#industrial apt.

[zytes]

got lost in the aphex twin factory

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

someting dreadful and sick and twisted about trying to find black women in the game industry and only finding black women who play games

[highspeedinterconnect]

this week has been fucking awful I just wanna lay down somewhere quiet w my gf and cats. holy shit

[athousandmorningss]

deep lover of a self-effacing personality; a particular kind of oddness/weirdness notable in another human being in which it's clear that they are both self-actualized and at once deeply goofy; charmed by a person that engages in self-reflection and alteration of their own behavior; moved by intellect as foreplay; drawn to people who are drawn to the natural world as a perpetual orientation; love to look at another and think my god: what a unique and singular human being, who are you, i'm so happy i met you.

[particlepocket]

Land of brimstone and memory

A fiery world with everything ablaze save for antiquated movie set structures.

Brimstone in connection to hell, blaze (4/20 & glory) & the fire at the end of tmod. Memory symbolized by film in both the object and form of entertainment as ways of documenting life or viewing history. Film is highly flammable, concurrently, some films can be reused by erasing the images with sulfuric acid.

Time players lands hold significance as the planet that holds the scratch construct, which in this case would be a cassette tape. Due to the circumstances in the nature of this session, the constructs purpose does not function as a reset button but a undo, activated by rewinding the cassette by using the quills like how you would typically with a pencil.

[tiphares]

i want a beaded curtain 4 my kitchen so bad ... link me to some cool ones plz!

[latestnews-now]

Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars are teaming up for a breathtaking tribute to Los Angeles at the 2025 Grammy Awards! 🎤🔥 Fresh off her FireAid performance, Gaga is back with Bruno Mars to honor the city and wildfire victims. Their Grammy-nominated song “Die With a Smile” has been a massive hit, topping charts for weeks! Plus, Gaga debuted a brand-new song, “All I Need Is Time,” and Mars’ latest collab with Rosé is taking over the charts!

[sabrinahawthorne]

Let’s Grow the RPG Hobby

Inspired by this post and the conversation surrounding it.

So the RPG world is facing a multitude of interconnected problems. Let’s talk about them, shall we?

---

1: The Problem(s)

Writing this, I find it hard to pinpoint a way to frame the subject of this post as a single thing. But it’s also impossible to treat it as it it’s a collection of separate problems. In reality, the issues facing the indie RPG world are A Hydra; a many-headed conglomeration of related issues, which each require organized, dedicated work to solve. A few examples:

The Normie-Indie Divide

A problem close to my heart, The Normie-Indie Divide describes the gradient between the mainstream of an artistic hobby and the really independent stuff. I compare this to movies a lot, but the more apt analogy is video games. The N-I-D in the videogame industry is so small as to be virtually nonexistent.

We can see this via a number of factors – one example being that the same outlets which cover massive blockbusters & sequels like Assassin’s Creed and God of War, also cover popular indie titles like Celeste and Hollow Knight. Then, freelance journalists who write for those publications (Jacob Geller is an example) go on to cover much smaller games on their own time, and so on. There’s a smooth gradient between the media coverage of the huge stuff, all the way down to a thriving (if still underserved) super-independant industry.

The N-I-D in RPGs feels uncrossable. The most well known RPG is so big it’s currenly riding the high of its second major hollywood adaptation in 20 years, and the second most popular – Vampire the Masquerade – is an unknown even to some indie RPG fans.* This hobby is shockingly impenetrable, even to those of us who spend our days swimming in the deepest end of the pool.

The Supply & Demand Problem

This one’s simple: People are pumping out RPGs by the truckload, and there are just too many! Not only does this make it hard to sift through everything to find the thing you want to read, play, or review, it also makes it nearly impossible to get anyone’s eyeballs on the cool thing you just released!

As others have pointed out, this problem is exacerbated by the fact that relative to some other art media, it’s pretty quick and painless to whip up your own zine or one-pager and publish it on itch. This disincentivises even the most invested of us from looking at a ton of new games, and means that sharing your work can feel like you’re being ignored by a huge crowd.

A Road To Solutions

If all of that is making you feel pretty bad for the future of this medium, you’re not alone. It can feel pretty hopeless facing all of these problems as an indie designer when all the tools you have at your disposal are a tumblr account and a few indie friends to complain to.

