#it's my little workhorse it's fine

[mountmortar]

i love how i put 40GB of RAM on my personal laptop knowing damn well that i'm never going need that much RAM for anything

[musubi-sama]

Impatient

Are you hungry? Horny? A little demanding, perhaps impatient?

CW: general horniness, horny use of a kitchen counter, hints of phone sex, gratuitous fingering, teasing, mentions of rope and bondage.

A/N: Shoutout to @pseudowho for the edits and review on this one. Haitch, you really helped tighten it up nicely (pun intended).

You were finally home after a long day of meetings that should have been emails, and project deadlines assigned by managers so far removed from the work itself, that they had lost all concept of time.

Walking in the door, you shedded your shoes haphazardly in the entrance, before leaving a trail of bags, jackets, and pants littering the hallway. Clad in only socks, a tunic, bra, and a simple pair of black cotton panties, you skillfully pulled your workhorse bra out of your shirt.

“Ah, much better,” you exhaled in exhausted comfort.

Reaching the kitchen, you grabbed a wine glass from a cabinet, and the leftover wine from the night before. Perhaps the glass was a bit overfilled, but to hell with the rules and etiquette of wine drinking. If rulemakers had had the week you did, and the dry spell you did, they’d understand.

After taking a two-gulp drink of wine, you turned back to the cabinets, now in search of a snack - you tried to convince yourself you’re only hungry for food.

Gripping the edge of the counter, you bent over to stretch your back. Sticking your ass out into the empty space behind you, you were reminded it had been two weeks since you last felt the grind of your husband.

“I miss you. My flight gets in late tomorrow, don’t wait up for me.” Suguru called you before bed, every night of his business trip. “I’m coming with you next time. I’ll work remotely. I don’t care. It’s been far too long and my toys aren’t enough,” you whined, hand slipping below your panties. “Tell me what you’re doing right now…”

Before resuming your search, you continued to make quick work of your wine, quickly shifting your hunger into something more aching, something more lustful. You’d definitely need to grab another bottle before making a decision.

Reaching up again, and standing on your tippy toes, a large, warm hand gently slid around your hip. You jumped, but the familiarity hit immediately.

In a fit of joy, you spun around to see Suguru’s hungry eyes. You started to bring your hands up around his neck and he wrapped his hand and arm fully under your ass, pulling you up to the counter. His chest pressed briefly against you in a fleeting embrace of convenience.

“Oh!” You didn’t even get a moment to greet him, before he planted your feet, legs spread wide across the counter.

Immediately recognizing what this could have meant for you, you tried again to wrap your arms around Suguru’s neck.

“C’mere-“ You were cut off as Suguru leaned down into the cabinet below you to rummage around. Having secured his target, he stood back up, holding a frying pan.

“Are you in the mood for bacon and eggs?” Suguru stepped away from you, a gentle smile on his otherwise unreadable face.

Your stomach sunk with peevish disappointment.

“I’m-…sure. That sounds fine,” you answered, clipped. “Welcome home, by the way.”

Suguru stepped back, his eyes darkening in contrast to his continued calm and relaxed smile. He set the pan gently on the stove beside you. Returning to you, Suguru placed his hands upon your thighs, just above your knees. You see he is travel weary, mixed with the dying wisps of a bright and airy cologne, clearly arriving at the end of a long day.

Your face belied the frustration you were attempting to hide.

“Unless you have some other ideas for dinner?” Suguru raised one eyebrow, slightly cocking his head to the side. His hands slipped one centimeter down your legs, his thumbs digging into the soft, squishy inner part of your exposed thighs.

“Oh come on,” you whined, dropping your head backwards in frustration. “I’ll spell it out for you. Either put your tongue to work on my pussy or let me drop to my knees right now and take you down my throat.”

Suddenly a hand gripped your throat and your head whipped up, meeting Suguru’s intense amethyst eyes. You feel a rush of blood to your neglected pussy. Suguru’s other hand grips the gusset of your panties, pulling them up as far as they allowed, giving you just a little pressure.

“I wanted to make you dinner, make sure you had enough energy for when I fuck you senseless later. But apparently you’re too fucking-“ he squeezed just a little tighter around your neck. You let out a high-pitched whine, “-impatient.”

You squirmed under his touch, trying to use the pressure from the fabric pulling against you to gain some amount of relief. Suguru chuckled as he adjusted his grip to reduce the pull. Your needy gaze pleaded with him.

Bringing one hand up to grip Suguru’s wrist, you held tightly.

“Damn right I’m fucking impatient! It’s been two weeks and while I loved listening to you talk me through it on the phone-“

You were cut off as Suguru removed his hand from your throat, dropped to his knees, and ripped your panties off in one swift tug. Using both hands to spread your labia apart, he wasted no time before laying his tongue flat across your sensitive cunt. Savoring the taste, he went back for more, this time with increased pressure and using the tip of his tongue.

Reaching for Suguru’s hair, pulled half-up into a bun, you grounded yourself by gripping tightly. Your moans gained volume with each press of his tongue and you began to roll your hips in response.

He pulled his head back for just a moment and you locked eyes. A sheen of your wetness smeared across his jaw, and Suguru licked his lips as he drew lazy circles around your throbbing clit. Renewed whines fell from your lips as you head tipped back once again, this time in abject pleasure.

