#it was like one of several levels of subscription

[squiglylines]

had a dream where I was watching a youtube and in the middle the youtuber said "…and remember - never florpie your tongles!" with like a wink, then the video paused and an overlay appeared prompting me to subscribe to a monthly service to find out the meaning of This and Other In-Jokes and I was so devastated I woke up

[greenglowinspooks]

(DCXDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 5)

—

Tw: torture scene (GiW agent receiving), general angst, canon-typical violence (DC), nobody is having a good time

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually

(Masterlist/subscription post)

—

It was pretty easy for Danny to forget that Dr. Crane was a rogue at times.

Most of the time he wasn’t comically evil, like what he’d expect of a Gotham rogue. He was helping Danny, even if only because he didn’t want to be taken in by the GiW as well. He was even downright nice most of the time, or at least neutral.

Sure, he had a strange obsession with fear and psychology, but that wasn’t really out of the ordinary for Danny. It didn’t feel like living with a rogue, just like…staying with a distant relative, or something.

He seemed like just an ordinary person.

Today, though, Danny was brought back to reality.

The GiW agent they’d tracked down together writhed on the ground, screaming in pain and terror. Scarecrow was sat a few feet away, setting up a syringe of the antidote he’d made.

After a few more moments, he injected the man with the antidote, watching him like a hawk the entire time.

Suddenly, the man surged forward, lunging at Scarecrow with a feral scream.

Unluckily for him, though, he was still weak from the fear toxin in his system, and from the beatings he’d received prior. Scarecrow easily wrestled him to the ground, settling himself on the broad part of the agent’s back with a vice grip on one of his arms.

“Let’s try again,” he said sharply, all of the warmth Danny had grown used to gone from his voice. “Where is the GiW base of operations?”

The agent took several shuddering breaths before spitting at Scarecrow, defiance and hatred written all over his face.

For just a moment, the room was utterly silent.

“Fine, have it your way.”

Scarecrow began to twist the man’s arm further. It wasn’t long before the agent began to squirm, then writhe, beneath him. Danny’s stomach churned.

“You know,” Scarecrow began, almost conversationally, “there are plenty of jobs that one can get without the use of their legs, especially with the level of education you have. Anything that doesn’t involve hard labor, really.”

The man’s face was beginning to turn red in his struggle not to scream. He took in gasping breaths, the way that his mouth moved almost reminding Danny of a goldfish.

(He felt awful for the comparison, but it was true.)

“However,” Scarecrow continued, “I find you’d be rather hard-pressed to find a job without the use of your arms. Especially in a place like Gotham, where you can always be replaced by someone eager to do your job for even less money. Of course, you could most likely coast off of savings and severance pay for a while, but…”

He leaned closer to the man’s head, his voice lowering.

“Would you be able to live like that? To live with yourself, if you no longer have a purpose?”

He allowed the agent a few seconds of rest before increasing the pressure on his arm. The agent gasped, letting out a strangled hiss. His arm bones were making fascinating noises in response to the strain. Danny felt sick.

“You seem like a rather driven young man. I’m sure your family would hate to see you unmotivated, directionless. Would they resent you, do you think?”

“Fuck you, you—”

The man was cut off by his own scream as Scarecrow finally allowed his arm to break, audibly splintering into thousands of useless shards of bone.

He had the exact pressure memorized. Clearly, he had done this before.

This was wrong. This was wrong.

Shouldn’t Danny step in, do something?

“That won’t heal cleanly. Even with the best medical care in the world, you’ll end up with permanent damage.”

The man below him wheezed and sobbed, choking on air as Scarecrow let go of his arm carelessly, letting it flop back onto the ground.

“Just the sort of thing something like you deserves,” Scarecrow hissed, his voice cold.

“You tortured a child, and you enjoyed it. You laughed with your friends about it. In your notes, one of your friends complained about the screaming,” Scarecrow brought his leg around, grinding his boot into the man’s broken arm. He howled in agony, writhing uncontrollably.

“Was it inconvenient to him, do you think? Too loud? If you were joking about it, clearly you thought so, too. I could fix that as well.”

He drew out another needle, this one once again filled with fear toxin.

“Scarecrow, wait,” Danny choked out.

Scarecrow turned to look at him.

Even his posture was different than usual. He looked… stiff, more like an animal than a man. When he tilted his head at Danny in a silent question, it looked like something in his neck had snapped, his head lolling to the side.

Danny wondered if he was consciously moving like that, or if it was habit at this point.

“You—we don’t have to do this. We can get information some other way, right? You don’t have to…”

Danny looked down at the GiW agent below Scarecrow. He didn’t even have it in him to glare up at Danny like he had before. Instead he laid limply on the ground, tremors rolling through his body uncontrollably.

“We’ve exhausted every other option and you know it,” Scarecrow said, his voice low, “this is the only way we can move forward.”

“Still, I—I don’t,” Danny swallowed, his throat tight, “this isn’t—this isn’t right. Isn’t there some other way to do this? Like—a truth serum, or something?”

“Truth serums are notoriously unreliable. They’re almost as bad as lie detectors. We’re much more likely to get a reliable result from this.”

Danny just stared at the GiW agent and his splintered, ruined arm. He began to weakly wriggle in Scarecrow’s grasp, which was graciously ignored.

He vaguely remembered himself doing the same thing when he was on the operating table; even if he knew there was no chance of escape, he still thrashed and screamed, desperate to get away. The jagged I-shaped incision on his torso felt uncomfortably warm.

What was there left to say?

“The Bat does the same thing at times, you know,” Scarecrow said, “him and the rest of his brood. By using my toxin, I’m actually lessening the amount of permanent damage that I’m doing. Physically.”

“Still, that doesn’t make it right,” Danny said desperately. “Even if—even if everyone in the world did this, it wouldn’t make it right.”

Scarecrow hummed.

They were both silent for a moment.

His next words were gentle, absurdly so when compared to the scene in front of him.

“I would love an alternative. But…”

He shrugged, hand coming to rest on the break in the GiW agent’s arm. Even without applying any pressure, the man stopped squirming immediately.

“There aren’t any other options,” Danny repeated, his voice flat and his body numb.

“Yes,” Scarecrow said. “I’m sorry.”

There was a pause. No one moved a muscle. Eventually Scarecrow spoke again, his voice strangely empty.

“You can stand outside and keep watch, if you’d like. At such a short distance their radars won’t pick us up.”

Danny said nothing, leaving the room silently.

He sat outside for quite a while.

He was grateful that Scarecrow had, with his help, dragged the agent to one of his previous hideouts. It was soundproofed, after all.

He was glad that he didn’t have to hear the rest of what Scarecrow did to the man.

After what felt like an eternity, Dr. Crane left the building, joining him outside. He guided Danny back to his beat up old truck and they drove home in silence.

“Did you at least…do you know where they are, now?” Danny asked as they entered the apartment, his voice small.

“They didn’t share the details of all of their locations with any one person. I know where one of their locations are, but not their main base of operations.”

Danny felt disgusted. With himself, with Dr. Crane, with the GiW.

He was disgusted by the agent, too. Did he just hate the restless dead so much that he would prefer to be tortured than to give them the upper hand? Did he really think he was in the right?

Was there a chance that he was?

Danny felt very, very small, and very stupid. Stupid and weak and cowardly.

“Danny,” Dr. Crane spoke, his voice soft.

“I’m truly sorry that this is happening to you. I really, truly wish that you didn’t have to endure my company. I…”

He fell quiet. Danny wondered if he was just saying this to pacify him, or if he truly meant it. He wondered if it really mattered in the end.

After a few moments of silence, Dr. Crane sighed, looking truly pained.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Danny was quiet.

“I’m going to bed early,” he finally said, turning away and leaving without a second glance.