But the truth is, I think that this Hydra is eminently slayable. I just don’t think we can do it alone. That in mind, I’ve spent a large portion of my day putting together…

The Call to Action

I think there needs to be organized, persistent effort put into the future of this hobby and this industry, and I think it needs to start the way all good movements do: with a lot of petty, semantic argumentation over definitions and implementation. And to kick things off, here’s my step zero: If you’re reading this post because I’ve tagged you in it (or because I’ve sent you a link to it), my Dms are open. I want to put together a discord group chat† of my peers within RPG tumblr who are invested in tackling The Hydra, such that we can start brainstorming plans of attack to disseminate into the wider community.

The issues I wish to address are these:

The Normie-Indie Divide: How do we go about cultivating a casual audience of indie RPG fans who can bring sustainability and longevity to the industry?

The Supply & Demand Problem: How do we minimize the cognitive load of sorting through the huge volume of work extant in this medium, and more generally encourage peer-to-peer interaction within the community, like news coverage, reviews, and marketing?

The Cognitive Frontload Problem: How do we make it easier to actually engage with a given RPG, considering the amount of cognitive & temporal investment needed? Further, how do we make RPGs, both general and specific, more accessible to readers with a wide variety of abilities, preferences, and available time?

The Insular Community Problem: How do we better connect this hobby with itself, such that it feels a little less like several dozen cliques across 4-6 platforms, and more like the growing, evolving single hobbyist community that it is? Further, how do we make this hobby more accessible to newbies outside the influence of The Hegemons of the Coast?

And more. I’m positive I haven’t thought of everything, and that’s exactly why this needs to be a group effort.

As a last note: Please tag other people! The folks I’ve mentioned here are just those who I personally feel I know well enough to tag; let’s get the rest of the community involved! If you know someone who would be interested who isn’t on tumblr, they can email me: sabrinahawthornegames@proton.me.

*I’m not kidding. Multiple times within the last four months, I’ve introduced VtM to people who I would consider pretty in the sauce of RPGs. I’m talking folks who’ve played Heart: The City Beneath or Wanderhome. It’s bizarre.

†I need to stress that this is only a start. I’m not looking to start a big public discord unless that’s what a group of folks decide is the right call. By “group chat,” I mean “a chat which exists for long enough to hold 1-3 group voice calls to discuss and hash things out, before it’s dissolved in favor of the execution of whatever plans we devise.”

@theresattrpgforthat; @omophagic-beast; @ladytabletop; @rowansender; @monsterfactoryfanfic; @arsene-inc; @toyourstations

[cityof2morrow]

JP Hood Deco - 60+ Buildings

Published: 2-2-2025 | Updated: N/A SUMMARY Select deco buildings (J. Puerta, 2022-2024 via Cities Skylines) with updated TXTRs and day/night states. The set contains a nice mix of residential, community, industrial, and waterfront buildings in various sizes. Higher poly buildings (9K+) are packaged separately for convenience. Mind your system settings/capacity when using high poly CC.

DETAILS Requires all EPs/SPs (may or may  not work with only 1-2 EPs) §0 | Hood Deco The MESH-TEXTURES file is REQUIRED for buildings to display properly (see download links below). See poly counts below. ITEMS LOW-TO-MID-POLY: Baltic Apts. (3456), BellyMall (9059), Bellyshops (626), Charlson Marine Dock (3468), Clappgarden (3215), CMS Systems (5246), Colson Residences 012-018 (1285-1775), Convention Center (6366), Crestview Terrace (870), Cruise Ship Terminal (5229), Cunna Center (6567), Deliver Stores (2615), District Cultural Center (4072), District Fire Station (7503), District Medical Center (2640), District Police Station (3824), DP Stores (6724), DP Stores & Offices (3833), Elementary School (1462), Hamilton House (3281), Hills View Apts. (3633), High School (5730), Jean & Food (2331), Kiip Building (7756), Lauren Residences (1644), Lily Park (7334), Local Clinic (1220), Local Fire Station (2735), Local Police Station (1406), Local Post Office (1162), Malibu Apts. (1729), Maple Avenue (1603), Marine Side Homes (8210), Marine Side Offices (8338), Metropolitan Hospital (6102), Metropolitan Library (6030), NextT Center (7582), Nu-Vulton Store (3202), Paper Corp. (2893), Pine Residences (7352), Recycling Center (4542), Rich Bank (8056), Rosaleda Hotel (8499), School Library (1652), ST27 Residences (4302), Stella Homes (3520), Tulip Residences (3945), Water Pumping Station/Pump (522-2719), Wesley Place (2668), Wonton House (2858), YDFpharma Facilities B1-B3 (3642-4612) HIGH POLY (9K+): Adler Living (12781, HIGH), Blueview Condominiums (10230, HIGH), Lifewell Ins (11127, HIGH), Rooket Homes (10970, HIGH), Rose Condominiums (9385, HIGH), Seaton Residences (10812, HIGH), ST30 Hotel & Suites (11467, HIGH), YDFpharma Offices (11813, HIGH) DOWNLOAD (choose one) MESH-TEXTURE FILE (REQUIRED) from SFS | from MEGA LOW & MID-POLY BUILDINGS from SFS | from MEGA HIGH-POLY BUILDINGS (9K+) from SFS | from MEGA

