones and they universally are fucking garbage. Also impossible to clean properly, they get gross very quickly. they're a waste of money and drawer space.

Most people don't cook pizza at home often enough for it to be worth getting a separate one, anyway.

if you want a nicely sliced 'looks professional' pizza made at home, use a heavy knife, like a butcher knife. press down firmly and evenly then lift it up and move it and press down again. don't drag it through the pizza, you'll just drag the cheese and toppings around. even downward pressure and a sharp blade are the way to go, is my point. think more like 'cookie cutter' if that helps.

I keep trying to get my work to convert to the pizza bat'leth and have had no luck. A knife is a reasonable substitute, if you use it properly. a little slower, but still decent.

My ideal pizza slicer is the pizza bat'leth.

(they're called pizza rocker knives and they are badass and super fast and I will always call them a pizza bat'leth because they look like someone redesigned the bat'leth for use on pizza. most of the objection is that you need a little more space to use these and there's a bit of a learning curve to using them, more than a cutter, which is fair. But I think they're the superior choice and worth it. And you can cut a pizza SUPER DUPER fast with these bad boys.)

To be clear: I don't think commercial grade cutters are bad, I just think the pizza bat'leth is better, but if you get a decent 4 inch Dexter (or whatever commercial brand) cutter for your house you probably will be able to pass it on to your kids, they are made for much heavier usage than you will ever use it for. I'd estimate that even on a slow day at work we go through 100 items that require the cutter. I think we get a new cutter every quarter or so. They're made to slice thousands and thousands of pizzas, is my point. you'll be fine.

And, again, unless you make pizza with a lot of regularity, or also do a lot of pastry work at home (in which case a food rotary cutter can be useful) I doubt it's worth the expense and drawer space.

ironically, i think kitchen shears might also work better than most home grade cutters. They have some of the sharp downward pressure you might need, though I suspect round ingredients (your sausage and meatballs, for example) might squirt around rather than slice. Though I'd recommend waiting 3-5 minutes for the pizza to set up before cutting with shears.

A: when a pizza is fresh out of the oven the sauce and cheese are largely still liquid and will pour right off your pizza if you're not careful (this is a common rookie mistake for pizza delivery- if you tip the box when the pizza is still setting up you will dump the toppings right off)

B: the sauce and cheese are liquid and therefore boiling lava hot and you will burn the ever-loving shit out of yourself (ask me how I know)

if you want to tear it apart with your bare hands, I'm not here to judge, I have absolutely done that, this is just information for if you want a good looking slice of pizza