—

[faeiri-tft]

PLEASE do the toontown online rant i want it so badly

this post kinda got away from me, and by "got away from me" i mean this 3000 word toontown rant is Part One. there will be a Part Two to this later in which i actually talk about the fanservers i wanted to talk about. anyway let's go

toontown online (tto) was a children's mostly-turn-based subscription MMO released in 2003. after a few years of obviously being on life support, disney gave a one-month notice that tto (and several other games) would be closing on september 19th, 2013. on the same day the game closed, the fan-run server toontown rewritten (ttr) was announced (with multiple other fanservers/fangames/reimaginings being established since), and is a few months away from outliving the original game

see, one thing about tto that allowed fanservers to crop up so quickly and easily was that it had, um, interesting choices. very interesting choices. like, "kids could use a code injector to turn their backyards into giant mashed-together nightmarescapes"-level choices

(loose video description: a rabbit toon running around a chaotic mismash of rooms, obstacles, and npcs that Should Not Be There. audio caption: Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life".)

but ok let's talk about the actual game first.

toontown online (tto)

the game starts with you creating your player character - you can pick from eventually-9 species, a couple body types, and 2 dozen preset colors. the gender code is a spaghetti nightmare but you won't learn this until the fanservers come about so don't worry about it. you're then taken to the Toontorial, which explains maybe 20% of the game's mechanics before setting you loose into the main game

the toontorial also gives you the basic "plot", such as it is: Toontown is suddenly* under attack by a bunch of boring businessrobots called the Cogs. their goal is to turn toontown into a dreary gray featureless corporate hell; their business activities are so boring that they're physically painful to be around. luckily, they can't take a joke, so the toons have figured out how to defeat them: by playing pranks on them until they laugh so hard they Explode

*originally, the game installer had a little animation giving a backstory for the Cogs' creation. this was never referenced in game, removed pretty quickly, and i think even the devs kinda forgot it existed

that's...pretty much the whole story! in that context, your toon progresses through all of toontown, helping some mostly-pretty-interchangeable shopkeepers, reclaiming buildings from the cogs, eating ice cream, etc. occasionally, the cogs would Come Up With New Tricks (read: major content update) and the toons would Find A Way To Fight Back (read: same major content update). that was the closest thing to Plot, unless you count "the devs scheduled a bunch of invasions of high-tier cogs right before the game's closure". but...i doubt most the kids really expected a Plot. mickey mouse was there

the gameplay:

the Free Account

there were two...pretty different approaches to playing toontown online. when the game launched, there was a 3-day free trial to the entire game, after which you got kicked entirely until you subscribed. at some point, this was changed so that the first area, Toontown Central (TTC), was Always Free - you could do all of that area's quests/"taskline" and limited activities, indefinitely, and in theory this would make you beg your parents for the rest of the game

i have no idea if this actually got more subscriptions or not. from what i can tell it just spawned more warrior cats

(source)

there were. a Lot of warrior cats. there were some other social activities, too, such as Fashion Shows (with your limited range of clothes) and Begging Subscribed Players To Summon Cog Buildings To TTC and Getting Chat Banned. ...however, as one of the subscription kids i didn't really interact with this side of the game, so i'm not the best person to talk about it

2. the Paid Account

mmm look at those crisp clear graphics. hell yes

a subscription account gave you access to this whole map, along with all these areas' tasklines. to progress through the game, you must complete a variety of "ToonTasks" for the Toon Resistance (it's called that. their catchphrase is "Toons of the World, Unite!". you were giving disney money for this). these reward you by increasing your max health (your "Laff Points"), slowly unlocking more combat options, and sending you to different, higher-difficulty areas of toontown

some of these tasks were...longer than others. generally, though, they all boiled down to: "just go fight some cogs"

combat:

(source)

toontown battles are turn-based: the players use their attacks ("gags") first, and then any surviving cogs attack you with, usually, office equipment and puns thereof (unless the cog is e.g. a Loan Shark, in which case they can just fucking bite you). if you defeat a cog, it explodes; if the cog defeats you, you "go sad" and are sent back to the safety of the playground, lose your gag inventory, and can't leave until you heal.

early on, most your battles are 1v1, but later on almost everything is a multiplayer 4-ish-v-4.

an...interesting feature here in the game's early days was that you could only Type Your Own Words to someone who shared their "friend code" with you IRL. otherwise, you had to use this thing:

(source)

you had a set list of phrases you could string together, which generally covered most the things you wanted to say. but it could get frustrating when you wanted to have a real conversation with your toontown friends! so...as the source above mentions, people obviously found ways around the system. turns out that if you let players move objects around their houses, they will use that to Draw Letters and pass their friend code along regardless

eventually - before the warrior cats, of course - disney presumably realized this system was pretty goofy (🥁) , so the game got a real chat, albeit one that functioned on a very strict whitelist. my favorite is that it didn't let you type numbers, however you could just say won too tree for hive etc. like. disney i really don't know what to tell you. anyway

(isn't he charming)

cogs come in levels 1-12, with levels displayed above their heads, and as you'd expect their damage output and HP increase with their level. however, the game doesn't...actually show you cog HP? instead they have a little colored light on their chest that fades from green to red until they explode. you see numbers on all the damage you do, and you see your own HP/laff, but never the cogs'. also lategame cogs are Too Tall For You To See Their Level once they line up for battle (which isn't actually that bad but it's funny). there's a formula for HP per level, but it's never mentioned in-game. i guess someone can teach it to you but then you have to watch them type "a level tin cog has won tree too health" and is that really worth it

(as you can tell i just…don't get this. "my kid is practicing arithmetic with toontown!" - marketing angle expressly denied by god. the stealth edutainment was right there)

anyway! in theory, you have seven base combat options ("gag tracks"), which combine in a variety of ways:

toon-up, which restores your teammates' health;

trap, which does guaranteed high damage but only if someone uses lure;

lure, which stuns the cogs for a few turns and is the only way to make trap work

sound, which does low damage to every cog;

throw, which does medium-high-ish damage to one cog; multiple throws combined give percentage combo damage, and hitting a lured cog will also add percentage "knockback damage";

squirt, which is exactly like throw but less damage;

and drop, which does high damage but cannot hit lured cogs, and has low accuracy unless you hit the cog with something else first

each gag track has 6 levels, which you unlock by using that gag track a bunch. you can't carry as many of the high levels with you - i mean, putting one piano in your backpack makes perfect sense, but two is just silly, right

a few years into the game's lifespan, level 7s were added - these were huge AOE that you could regain with every 500 track EXP. there was also something called "organic gags" to promote the please-log-in-every-day gardening system

every player starts with throw and squirt, and throughout the game you slowly unlock four more gag tracks. your choices are permanent: once you have your six tracks, you're locked out of the seventh forever.

in theory, all of this opens up a huge variety of combat options!

in practice, the battle strategy looks something like this:

use sound

as mentioned, almost all of lategame will be 4v4 battles, which means sound will almost always outdamage everything on earth. you don't even need four foghorns (the highest normal sound gag) to break 200 AOE damage, and the highest health a cog EVER has is 200*. and two of the boss battles can reward you with gag restocks and heals that you can use mid-battle with no consequences (other than having to grind for those rewards a bunch). and failing THAT, you can just...ration your foghorns and take 2 turns to clear a set of cogs, interspersed with healing.

(*okay there was something called "v2.0 cogs" but they were...strange, and we just used sound anyway)

sure, once level 7s were added you could use those occasionally. and you could fall back on lure+throw if you didn't want to use your sound restocks. but even then, for most of tto's existence there was something called the "knockback bug" which. well. just look at it

(link for transcript. it's tvtropes sorry)

if you are a target-audience eight-year-old this translates to "lure + throw will only do enough damage if the cogs Feel like it." like it's really just insult to injury at this point. this was the result of One misplaced variable and was not fixed until the game closed

in the tto era, if you didn't have sound, you were kinda doomed to be kicked out of every fight forever

(bonus fun fact: there were Four entire battle themes and they were 40-second midi loops. let me out)

the bosses:

each of the four cog departments has a Boss Cog. to face off against them, you have to assemble a cog disguise and collect enough merits/stock options/whatever to be allowed into the boss's office.