CREDITS Thanks: Thanks to Rach & Lord Crumps. Sources: Any Color You Like (CuriousB, 2010), Beyno (Korn via BBFonts), EA/Maxis, Offuturistic Infographic (Freepik), J. Puerta (2022-2024), E. Grenci (2022), AliTarGz via Cities Skylines, Cities Skylines (Paradox Interactive and Tri Synergy, 2015). *No copyright infringement intended. Converted content is for non-commercial use only. EA/Maxis own all content derived from their games, as do other game/content publishers whose work appears on this site in derivative form. If this content exceeds fair use, contact this site via private message re: TOU violations.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Oh, shoot! Alex shared her loft pictures and I have never seen a loft like this. It is incredible for pink and pastel &/or bright color lovers. I hate my apt, now.

I love to experiment with light effects, but I never had a disco ball. I need a disco ball.

Kitty approves. She's so comfy on the shag carpet, baby.

The kitchen is wrapped with metallic vinyl.

What a different idea for an industrial loft.

The bath is groovy.

The lighting is stunning.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Big Tech and “captive audience venues”

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL next WEDNESDAY (Apr 2), and in BLOOMINGTON next FRIDAY (Apr 4). More tour dates here.

Enshittification is what you get when tech companies, run by the common-or-garden mediocre sociopaths who end up at the top of most businesses, are unshackled from any consequence for indulging their worst, greediest impulses:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/#praxis

The reason Facebook was once a nice place to hang out and talk with your friends and isn't anymore is that Mark Zuckerberg is no longer disciplined by competitors like Instagram (which he bought) nor by regulators (whom he captured), nor by interoperable tech like ad-blockers and alternative clients (which he uses IP law to destroy) nor by his own workforce (who have become disposable thanks to workforce supply catching up with demand). It used to be that Mark Zuckerberg couldn't really move the enshittification lever in the Facebook C-suite because these disciplining forces gummed it up. He had to worry about losing users, or about users installing alternative technology, or about regulators hitting him hard enough to hurt, or about workplace revolts. Now, he doesn't have to worry about these things, so he's indulging the impulses that he's had since the earliest days in his Harvard dorm, when he was a mere larval incel cooking up an online service to help him rate the fuckability of his female classmates.

When we had defenses, Mark Zuckerberg had to respect them. Now that we're defenseless, he's shameless. He's insatiable. He will devour us to the marrow.

When I'm explaining enshittification to normies, I often make comparisons to other places where you can't escape like airports and sports stadiums: "Facebook can afford to abuse you once they have you locked for the same reason that water costs $7/bottle on the other side of the airport TSA checkpoint." It's an extremely apt comparison, as you can verify for yourself by reading "Shakedown at the Snack Counter: The Case for Street Pricing," a new report from the Groundwork Collective:

https://groundworkcollaborative.org/work/street-pricing/

"Shakedown" makes the point that – as is the case with tech giants – sports stadiums and airports are creatures of vast public subsidy. If this seems counterintuitive, try Mariana Mazzucato's Entrepreneurial State, which lists all the ways in which the tech revolution represents a privatization of publicly funded research, as with the iPhone, whose semiconductors, internet connection, voice assistant technology, touchscreen and other components all count the public as a key investor:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/the-entrepreneurial-state-appl