(pictured: your convincing disguise)

when you enter, your disguise pops off due to Reasons, and you have to fight through...a bunch of waves of normal cogs. it's basically a really long normal battle. once the minions are dealt with, you have to, inexplicably, do a live-action battle against the boss themself:

(loose video description: four toons defeating the CFO by using magnet cranes to hit him in the face with safes for 32 seconds.)

the live-action rounds aren't supposed to go this quickly, but it's still...kinda strange? certain reoccurring game areas require Parkour, but there are no battles like this outside of the Four bosses. the CFO's room is the only place you see these cranes and they have A Lot Going On. the other 3 bosses have their own unique weird mechanics. before the first boss was added we neither had nor needed the ability to Jump. it's just weird

once you've defeated the boss, you're given a reward of varying usefulness (the best/most unbalanced reward type is Unites, which are a free heal or gag restock you can do inside or outside of battle. essentially lategame toons can simply choose not to die. riv2u etc.)

and, um. then you get some more merits/stock options/whatever and do it again. and again. and again. and again. and agai

the grind:

so the thing is that tto was a subscription mmo. every addition to the game had to be measured, above all, in terms of "how can we best get kids to beg their parents to give us money." this especially shows in the suit grind:

(source/source)

you have to defeat each boss 78 times in order to get all their laff points - and as you proceed, you have to defeat an increasing amount of cogs to even be allowed into the boss (although once you max you get in for free).

by far the easiest way is to run through the designated HQ facilities - basically, cog fights interspersed with some platforming or minigames. you only collect your merits/whatever at the Very End of the facility. the only way to increase what a facility gives you is if your last battle ends during an "invasion" - a timed period where One Specific Cog replaces all street cogs, usually summoned with boss rewards.

the sellbot HQ grind isn't so bad. bossbot HQ - the endest-game HQ - frequently requires you to do an hour-long facility and on six separate occasions you have to do seven of them. if the invasion ends before your final battle, you have to sit around until someone summons another. if you lose your internet connection because it's 2008, or if your parents make you come to dinner, or if hacking or the game's general bugginess cause a server reset because you're probably in the busiest district for the invasion bonus, you have spent that Entire Hour On Nothing. the CEO (bossbot cog boss) probably also takes an hour because you and your fellow players are 10

this shit, combined with laff points locked behind gardening (time-gated), racing and golfing (multiplayer minigames with absurd requirements), and fishing (RNG-based with some fish being absurdly rare. i watched my mom fish for one every day for a month), meant that maxing a toon took Years, if you managed it ever.

it wasn't, um. it wasn't good

ok so what else is wrong with this game:

i had "aged out of the game" (lol) by the early '10s, so i'm not the best person to do a writeup of the hacking/scripting situation of those days. that said, what i'm going to do is give you a few examples, and i want you to just...look at them

(source)

(source). early '10s youtube was funny i'm trying to decide if i miss it

(source). fun thing to note here is that other players had collision, so a swarm of t-posing toons could just barricade the gag shop if they wanted to

(video description: toon who has Replaced His Head Model With An Anime Logo throwing thousands of jellybeans at everyone) (cw mild flashing just in case? and also the feather headband accessory)

i should note that the Bring Me To Life vid i started with was client-side, meaning only the player could see their technicolor hellscape. this guy's face was server-side. i do Not Think you should be able to do that

(video description: a player demonstrating use of a bot to get into the nutty river district, followed by other players using it to go to different game areas)

the above video was posted on august 17th, 2013. if you don't want to watch an Unregistered Hypercam 3 recording at about 5 frames per second, what's going on here is:

the player goes to a specific location and says a specific speedchat phrase.

a bot toon teleports to their location and provides some prompts on how to use it

the player tells the bot, via speedchat, to teleport to the (currently closed from the outside) busiest district so the player can follow

these "taxi toons" were server-sided, persisted across server resets, were made by a future fanserver dev, had younger kids referring to them as a "glitch" as if this were something that could Accidentally Happen, and stayed functional until the game closed

like...a lot of the "hacking" was just baby's first script download. this one - afaict also created by the laughing man head guy - is like...the fact that after years of no substantial game updates, someone effectively programmed their own "QOL feature" (note: not actually good for the poor mid-00s server being turned into a clown car) into a silly disney MMO and it just fucking sat there for a year is just. it's just.

i don't know what this is. this is not Playing The Game Toontown Online. this is nothing. this is everything. there are comments from 2013 on some of these videos saying stuff like "hackers killed toontown", but your game cannot have this happen if it is not already dying

and, like...it was. i'm not sure how many moderators there were by this point, but at the very end of tto, the number of active devs was One. the original devteam recently brought this up at the 20th anniversary celebration: devs just...slowly started getting pulled from the game, one at a time. there were a few updates after bossbot HQ - Field Offices, which i've basically never heard anything good about in their tto form ever; the Silly Meter, a yearly event...thing whose main function was to add unskippable dancing-inanimate-object cutscenes to your street battles; Parties, which...yknow parties were okay actually. i accept parties. but they weren't exactly a Major Game Update like the ones that had come before. in 2011 we gained the ability to Wear Hats. in 2012 the test server got some actual QOL updates that never made it to the main game; the final test server update was some maintenance in february, and then nothing for 18 months. disney was not providing enough resources to address the scripting because disney was not providing enough resources to address toontown. imagine being the last dev standing on an MMO that was older than some of its players, was losing its business model to mobile gaming, and spent most of its life falling apart at the seams. just imagine it, for a second

it couldn't have kept going, not like this.

on august 20, 2013, the closing announcement came: we had a month left of toontown online. the test server shut immediately; subscription refunds went out, and the game became actually F2P for the month; the part of the announcement that went like "we're shifting our focus to other games!" made a bunch of twelve-year-olds hate club penguin as if club penguin wouldn't also close in a few years; all the holiday events went off at once; and...

there wasn't a "thanks for playing!" popup. everyone online just got kicked, all at once. it was finally over

hey wait.

[lavenderarts]

Revamp: Monthly Subs and Reward Art!

Hi everyone! After a long hiatus on this due to inconsistent health, I'm back and feeling better than ever, and I'd like to re-institute my monthly subscription service for art rewards. These will be active on my Ko-fi starting on August 1st! Read on to hear about the changes from my old system and details of what you'll get for subscribing, but if you don't care about any of that and just want to see the rewards page, here it is:

Please share this and consider tossing a couple bucks a month my way to help me support myself and my dog! Details below the cut!

So last time I was offering art rewards, it gradually became unsustainable for a number of reasons, chief among them the fact that I was basically offering severely discounted full commissions of all styles, and it was exhausting to fulfill in addition to regular commission work. I just couldn't keep up and got overwhelmed. So to help prevent that this time around, here are the changes I'm implementing:

I'll have a single reward type: single character busts! These are easy to crank out in an hour or less, so I can keep up with demand better. I'll reserve the right to decide between lined/lineless flats and papercrafts as I see fit to keep them interesting and fun for me, but if it's your birthday month or your yearly sub anniversary, you can choose the style and get a little something extra! For examples of what a bust looks like, please check out my recent ArtFight submissions :)

I'm going to do my level best to institute a hard 3-week turnaround rate for all regular commissions, and save the final week of each month for giving these rewards full priority along with onboarding new batches of clients for the following month's commissions.

I'm moving my subscription service over to Ko-fi, where anyone can give between $2-9 a month as a very generous tip and get access to my Discord server, or give $10+ for monthly bust rewards, early access to adoptables, and more! You can choose to give more than $10, but no other rewards exist for higher tier subs, it's up to whatever you feel is appropriate! Ko-fi has both Stripe and PayPal integration, which should be easier on the subscriber end, and it allows me to use PostyBirb to post across multiple sites at once, which makes it much easier to post early-access WIPs and finished work than it was on my old subscription service. It also automatically handles Discord onboarding and role assignment, yay!

I'm on the hunt for a simple Discord bot that can post a single repeating message on the first of every month with a link to a Google form for everyone to submit their requests, so that I don't have to ask for them manually. (If anyone knows of such a bot or is capable of making one, please get in touch!)

Previously I offered a whole suite of other rewards in addition to the monthly art -- things like subscriber-only request streams, early claims on adoptables, and even physical merch, which were not sustainable for me. Going forward, early adoptable claims for a discount will still be available as a reward, and I may occasionally do request streams, but on a less formally-scheduled basis and only as I have the free time to do so. I am not able to offer physical prints/stickers at this time; I might revisit the option in the future, but I need to know more before I try it again! I'll also be continuing to offer a subscriber discount on all commissions that will stack with other sales and discounts, along with the ability to skip the waitlist and jump directly into the work queue.

So to recap, if you subscribe to me, here's everything you get:

For $2-$9 USD: Discord server access with a special role, and my thanks for your generous support!

For $10+ USD: Discord server access with a special role, 24 hour early adoptable access with the ability to claim for a discounted price, a bust of a single character each month, first looks at finished artwork and WIPs/timelapses, commission discounts, and potentially more down the line.

My Discord is open to anyone, and all members can freely chat, post art, attend/host art streams, and answer polls regarding prompts for adoptable designs and more. You just get some nice bonuses for subscribing! While these subscription tiers are available, one-time tips and donations of any amount are still an option for commission clients or anyone else who just wants to show some love.

I hope this all makes sense and sounds enticing; I really love seeing people's OCs and getting to bring them to life and put my own little touch on them, and I'm very excited to start giving something back to all of you out there whose support means so very much to me, and without whom I could never do what I do. Thank you so much for checking out the Ko-fi! As a reminder, reward eligibility begins on August 1st! The tiers are active on Ko-fi now, but if you subscribe before August you won't be rewarded for the month of July, so keep that in mind.

[puckpocketed]

30/06/2024 - The Colorado Avalanche draft Tory Pitner 185th overall.

I think that I can use my brain and really bait other players into plays that they don't want to make and then close out. Really take away time and space, and ultimately just be a prick to play against - I don't know if I can say that on this - but I think that I can defend really well.

[full draft day interview transcript + an introduction by me under the cut]

Foreword: This transcript was done by hand to the best of my ability and edited for clarity. In bold text are my highlights, parts I thought were noteworthy and interesting. I removed filler words (um's and uh's). In square brackets are where I've added words or adjusted words for clarity. In the regular parentheses are small notes for added context. Tory Pitner is a fascinating player. He does not have the high-end skill you saw go in the first round. He is foremost a shutdown d-man. But he is smart, driven, methodical in his preparation and training, and most of all a true scholar and lover of the game. If anyone has an EP Rinkside subscription, I would encourage you to read the article written about him. The bulk of it is an interview, in which he goes into vivid detail about several top draft picks from this year whom he has played against, and how he goes about shutting them down. He has their on-ice habits broken down and analysed; from their handedness to the types of shots they like to make and the dekes they like to use. He watches NHL defensemen, describing his study with the fervour of an academic, a mad scientist, and a fan all at once. He has charmed me utterly, and I think it's because we love hockey in such similar ways. I love the details of the game, I love watching good and interesting hockey above all else, and I absolutely love studying it (albeit on an amateur level). And, okay, I don't like to make bold predictions, so I won't. All I have is hope. I hope he grows and thrives, I hope everyone one day recognises how special he is, and most of all I hope he makes it. Tory Pitner, no matter who you play for and where you're playing, I will always be rooting for you!!

Q: How would you describe [your] feelings right now?

TP: It's pretty unbelievable. I mean, it's a great feeling. Colorado is a great organisation, and especially down the road from Denver [University] it's going to be really, really fun to go to a lot of games and just see the progression in the team - in my game - to hopefully one day be there.

Q: So, knowing that you were going to D.U., were you maybe kind of hopeful that it'd be the Avs?

TP: Yeah. I talked to the Avs a little bit during the year and stayed in contact with some of their scouts, so every time they picked I was kind of on the edge of my seat - but I'm happy to be here and really excited.

Q: What are the strengths in your game?

TP: I'd say that my defending is probably my biggest strength. I think that I can use my brain and really bait other players into plays that they don't want to make and then close out. Really take away time and space, and ultimately just be a prick to play against - I don't know if I can say that on this - but I think that I can defend really well.

I'd say my player comparable is John Marino; his ability to play against those top line guys and shut them down every night. I mean, you just saw him get traded so [he's] obviously a very valuable piece in the NHL, and he was a sixth round draft pick too. I'm really excited to hopefully continue that development path over at D.U. to round out all the other areas of my game to play in the NHL.

Q: So you'd say Denver is a good choice for you, for college?

TP: Yeah. I'd say, obviously, the coaching staff first of all, [David Carle] is an unbelievable coach; and then just the proven track record they have at developing NHL defensemen. Being there every day, you see all the guys that come back, and they want to be at D.U. All the guys that they've sent to the NHL, they still come back to train there - train with Matt Shaw, the strength coach, and skate on the ice. Everyone there; it's kind of a brotherhood. It's a great system for [anyone] to go through if they want to get to the NHL.

Q: Did you get a chance to speak to Jake Fisher? (Colorado draft pick #121 overall)

TP: I'm actually roommates with Fish at D.U. We moved in on Sunday and so it's kind of cool that we both got picked here.

Q: So have you talked to him since?

TP: I haven't. I gotta be honest, I put my phone down after round three and kind of tried not to go on it. But yeah, no, we'll definitely talk. I'll see Fish [on] Sunday when I land. We probably have some studying to do for our Geography class. No, it'll be good. I know he was really excited, I'm really excited, too.

Q: Have you ever been to an Avs game?

TP: I have not, no. But I heard that the D.U. guys go all the time, especially with it being right downtown, so [I'm] really looking forward to getting out there and seeing Ball Arena live. I've driven past it a few times, just heading back to campus and whatnot, but I'll be really excited to get inside and see what it's like.

Q: How did [the Youngstown Phantoms] help you develop, to get to this point? (inaudible)

TP: For sure. I mean, obviously it was great my first year, getting to experience winning the Clark Cup Championship there was super cool for me, and it was a great learning experience being able to be around great leaders like Shane Lachance and Chase Pietila - who got picked earlier today. Being able to be around those kind of guys was awesome for me. And then my second year, taking a step into a bigger role with the team, talking with [coach] Andy Contois a lot about my game, working on different areas that I need to improve, and improving on my strengths, too, [like] being hard to play against. So I think overall they helped me round out my game, and I'm looking forward to keep rounding out that game at D.U.

Q: What has your Draft Day experience been like here at the Sphere? (inaudible)

TP: Yeah, no, it was long. Woke up early, couldn't really sleep too much. Woke up, just kind of got a workout in to get moving, you know, have something to do. Then walked over here - I'm staying at a hotel that's not too far - so, walked over. Sat down after having some breakfast and then kind of just watched the draft. It's been pretty cool, though. I have my family here, my agent as well, [and] one of my coaches. It's been really nice to have everyone here supporting me.

Q: What about the way that Colorado plays defence excites you?