And, as with airports and sports stadiums, the proprietors of the iPhone business are able to reap this gigantic public subsidy without taking on any public duties. Regulators that could impose some kind of public service obligations as quid pro quo for using public funds are AWOL, or worse, captured and complicit in the ongoing, publicly financed ripoff:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/15/private-law/#thirty-percent-vig

Airport, stadiums and tech platforms are all walled gardens – roach motels that are hard to escape once they've been entered. Thus the scorching prices of stadium and airport food, and the 30% transaction fees imposed by Apple and Google on app revenues (this is 1,000% higher than the average fees charged by the rest of the payment processing industry!), the 51% fees extracted by Google/Meta from advertisers and publishers (compare with the historical average of 15%), and the 45-51% that Amazon takes out of every dollar earned by its platform sellers. Once you're locked in, they can turn the screws, either by gouging buyers directly, or by gouging sellers, who pass those additional costs onto buyers.

Groundwork has a proposal to address this in physical settings: regulation. Specifically, a "street pricing" regulation that keeps the charges for food and drinks within these walled gardens to prices comparable to those on the outside. They note that these regulations enjoy wide, bipartisan support. 76% of Republicans support a regulation that can only be described as "price controls," two words that normally trigger head-explosions in the right.

How is it that such a commanding majority of Republicans can get behind government price controls? Simple: it's obvious that when a company no longer faces market discipline – when they're the only game in town (or on the other side of the TSA checkpoint) – that government discipline has to fill the vacuum, and if it doesn't, you will get mercilessly screwed.

This is where enshittification – a form of monopolistic decay unique to the tech sector – departs from everyday monopoly abuse in other sectors, like aviation and league sports. Tech has an in-built flexibility, the inescapable property of "interoperability" that comes standard with every digital system thanks to the universal nature of computers themselves.

Interoperable technologies let you hack Instagram to restore it to the state of privacy- and attention-respecting glory that made it a success in the first place:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

They let you monitor Facebook's failures to uphold its own promises about not profiting from paid political disinformation:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/06/get-you-coming-and-going/#potemkin-research-program

They let you claw back control over how Facebook's feeds are constructed:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/08/unfollow-everything/#shut-the-zuck-up

They let Apple customers maintain their privacy, even if they have the temerity to be friends with Android users:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/07/blue-bubbles-for-all/#never-underestimate-the-determination-of-a-kid-who-is-time-rich-and-cash-poor

They let shoppers use Amazon to order from local mom-and-pop stores:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/10/view-a-sku/

They even let you destroy the net worth – and power – of Elon Musk:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/08/turnabout/#is-fair-play

Interoperability creates a unique, easily administered source of discipline over tech bosses that just isn't available as a means of countering the ripoffs we see elsewhere, including in sports stadiums and airports. That means that, far from being harder to fix than other disgusting scams in our society, tech is easier to fix. All that stands in the way is the IP laws that criminalize the kind of reverse-engineering work that allow the users of technology to have the final say over how the devices and services they rely on work:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Those IP laws were spread around the world by the US Trade Representative, who insisted that every country that wanted to export its products to the US without punitive tariffs must pass laws protecting the rent-extracting scams of US tech giants. With those tariff promises now in tatters, there's never been a better time for the rest of the world to jettison those Big Tech-protecting laws:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/28/street-pricing/#sportball-analogies

Image: Daniel Brody (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:South-Station-snack-bar-1970.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[saebyeokbliss]

introducing my new series...

JUST MEET ME AT THE APT.— K. SAE-BYEOK

featuring the members of HOT DIVISION (핫 디비전) and their hot album, ROCKSTAR!

THE MEMBERS ARE AS FOLLOWS:

KIM JI-YEONG | LEAD SINGER— The chaotic heart of HOT DIVISION. Loud, reckless, and completely unfiltered, Ji-yeong thrives on the spotlight and knows exactly how to own a stage. Whether she’s belting out lyrics or making questionable life choices, she’s always the center of attention—and she loves it.

KANG SAE-BYEOK | LEAD GUITARIST — The definition of cool and effortless. Sae-byeok doesn’t waste words—she lets her guitar do the talking. Sharp-witted, observant, and dangerously good at making people weak with just a look. She plays like she was born with a guitar in her hands, and when she’s on stage, it’s impossible to look away.