TP: I'd say that I love how they're pretty freeing with all their defensemen. Even down the lineup, you look at Josh Manson still getting up in the play joining as a fourth man. Sam Girard obviously loves to do that. They obviously have great defensemen like Cale Makar running their power play. [They] love being really active. I think that's something that I'm looking to add more to my game, too, and so the freedom to do that in Colorado is something I'm really looking forward to - especially at D.U. as well, having that freedom. Finding the middle in a lot of their breakouts, not a lot of off-the-glass plays or up the wall; they like to really possess the puck. I'm really looking forward to being able to hold on to the puck a little bit longer and find some middle support, which I think will ultimately help my game break down the opponent and just add another element - which will be really fun.

Q: What players did you idolise as you came up?

TP: It's kind of been a lot of different ones, but I really wanted to play defence because of Nick Lidstrom. When I was younger, one of my coaches - actually, Anže Kopitar's brother - Gašper Kopitar; he was my defense coach in LA when I played for the junior Kings when I was younger, and he told me 'If you want to be a defenseman, [go] watch Nick Lidstrom.' So I found some YouTube video - and I think I've watched it like 400 times or something like that. I've watched his NHL 36 multiple times, just to get me going or just to learn his routines. So idolising him growing up and then seeing the great person and defenseman he was; it really made me want to be [one], and I wanted to play hockey even more.

[meanbossart]

Asks about VaM, art advice, and miscellaneous stuffs

HI! Real quick please refrain from referring to Sad Sack as S/S for the uh... Obviously reasons LOL We call it "sads" for short!

If what you're asking for are recommendations for a website to host that kind of thing, Neocities, Twitter, Itchio and as you mentioned AO3 are all perfectly good options! Patreon too (depending on how gnarly you're planning on getting) but I'd suggest keeping that as a secondary host option because I don't think it lends itself super well for getting your work circulating. I believe Bluesky allows that kind of thing too, but I'm not too sure since I don't use it.

Now, If you're asking about public reaction rather than guidelines, anywhere you go you might find people that don't jive with the work you do 🤷 just be upfront about the type of content you're making right off the bat to avoid having anyone stumble upon it by accident to the best of your abilities, otherwise, I wouldn't worry too much. I know we're constantly exposed to examples of overwhelming harassment and "dogpilling" happening to others but... Truth be told, most of us won't ever get to the size/internet level of fame where we experience that. I think the threat is a little bit... Overstated, nowadays. Not to mention that most of the time people are getting harassment for things that have nothing to do with their work, and rather relating to their behavior and attitudes. Play smart, be responsible, and be honest! Whatever comes next is in god's hands LOL

Thank you for the ask! Not sure I was of much help 😅 but frankly when you're just starting out it's best to focus on getting the work done first and just throwing it out there, wherever it may be. You can worry about technicalities like that later!

I GOT YOU MAN the full sketch is now up on my patreon!

YES AND YES WHETHER IT BE STORIES OR ART OF DU DROW AND YOUR CHARACTERS SLAMMING PINTS TOGETHER BE MY GUEST PLEASE

I love seeing everyone's take on my weirdo so much, anything is honestly welcomed!

AW DUDE thank you so much! Especially for suffering through the mammoth of a story that ANE turned into - writing has never been my strongest point so I'm always shocked to hear from people that enjoy it 🥲

About the booze question, honestly I'm not picky at all, I usually go by price and by that I mean whatever is cheapest LOL but I prefer a dry white as far as types go.

You only have to pay for it once! You get a code that unlocks the software and all of it's features and you're free to cancel your subscription after that. At some point the code might change or there might be an update that requires subscribing again - but that seems like a very rare occurrence so I wouldn't worry about it.

OH NO I HAVE DEFINITELY TRACED MY OWN REFERENCE BEFORE, but not entire poses! When something is challenging I'll make a point of drawing it out the usual way.

I can remember a couple of instances from Nick and mine's comic where I traced pictures I took of myself, just as a time saving measure. Again like I said in the post, there are several ways to employ tracing your own material that is perfectly acceptable. I have also traced bare-bones 3D backgrounds that I made for the same reasons.

I know you specifically asked about tracing when something's complicated, but I still wanted to be upfront to demystify the practice under different circumstances. The rule of thumb is to never use it when you know it would be inhibiting your skill development!

Happy to hear you wanted to pick up the skill! I definitely understand the urge too LOL since playing BG3 and becoming so invested in the stories and characters my art has improved a ton, simply from forcing me out of my usual style and making me want to capture different moods and scenarios - finding something you're passionate to draw is, frankly a great damn start.

I replied to a bunch of asks asking for pointers and advice a while back, one of the questions was very similar to yours and I still stand behind the advice I gave then. Hopefully you can find something helpful here! https://meanbossart.tumblr.com/post/740543514692173824/some-art-advice-asks-ive-been-meaning-to-reply

HMMM I don't usually think of myself as the best teacher/tutorial guy, but funnily enough I can think of a few things about this topic that I could elaborate on lol. If I do that in the near future, I'll put it up on my patreon (for free as with everything else.)

If there are any specific things about it that you (and anyone else who would be interested in it, for that matter) find challenging and would like for me to focus on, let me know!

---

That's all for now folks, and as usual thank you so much to everyone who's left a nice compliment, word of encouragement or funny tidbit in my inbox as well! I can't reply to you all individually, but I see and read all the messages I get c:

HAVE A LOVELY REST OF YOUR WEEK

[questersrest]

i've been receiving a few replies on the topic so i'll make a post about it again. i've jumped back into dq10! yes, the japan-only mmo! yes, you can play it too!

there's a free trial with the base game and the first expansion (version 1 and 2) albeit with some restrictions like a level limit, not being able to use the nearby chat (there are a few quests this makes uncompletable but it's not a big deal), and not being able to use the traveller's bazaar to buy and sell with other players.

i'm not affiliated with anyone who makes any tools or guides and don't know them. it's a little outdated but there's a bunch of information over at https://dqxabbey.com/ that's take you through making a japanese square enix account, activating the free trial, and installing the game. then using a translated version of the launcher and config program and installing dqx clarity which replaces story text and certain terms like monster names with fan translated versions, and runs the rest of the text through a machine translation and injects it into the game. if you really like it, they also have guides for buying the game, buying a subscription, and buying from the dq10 shop. i own the game myself now and can help answer questions about that.

bear in mind: the game kicks you out if you try to connect from outside japan. several years ago they started allowing connections from the us (maybe all of north america? idk) since western fans were finding ways to play anyway. however, i live in the uk so i still get kicked so i have to use a vpn. dqx abbey mentions proton vpn which has a free version so i use that sometimes. proton vpn used to let you at least choose from the free servers. it now auto-assigns one, you can still click 'change server' a few times until you get one in japan or the us but it will time you out if you do it too many times. you may have to sort out another vpn for yourself.

now go! i'll see you in astoltia!

ps if you really don't think you'll ever play it, or don't care so much for spoilers and want to know what the hell the game's about. i recommend watching the videos on it by battle geek plus

[walkawaytall]

i would love to hear more about your opinions on LM Montgomery's works 👀

Oh, hi! Thanks for dropping me a note. So, I really have only read her Anne books (and, oddly, have yet to read Rilla of Ingleside). I enjoyed them as a preteen, and Anne was one of several fictional redheads that made me want red hair so badly as a kid :D.

I really started to love the books a lot more as an adult. I was working a job that involved a lot of sort of mindless work, which allowed me to listen to audiobooks and podcasts. I got hooked on LibriVox, which is a site that offers free audiobooks of works in the public domain, read by volunteers. I specifically really liked dramatic readings, and thoroughly enjoyed the Anne books that were available via dramatic reading (as well as Little Women and Pride and Prejudice).

I really enjoyed all of the books, but Anne of the Island and Anne's House of Dreams were my favorite. All the girls at Patty's Place in Anne of the Island reminded me a bit of this house I lived in shortly after moving out of my parents' house for good. I lived there with some women I knew through school and church, and we were all varying levels of friends. It was a really sweet, fun time, and I love being reminded of those years.