KANG NO-EUL | DRUMMER — The calm in the storm. No-eul is the backbone of the band, keeping everything (and everyone) steady. She’s not one for theatrics, but when she plays, you feel it. Deadpan humor and an unmatched poker face make her the perfect counter to Ji-yeong’s chaos. Also, lowkey the most responsible one—though she won’t admit it.

HAN SE-MI | BASSIST — The ultimate hype queen. Se-mi is the glue that holds HOT DIVISION together, always bringing energy and laughter wherever she goes. She’s a menace on the bass and an even bigger menace off-stage—especially when it comes to teasing people (read: you). Loves fashion, loves fun, and loves stirring the pot.

synopsis: managing a rising rock band is already chaotic enough, but when you're stuck touring with four reckless musicians, things get even messier. between late-night facetime calls, teasing that feels a little too knowing, and a certain guitarist who might just be your biggest problem, keeping things professional is getting harder by the second. but hey, no one said the music industry was easy.

warnings: mutual pining, intense eye contact, teasing that borders on flirting (or maybe it is flirting), friends who refuse to mind their business, late-night facetime calls, secondhand embarrassment, slow burn that burns, emotional whiplash

playlist: spotify

credits to @yenyu1s for se-mi’s last name :3

MASTERLIST

prologue chapter one chapter two chapter three chapter four chapter five chapter six chapter seven chapter eight chapter nine chapter ten chapter eleven chapter twelve chapter thirteen

[edenspoem]

car wrapper ellie tbh.. ౨ৎ

the vision is fresh in my mind, and nonetheless, i'm still THROBBING at the mere thought-up imagery of ellie thumbing and smoothing your car with such tender and trained pressure in her fingertips— you wish you were in its place. established as a side gig in joel’s auto body shop, she wraps cars day-to-day, hour by hour, arranged inside a well-lit, decently compact garage swarmed with the whole hardcore shebang of grunge rock and various metal genres (with a biased cling to nirvana tbh). notorious outfitting; bare, freckled, and sun-showered arms, cut delectably at the shoulders by an off-white ribbed tank worn and sweat through. those hips fitted in some low-waisted, slouchy denim, accompanied by a small metallic carabiner clip that holds all of her jangly keys. and— most markedly, stud-pierced lobes with an industrial bar bridging one ear; absolute hottie alert. now, besides appearance and attitude, i think she has some sort of inherent apt for making girls swoon. doesn't even necessarily intend to— actually, whenever she opens her mouth, a total nerd comes out! though what seems to shoot right over her head is the fact that all her oral mannerisms and idle chit-chats of, “you sure you don't want me to take a quick peek under the hood? could save you a couple of bucks..” which, with a tone so tempting and drawled in such a convincing ‘advertisey’ way, ends up easily persuading girls and brings the heat to their cheeks. so, when she sways you, you decide to slump somewhere and watch. witness; consume her expertise with your eager pupils. ellie assures she'll only be a couple hours— but to rephrase it, those handful of hours spent chatting, eye-flirting, and chuckling silently to yourselves, always routes the afternoon into her tiny office where she eats the fuck out of your pussy.

masterlist . daily click . read this . palestine mp

no i did not see those car wrapping videos on tt and no i definitely did not get this idea from them DENY DENY DENY

[shorthaltsjester]

coming off the high of finishing the draft of the last of my exegetical/theory heavy chapters of my thesis and while i was writing i was thinking a lot about why applying real world political philosophies to exandria specifically tends to fall flat and like. even beyond the explicit treatment of things like homophobia as nonexistent and hegemony functioning wildly differently if it really actually exists in exandria as we conceptualize it in our actual world really boils down to the works that make up a lot of the roots of the leftist theory people apply to exandria. like obviously marx is a big guy, nietzsche has more influence than you’d think given his reputation as the internets (poorly interpreted) sad boy, and less people probably know the names of the critical theorists that came out of the frankfurt school but you’d know their ideas — and they all have their toes in countless leftist ideas today, whether their influence is explicit or not. what’s notable in all those theorists is something found in the argumentative and background work that they provide before the claims most people on the internet know re: the workers of the world uniting, god’s being dead, and the culture industry, whether in their previous work or just earlier in the same books that people have read the goodreads quotes of: first principles.