But, I'm also all for emotional works, and I think that's why I love Anne's House of Dreams best. I really like Anne and Gilbert together, I like the domesticity of them building a life together after they get married in this new place, and I really like all of the new characters as well. Additionally, I like the way the book handled death and tragedy. Anne's proclamation after the loss of Joyce that, "The thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts me worse than all else[...]", is something I think anyone who has lost a loved one can relate to. Some of the plot points are a bit more fantastical than the other books, but I still really enjoy it. I like when things work out in the end, even if there is a great deal of heartbreak in the midst of a story, and I think Anne's House of Dreams does just that.

Oh, and since it's on topic, I thought I might share this YouTube channel that I really enjoyed back when they were actively posting videos. Green Gables Fables is a modern take on some of the Anne books, told via vlog, similar to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (though, GGF was done by a bunch of students -- it is admittedly much lower-budget and less-polished than LBD, but I still think it's great). I highly suggest watching using the playlists for Season One and Season Two, as these contain vlogs by characters other than Anne that help fill out the story and that are easy to miss if you're not aware of all the characters' account names. If you want to like...grow attached to Ruby Gillis, this may be the series for you!

If you're interested in the LibriVox dramatic readings I mentioned, they are here (I usually used the iTunes subscription option, I think, since I was always taught not to just download random files from websites. Haha...But I also have no idea if that still even works.):

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Avonlea

Anne of the Island

Anne's House of Dreams

The quality of reading varies because these are volunteers, but I really like Arielle Lipshaw, who acts as both narrator and the voice of Anne, so I found them really fun and engaging.

[doodlesandbooks]

Things I have watched on Netflix whilst (really) ill and my rating of them: 

Dungeon Meshi: 100/10 - I started watching before I was ill, its worth buying a Netflix subscription for this, its great, SungWon Cho is in it, go watch it. 

Words Bubble up Like Soda Pop: 9/10 - A feel good, sweet film about young love in a very bright summer mood 

Drifting Home: 10/10 - Adorable kids go on a harrowing adventure Ghibli style, beautiful animation, sweet story telling. The children do act like emotionally immature children but you’d expect that. I watched it twice.

Children of the Whales: 7/10 - Fun, clearly misses bits of the manga. Some characters have a fun telekinetic glowy power called 'thymia'. One of the characters really feels like the writer’s OC, which is fine, but occasionally off-putting . World building was super fun, and I really liked the character Suou.

The Orbital Children: 1/10 - I'm giving it 1 just for the fun first episode. it seemed like it would start with good world building and had cute enough animation. Don’t watch it, I sunk 6 episodes of time into it with increasing frustration. It is a complete waste of your time post the third episode. It had ant man level writing where quantum was replaced with AI, and it just got worse. I was ill enough that the quality didn't matter that much.

The Garden of Words: 5/10 - just for the animation, which was beautiful - it was a story about a 15 year old boy developing a crush on a depressed English teacher, and they become friends, he doesn’t know she’s a teacher. It leaves you constantly wondering if the studio is about to condone something illegal until the last five minutes. Its ending is unsatisfactory but also inoffensive. 

Flavours of Youth: 4/10 - It's sweet, I didn't personally enjoy it that much. There was far too much narration and it felt a bit disjointed for my tastes.

Several hours Sir David Attenborough narrated animal documentaries, 10/10 - I like watching fish, and also many other animals - this was not on Netflix

I also watched a Scoobie Do Jeprody spin off thing called Scooby Do Guess Who? or something and that was strange - can't remember where this one was.

I have been so ill.

[glacierbash]

Y'know, any time I start to talk about this game, I feel obligated to lead with the funniest fact I have: I absolutely hated Final Fantasy, for myriad reasons both personal and amusing. I hated, for example, the way Elezen were shaped. I hated that Lalafell looked so young. I hated that everybody acted like it was so great, and by sheer contrarian nature I decided I would simply never play this game. And for quite some time, that worked! I'd bombard my partner with whatever media algorithms recommended me involving FFXIV, just to make fun of it. I detested this MMO, without having ever tried it. And yet, deep down, I knew I wanted a community. I wanted to be around people, even if through an online medium. When I worked at the library, my coworker set up a WoW private server that I spent some time fucking around in, but deep down I wanted people. Try as I might, I couldn't deny some part of me wanted to see what the game was all about.

So, I tried it. I spent 30 minutes exactly between opening the character creator to first posting a name that, genuinely, would define more than 2 years of my life: Iverelle Vauvenelle.

I spend about 2 days playing the game, one being chased around by strangers who my partner swore were good people, and one just questing on my own--and it was fine. I got to MSQ level 24, quite literally one quest away from being able to travel to other city states, and I stopped. I played my fair share, I played 5 hours, and I decided the game wasn't for me. I put it down for several months, when I was approached by somebody who I am no longer friends with. He said I should play the game again, keep going just long enough to travel to Gridania, so that I could see one of his alts--and maybe, we could play together! I didn't want to upset him, so I said "fine," and gave it another try.

By the end of the week, I was finishing up ARR, and moving into post patch, and something just... Changed for me. I'm not sure what it was, honestly. It's not like the game magically changed for me then, or if Iverelle had become perhaps my most meaningful character ever, but something shifted, and I found myself enjoying the game. It didn't even make sense to me then when I bought a subscription to the game, but I knew that something here was special. I just... Had to.

Post patch took me about a month, with multiple days spent stressing out over queuing into Good King Mogglemog out of fear and anxiety, because the trial was labeled as hard and my disorder was, frankly, at its worst. But, I managed to do so anyways. The victory was meaningless for most people, but for me? It was beyond words, just how important it was that I did content with other people, especially considering I went through all of ARR solo.

I made it to the end of ARR, to the infamous cutscene, when I realized I was sick with covid. In VC with two of my friends, I said the infamous line: "I think I have a fever." What a way to enter Heavensward, huh? I think it is in no small part due to Covid that Heavensward ended up being my favorite expansion of all time, and why Ysayle Dangoulain ended up being my favorite character of all time. Sickness and quarantine gave me all the time in the world, and being far too sick to be anxious, I sped through the story. One week later, I was done with Heavensward.

And of course, by now, I am finished with Endwalker and awaiting Dawntrail. For 2 years of my life now, I have been playing this game nigh daily. I stay up late playing it, I finish my daily responsibilities as soon as possible to play it, and I find myself enjoying it. I never thought that would happen, truth be told. More importantly than enjoying the game itself, though, is the friends I met.

I have lived a very isolated life. Partially due to my anxiety making me extremely averse to interacting with people, and partially due to how I've been raised, I struggle a lot with people. Autism, anxiety, and having not been properly socialized made me terrible. I longed for new friends, but I hated the effort that went into it. Imagine my surprise when one day, I found myself driving out to meet people who I play this game with, to spend time with them? When I found myself wanting to meet them?

And yet, here I was. I was driving out to meet these people who I play this game with--and more importantly, they wanted to meet me. Even as I think back on that day, I start to tear up. It was one of the most important days of my life. Were it not for this game, for playing it daily, for being dragged into a Free Company and for sitting in calls with people because of this game, I would not have known these people. They are some of the most important people in my life.

I think of the late nights playing Mahjong, or doing PVP, or treasure maps, or just sitting around talking. I think of those nights and then having to wake up early for work, waking up exhausted but so happy. I think of staying up until damn near 5 in the morning talking about whatever it is that comes to mind. I think about stupid inside jokes, and shared experiences, and the stories that I'll tell for years to come.