if you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s just a philosophy word for basic proposition that cannot be deduced from a previous claim. And for a whole lot of works in the history of moral and political philosophy (as well as other less relevant branches), one of the most common first principles you could find was the proposition that god exists. so much of the work of philosophers who inform leftist theory has required them to do the work of either coming up with a different first principle and justifying it and/or providing justification for why first principles are in themselves a flawed notion. nietzsche was so impactful in his claim that god is dead because it targets the very notion that history and the philosophy in it was finding the proposition that god exists to be unsatisfactory if unsupported. marx then was only able to ground his historical materialism because that first principle re: god was able to be dismantled. critical theorists, like adorno for example, were only able to do their work in light of accepting that god is not something worth appealing to without justification. and the reason any of this is relevant to the fantasy world of a silly internet show where voice actors roll dice is because any leftist theory whose most foundational basis is the realization and gradual societal acceptance that the claim “god is real” could not be assumed but had to be given justification will always end up being unsatisfactory when it is applied to a world where “god is real” is not only factually true but is also societally accepted and the existence of those who might philosophize about the gods is a direct product of those gods’ existence.

this isn’t to say there can’t be insight granted by applying these theories anyway (looking at my blorbos and applying philosophical theories is my favourite hobby, just ask my thesis supervisor) nor is it to say that the risks of trying to apply these theories to exandria starts and ends with its failing to be philosophically apt — but there have been many great posts circulating re: the issues with viewing certain facets of exandria through an “it’s a colonialist metaphor” lens and many similar cases so i won’t dive in here. just pointing out that as a facet of the objective truth that can exist in a fictional world, especially a world established by gods (world here being a word that includes the existence of mortals), some of the foundational propositions of the philosophical arguments at work in those theories are rendered false in the exandrian context. but this also means that, if the gods leave exandria in some sense, i will have a very fun time unpacking a nietzschean interpretation of their absence. because i predict that though the gods will be dead/gone, his meaning of god being dead will Not be fulfilled since ostensibly the majority of exandria still looks to the gods in love and in doubt as providers of guidance, and i question how much their presence actually informs the depth of that dependence. anyway. that’s my philosophical enrichment for the night.

[meredithgran]

About Newspaper Comics

An ask cross-posted from Cohost, which is not long for this world.

Anonymous User asked: I would like to know your opinions about newspaper comics

This is a very choose your own adventure kind of question. Am I meant to speak about the art or the business of newspaper strips? The current state of newspaper comics or their century-spanning history? Stream of consciousness it is.

Newspaper comics were the original dream for me before all other dreams. I fell in love with Garfield and the story of its success, and wanted to make a syndicated strip at an early age. Later, I fell in love with Calvin and Hobbes - itself a lesson in craft, history and business - and abandoned the syndication dream for “art by any means necessary”, and dove into webcomics. (There were a few more steps along the way, but that’s the basic trajectory and not uncommon for my age.)

In the 80s and 90s when I was dreaming Garfield dreams, syndicated newspaper strips were already dying. They’d been jam packed so tightly into rectangles in the comics section that no room for great cartooning remained. The schedules were brutal, the audience was broad and apt to complain, and the aging comics legends were phoning in or delegating their work, so even the full-page Sunday strips were gridded and lifeless. Even fresh new artists (rare as they were) were hammered creatively into the shape of the paper. The death of most major newspapers from the late 00s onward spelled the end of Garfield Meredith's dream.

The thing is, Garfield Meredith would be very pleased with the present day. Comics are bountiful, they're free to read online, and they're all accessible from a single app. Even better, the creators interact with their audiences day and night. In comics we have safely returned to the late-stage newspaper syndication model, after a brief "art by any means" era, with 24/7 access to the creators as a bonus. It goes without saying that most of the money these comics generate goes to the platform. As more people discover online comics, the memory of any other model has faded. Comics is a pushover industry, easily steamrolled by detached parties with money.

So what do we do? I'm afraid that's not what this post is about. Mom's tired. My heads is not really in the comics game anymore, and big tech & our rotting internet is a problem everywhere. But I think discussions about our history as cartoonists and comics appreciators - and an acknowledgment of what is disappearing - is important. It's no surprise that Bill Watterson's stubborn refusal to license, adapt, or needlessly continue his creation past its prime shocked me and many others onto a different path. I think it is useful to be a high-functioning crank in your own age: to fully accept the now without forgetting past possibilities or drawing a border around the future.

And of course, we mustn't let current trends tame our wild imaginations or our command of the craft. We have been given the tools to create beauty and make sense of life, and these creations - not the platforms that indiscriminately corral them - are worth sharing.

[arminthada]

what are your thoughts on the mysterious gentleman thada? do you think he has memories from the previous timeline too or not?

hi nonnie (❁´◡`❁)

ooooh my first reset theory ask. okayyyyyyyy disclaimer first. although i'm a novel reader, i haven't finished reading and the series so far is pretty much unlike what i've read so i'm disregarding all information from the source material and this answer is based SOLELY on what we've seen in the first ep.

PERSONALLY I'm a very simple watcher so i'm not the type that has even contemplated a third timeline or anything. From what we've gotten so far in EP 1, my theory is that:

In the original/first timeline where Armin is receiving his award, I think Thada has an exclusively fan-idol relationship with Armin where TD/Thada is his first fan ever who's always been silently supporting Armin since the start of his career and refuses to meet Armin at all as a fan.

I have no clue on how Thada first met Armin but for now I'm just guessing that Armin being the nice guy that he is, has helped/met Thada at some point (I'm thinking something like a chance encounter like Jin/Akin in Top Form where one partner is shaken by the act of kindness and the other person doesn't even remember it at all) and Thada began looking up information about Armin and realised that Armin is also in the entertainment industry that he's in so he just silently supports/sends gifts to Armin all along, without asking for anything in return because he knows that he as the top CEO of a media enterprise couldn't possibly be with famous actor Armin.

And when Armin dies, I think Thada will also be in serious grief and his grief will somehow powered the "reset" for Armin to travel back in time to live his life differently so it could be a chance for both of them to get what they deserve.

So if we go by my theory that Thada has been Armin's FC since Day 1, I would guess that when Armin's "reset" happened and he got sent back in time to this second timeline, Armin's death + Thada's grief in the first timeline also triggered something in Thada, telling him to stop silently support Armin from now on and take a more active approach with Armin (I also think Thada has also gained some kind of telepathic powers of sensing dangers around Armin after the "reset") from now on.

This would mean that in timeline where Armin has traveled back to, up until this point Thada has still been silently supporting him Armin all along (sending him gifts like that recorder) but this time because Armin has been "resetted" which means Armin is going to act differently before hence Thada in this second timeline also feels compelled to act differently (be more proactive) from what he's always been doing in the past.

Therefore in this moment for example, I think this is the first time that Armin meets AND remembers Thada but not for Thada. Perhaps for Thada, it might be more apt to call it the first time he actively approaches Armin?

Therefore I'm positing that in this moment, Thada was supressing his inner fanboy TD to pretend as if he doesn't know his no.1 idol actor Armin.

because CLEARLY this CANNOT just be a COINCIDENCE. one does not COINCIDENTALLY meet the person they saved their life the other day IN THE MIDDLE OF A PARK =))))))))))))

Armin is so obviously clocking Thada's lie but Thada definitely makes up a compelling lie to cover it up.

A lie that fanboy Thada obviously has to follow up on so he orders his secretary to buy him flat at Armin's place like it's grocery shopping to him =)))))))

In conclusion, this "second" encounter cannot have been a coincidence.

So all that would also explain why Armin still has that recorder from TD aka Thada aka his first fan ever who's already been sending him gifts since Day 1 regardless whether it's the first or the second timeline.

I think veteran actor Armin travelling back in time and giving acting performances that are way more above his capability at that time also gave Thada a stronger conviction to actively pursue and protect him. Like after talking with Armin at the park and then seeing this footage, I think fanboy Thada feels even more determined to get closer to Armin. In kpop terms, he would be a full on delulu y/n fanboy but we're watching a BL series so this is just your average simping ceo male lead.

My answer is also heavily influenced by other brilliant theories like this post by @my-rose-tinted-glasses and this post by @doyou000me and this post by @cirphu so check out their posts also \(￣︶￣*\))

thank you for reading all of this and i really hope that made sense ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