It's just a game. Final Fantasy XIV is, at the end of the day, just a game--and yet, that game has served as a way for me to grow as a person in ways I've never thought possible. My anxiety has not magically been cured, mind; but, when I'm able to talk to strangers and my heartrate doesn't skyrocket, when I'm able to do things in this game that once terrified me, when I'm able to exist comfortably not just in this game but in the outside world, I realize that it's done more for me than I'll ever be able to say. Yes, it is just a game, but people play a game due to a shared interest, no? And through that shared interest, friendships can blossom. To say that I love my friends, the people I met ultimately because of this game, would be an understatement, and I fear I do not make that clear enough.

Stupid as it is to say, Final Fantasy XIV has changed my life, for the better. Dawntrail is coming in just a few short hours, and though I am a whirlwind of emotions, the predominant one is excitement. I was there for the end of an era, and now I am here for the start of a new one.

So thank you. If you read all the way through this, thank you. If you skimmed just to the end, thank you. Thank you to my friends, especially. I would not be here as I am now were it not for you all.

Here's to a new adventure, friends :^] (Second screenshot featuring: @gailiag, the best viera on hydaelyn)

[beardedmrbean]

The Washington Post — reeling from a mass exodus of subscribers over its refusal to endorse Kamala Harris — “aggressively ramped up its paid advertising campaign” on social media platforms that boost stories critical of Donald Trump, according to a report.

Owner Jeff Bezos has faced backlash over his decision last week to kill the endorsement for the vice president, which has led to the resignations of several high-level staffers and a loss of more than 250,000 digital subscribers.

On Thursday, the news site Semafor reported that the publication had rolled out an ad blitz at the start of the week on social media sites such as Facebook that boosts its anti-Trump coverage.

The promoted stories centered around the former president’s campaign rhetoric, misstatements, supporters leaving his rallies early and Trump’s controversial comments about migrants in Ohio eating dogs, Semafor reported.

By contrast, the promoted stories about his Democratic challenger were neutral in tone and informative, Semafor found.

Before Monday, the newspaper had run around a dozen ads on Facebook for the month of October, mainly promoting the Washington Post brand and steering clear of any mention of Trump.

The New York Post reached out to the WaPo for comment.

A source close to the situation told the New York Post that the Washington Post’s promoted stories on social media reflect high-performing content.

The content of the advertising posts is directly pulled from the respective reporting, according to the source.

“This isn’t new,” the source insisted.

The Washington Post’s promoted posts span a mix of its content across all of its verticals, including climate, style and other sections, the source added.

The Beltway paper’s increase in paid ads this week could also be a reflection of Facebook parent company Meta’s policy that prohibits new ads during the week of the election, which is set for Tuesday.

A source said the Washington Post was likely getting some new ads up before the tech giant freezes new ad buys.

As of Thursday, at least 250,000 readers — or 10% — canceled their digital subscriptions to the Washington Post in apparent protest of Bezos’ move to end the paper’s decades-long practice of endorsing a presidential candidate, according to National Public Radio.

Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, published a guest essay Monday saying the decision to forgo endorsements was a matter of “principle” intended to dispel the notion that his newspaper was biased.

But the move elicited howls of protest from readers on social media as well as journalists who are either current or former employees of the Washington Post, such as award-winning Watergate sleuths Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

At least three editorial staffers resigned from the paper.

After Bezos’ decision was announced last Friday, some of the paper’s top editors and columnists met to discuss the controversy.

David Shipley, the newspaper’s opinion editor, listened as his colleagues blasted Bezos for harming the publication’s reputation as an “independent journalistic organization,” according to the Washington Free Beacon, which obtained audio of the meeting.

One staffer reportedly told Shipley that the “one thing that can’t happen in this country is for Trump to get another four years.”

Shipley responded by telling staffers that they were welcome to vent their frustration but that they would then need to either come to terms with Bezos’ decision and move on — or resign.

“Whatever you decide, I’m good with it,” Shipley said.

“What I really do want to impart is that you do not get stuck in the middle. Don’t be here if you don’t want to.”

Shipley told his colleagues that he spent an hour on the phone with Bezos in an effort to get him to change his mind and allow the editorial board to issue its endorsement of Harris — but the mogul refused to budge.

He said that while he agreed with the “principle that you do not have to do presidential endorsements,” he took issue with Bezos’ “timing, and the way in which the timing could be read.”

A similar dynamic has been playing out at the Los Angeles Times, where billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the editorial board from publishing an endorsement of Harris.

Soon-Shiong said he wanted the editorial board to present a side-by-side comparative analysis of the two candidates and their positions so that readers could decide for themselves whom to support.

At least three LA Times staffers quit in protest and between 10,000 and 18,000 readers canceled their subscriptions to the paper, according to reports.

[flutter2deceive]

Bitching about financials and job things under the cut

My company announced like 2 months ago that our jobs are being eliminated, but it's like this nebulous thing because they're outsourcing and we need to transfer all our products, so my end date isn't until 3/31/2026. Like that's so far in the future and I'm gonna get severence (at end date, i will have worked there for 20 years literally over half my life) + a retention bonus, so I'll be ok for a little while after the fact i think i hope

But anyway i decided to immediately start cost-cutting 2 months ago:

•canceled subscriptions (canceled hulu, paramount+ (i have a plex server hookup anyway), canceled ubereats (and also stopped ordering from them altogether), canceled or went down a level on my minimal patreon subs)

•signed up for Shell's rewards system (it's literally free and you save at least 20cents/gallon every single time and sometimes more without having to spend any money you just click a button and boom extra 10cents if you fill up on a specific day.)

•haven't done *any* fun online shopping or regular store shopping for that matter

•severely cut down my fast food spending (i'm sorry taco bell ily), and as my friends are in similar financial woes, we've stopped ordering food every weekend and opted to make cheap dinners where we each bring some small component like 1 brings pasta 1 brings sauce 1 brings garlic bread

•this isn't a recent change, but i never go out anywhere for like drinks or to see local comedy shows like i used to frequently do. I'm a homebody who goes into the office twice a week and goes to my best friend's house on saturdays and just sits at home the rest of the time

Even with all that!! My debit card is at $26, my 1 credit card is $3 away from its limit, the other is $21 from its limit. I *thankfully* get my paycheck at midnight, but like... woof!

Last paycheck i was down to less than $100 the day before as well. It's so mind-boggling to me that it's this bad. Partially because I've had some unfortunately-timed plumbing issues and had to pay a pricey deductible (but glad i have the insurance obv cuz of how much the total cost would've been otherwise.) But also partially cuz i feel like shit is so much more fucking expensive than it's ever been!! And the last gallon of milk i bought and properly refrigerated went sour like a full week before its expiration date.

I have a decent job and make pretty good money (for now at least.) I have made several cost-cutting measures recently. I feel like I don't *do* anything. And it literally doesn't matter!!

My best friend who has an equally comfortable job told me he had about the same amount of $ as me to last him til his next paycheck too.

And on top of the financial stress, i am so fucking stressed at work because no one knows what they're doing and i keep getting roped into things at the last minute with an IM that says "hey got time for a quick call?" And then i end up having to put together a complicated spreadsheet that is needed by end of week. Why didn't you fucking ask sooner than 2pm on a thursday?! Oh cuz someone who will still have a job at the end of this didn't do what they were supposed to? Ok sure I'll get right on that. And I do. I do get right on that and have it back to you within a couple hours. Because i stupidly care about my job.

Ugghhh i hate everything atm... Except i was able to livestream my favorite singer Terri Clark's debut concert at The Ryman tonight. And i have a ton of Fran/CC fanfics queued up to read. And the Ghosts discord is constantly coming up with the cutest scenarios for H$, my current otp. And i am off the entire next week because next Friday is my birthday. And my dog is snoring.

So i guess it hasn't been such a bad day after all, Charlie Brown... or some such sentimental nonsense 🙃🙃🙃

[humanransome-note]

“YOU SPENT $50 ON A DLC FOR A $70 GAME!?”

Few things… one, lower your voice. Two, I spent 50 bucks for the DLC and the digital art book so hush. Three, the DLC is massive, the added map is roughly a 1/3 of the vanilla map, it added about 40 talismans, several new major bosses, a few new weapon types, with dozens of new weapons overall, more spells and incantations, and an additional level scaling system because people kept saying Elden Ring was easy and basically broke the game with OP bleed builds and Miyazaki took that as a challenge.

The only reason I didn’t pre order was because, while I trust FromSoft to give me quality content, I know not only is there a high chance for game breaking bugs on launch, but also just because someone has fostered good will does not mean they will continue to provide you reasons to trust them. (And while I knew it wouldn’t be “horse armor” DLC, I didn’t want to spend $50 dollars on a product with unknown variables.)

Do I like the fact that game prices have been creeping upwards for the past two decades and that 10 years ago Elden Ring vanilla would be pushing it with a $50 price tag, and be laughed out of stores for the $70 it now sits at? No, I don’t, I don’t like the fact that it’s closer to $100 than not for a medium that is progressively becoming less and less physically accessible. I don’t like the fact that what used to be “the cheaper option” is now basically the only option

However, in the landscape of big name gaming, where subscriptions are becoming more of a thing, micro transactions still exist, so many of them “need” to be online, and the price of the base game is still a whooping $70 before all of that!

FromSoftware is only making me pay once, for the ENTIRE BASE GAME, where online activity is optional. I pay $70 for dozens (at least) of hours of playtime in which my enjoyment is not constrained or dictated by other’s activity.

Then they go, “Here’s more of that, some extra lore, more bosses and enemy types, some spells, some weapons, new magic and incantation categories… oh! And while we did modify the leveling system, that modification only exists in the DLC area, so even if you did run around with a broken bleed build, you get a challenge, but if you want to feel like an almighty god of bleed damage again, you can just step out of the DLC and play fruit ninja with the Albinorics.” At the price of a single, one time payment of $40… $50 if you want some bonus content (which is not necessary to the game, nor does it give you any sort of upper hand over other players, it’s developer stuff)

[ofstormsandfire]

Baldur's Gate 3 characters as fanfic authors

(Disclaimer: I have not played Baldur's Gate 3. However, I have been on the receiving end of a lot of infodumping and have seen some of my qpp Cas's durge playthrough. Also, I'm doing this for shits and giggles.)

Astarion: He has a profile filled with the most epic of stories, all of which are marked 1/?. His writing is great! However, he has yet to finish a single fic and quite possibly never will. One of those authors where you can tell they've got Issues irl, but he's private enough in his notes that you can't really guess at what those issues actually are.

Gale: Credits his cat as his editor. Strangely, his stories seem to be very well-edited in spite of this. Jumps from fandom to fandom semi-frequently, but he almost always finishes what he starts before jumping into something new, and you can Tell that he's researched the hell out of every new fic he writes. (There is one fic that remains unfinished; while writing it, he vanished off the face of the internet for months and his readers genuinely thought he died. He has not acknowledged what happened with that fic since returning and is unlikely to do so.)

Halsin: His fics are as well-researched and thought out as Gale's, but specifically where nature is concerned. In the past, he's gotten into very big arguments involving ABO fanfic and how it's not even based on how actual wolf pack dynamics work, though he's been around long enough at this point to just block and move on. Also, characters who are shitty towards the environment tend to either mend their ways or not live to the end of the fic.

Jaheira: One of those writers who has been around basically forever. She posts once in a blue moon but whenever she does, everyone goes !!! about it; probably has a lot of user subscriptions on AO3. Probably volunteers with the OTW in her downtime. Has a certain fondness for fics where, just this once, everybody lives. Extremely private where her personal life is concerned, but she used to talk about a husband. (Longtime readers may note that she has never once been online during a certain month of the year, not even to respond to comments.)

Karlach: She keeps writing oneshots about this one specific comfort character of hers going on adventures and getting nice things. Unfortunately, being literally on fire makes her prone to making typos, but we love her anyway, typos and all. Her fics tend to be best described as... shall we say, heartwarming?

Lae'zel: Gets into literally all the fandom drama. She has written multiple fics specifically to piss other authors off and she'll do it again. Several of these were aimed at Shadowheart in particular during a short span of time, like we're talking slamming out a fic a day for like a week. Doesn't get commenting etiquette.

Minthara: Bad endings abound here. Unlike with Shadowheart (see below) she just kind of wants to watch the world burn and write the most fucked-up AUs she can think of. Goes into concerning levels of detail where things like torture are concerned.

Shadowheart: Writes all these hurt/no comfort angstfest fics. Has been straight up asked in the comments of her fics on multiple occasions if she's okay. (She eventually starts to write more hurt/comfort fics, and her audience breathes a collective sigh of relief.)

Wyll: Very cheerful, very responsive to comments, has a lot of variety in his works. Every single one of his fics is co-authored by this other account who he thanks for her(?) assistance in every story, despite the fact that she has never once said anything in the comments section and doesn't appear to have other social media. It is unclear what this other person's contribution is; Wyll has confirmed that she is neither an editor, a beta reader, or a writer herself.

[notsamsfanaccount]

i’m fucking livid over the cancellation of ofmd3.

it doesn’t even make sense for them to cancel it. ofmd broke streaming records for HBO max. it was one of the top shows of 2023 despite coming out in october. there was official merchandise and a huge advertising campaign (which i remember VERY vividly because i was sick before it came out and i was passed out on the couch for a solid week, waking up several times a day to “no, we’re on a break”).

it’s obvious what’s happening. this is what happens when writers don’t queerbait; the studios do it. they love our money and viewership, but they hate US as people. david jenkins and the rest of the team behind ofmd gave us an unashamedly queer story, and now that we’ve lined HBO’s pockets, it’s getting kicked to the curb.

the ending of season two was a “just in case” ending, which was appreciated, but i feel like everyone thought it was a given for there to be a season three. sure, season two wasn’t as good as the first one, but most of that was a pacing issue that wouldn’t have been there if HBO Max didn’t cut the budget and season length. already looks pretty sabotagey to me. not to be tinhatting about this, but that’s hella fuckin suspicious. trying to tank the ratings so they’d have an excuse to cancel the show.

but after years of sherlock levels of queerbait, we were fine with it. ofmd2 was good even with all the cuts and restrictions. of course it could’ve been better, but we all know why it wasn’t, and now we all know why we won’t have an ending.

i was scared for the finale to come out. i thought they were gonna massacre half the characters, rocky horror style. a whole “this is what happens when you’re queer” hayes code era twist. but of course that didn’t happen, the writers love us and their show too much for that. i always have seen that people like us don’t get happy endings, but for a moment, we did. and then we didn’t.

doesn’t that make you viscerally ill? we were given a show that treats queerness as a given, not as some tragic odd-one-out character development thing, depicts relationship dynamics we never thought we’d see on tv, and celebrates all of us. we were profited off of, which is okay as long as that profit is going toward the people who made this for us, and a lot of it did. then, the executives who platformed the show to get into our untapped consumer market rip it all away. they have our stats and subscription, that’s all they wanted.

the thing is, they could’ve had more. they could’ve just let us be and profited even further off of a third season, but something about us is just too much for them. it’s sick. it’s bigoted. it’s infuriating.

this keeps happening. remember when I’m Not Okay With This got canceled on a cliffhanger? and for what? the show got great viewership, an active fanbase, and people willing to stay subscribed to netflix for another season. it wasn’t even corporate greed of not wanting to cough up the production costs. they would’ve made a whole bunch of money if it was renewed. their bigotry was stronger than their corporate greed.

they hate us that much. enough to manufacture a tragic ending. enough to not rake in more profits just to get us off of their roster. i may be a bit dramatic about this but god DAMN it sure does feel intentional.

[janetjacksonseo]

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