Soon, you felt his middle finger teasing at your entrance, dipping just the tip, then up to the cuticle, the first knuckle as you buck your hips. Suguru still teased your impatience, continuing this pace until his entire finger was sheathed. Finally, after an agonizing wait, he added his ring finger at the same infuriating pace, encouraging you to fuck yourself onto his hand.

Your whines were caught in your throat as he curls his fingers upwards, lightly dragging against the sensitive spongy spot deep in your pussy. In reaction to the intense pleasure building, you gripped his hair again and brought his face back to your sopping wet cunt. Feeling a tug on his scalp, Suguru’s moans reverberated through you, a gentle personal vibrator.

Picking up speed, the squelchsquelchsquelch added a sinful melody to the base of your combined moans and panting countermelodies. You could feel the cliff approaching. The pressure built, the high you’d been chasing for two weeks but never quite reaching.

Suguru could read you well. So well, that he knew exactly how close you are when he pulled back, wetness soaking his fingers, collecting on his chin. And he knew exactly the way frustration would show across your features. Your legs would tense, a new shade of red would blossom across your cheeks. And you’d shout-

“What the fuck?!”

“That’s for being impatient and demanding I ‘put my tongue to work’ before dinner, like some trained monkey.”

Suguru stood up and used the back of his hand to wipe the remaining slick from his chin. He shoved his fingers in your mouth to stop further protest.

“Now, here’s your appetizer. Go make sure the straps are secured to the bed and get the purple ropes out of the closet, while I finish making us some food.”

Mulish and blushing, and thoroughly put in your place, you hungrily sucked his fingers clean as your legs dropped from the counter to sit up fully. Once you’d cleaned off Suguru’s fingers, savoring your own taste, he gave you a soft kiss to your forehead.

“Please,” Suguru added gently, suppressing a laugh as you stalked away to the bedroom.

[nthspecialll]

Red dead characters as horses, based not on vibes but personality.

Firstly, I am an equestrian of twelve years I know that a horse's breed doesn't fully determine it's personality and you can find any horse of any breed with any personality, but this is based on stereotypes, my own personal experience and well... Google. Again, this is not by vibes, but personality so reflect a little from horse to person.

Arthur Morgan - American Quarter Horse

No matter if it is a show pony or a workhorse you are looking for, the American Quarter Horse got you. It is known for being easy to handle but reliable no matter the job given. It is a good all-around horse and can handle anything from beginner lessons to high-level competitions.

Hosea Matthews - Norwegian Fjord Horse

Very sweet and docile-looking horse but make no mistake, this beast has more opinion, sass and stubbornness than you would ever imagine. Intelligent in the way that it is fully aware of the people around it and knows when it is time to play tricks and run corners and when it is time to play it sweet. The second you dare underestimate it it will remind you that it is in fact stronger than what you might expect.

Dutch Van Der Linde - The Andalusian

A horse breed known widely for being elegant and fancy but unlike many other hot blooded (reactive) horses, tends not to get hurt as easily, coming out fine from situations where the other hot blooded might have gotten wounded in. Although known for being smart, attentive and sensible, they can easily become too much to handle if handled wrongly.

John Marston - The Arabian

Now I know some people are gonna be like "no that doesn't fit at all!" but hold on, just listen, hear me out. Although generally known for being hot-headed, hard to control and stupid, they are actually quite intelligent, have a high endurance and are well aware of their surroundings. With dense and strong bone structure they are quite resilient to much, however they do tend to get wounded in their own hot-headedness... (John I am looking at you strolling up to Fort Mercer and getting fkn shot on sight, tf you thought was gonna happen?)

Javier Escuella - American Mustang

A wild horse known for its stubborn spirit and the lengths it will go to for freedom. It takes a long time trusting, however once having earned its heart it is the most loyal you can find. It is also a highly adaptable horse.

Bill Williamson - Irish Cob/Gypsy Vanner (Same breed, different name)

Lazy, hard to get moving and often seen as bad, the last choice or a breed that wouldn't hold up in bigger competitions, however is actually quite good and does any job well. They are eager to please (Bill to Dutch) and can also grow a beard!

Till Jackson - The Shetland Pony

Small and very adorable looking to a point one thinks they are harmless, and while they can be very sweet, they are going to throw you the second you least expect it. They will not let their short stature and cute appearance be a disadvantage to them but instead use it against others. (Knew one that bit the taller horse's stomach and became the damn leader of that herd)

Charles Smith - The Friesian

Often seen as scary and frightening looking due to their tough exterior, however they are very kind-hearted and highly intelligent. They are loyal and well-mannered, very reliable and makes a good companion.

Kieran Duffy - The Haflinger

A very gentle and generally curious fella. Known for being very friendly and people-oriented. If you spend any time around them you will also often find out that they are quite silly, however make no mistake, they are still horses and thus will always be dangerous.

Josiah Trelawny - Pryor Mountain Mustang

An endangered form of Mustang that are known for elegance and athleticism and while could easily make for a great show pony there is a few problems. They are not very reliable as they are quite skittish and tend to flee as well as be quite hard to tame and tie down.

[callmearcturus]

@vmprsm replied to your post “Raw MKV rip of Mission Impossible: Fallout:...”:

Theoretically, if one wanted their own copies of the MI movies safely on a hard drive....where would one go?

​I mean, there is a site where you can acquire a lot of movies via torrent. I tend to use (rot13) 1337k.gb and I got a heavily discounted Windscribe VPN subscription that I use on almost all of my devices.

But my thing is that... I want commentary reels and special features, and sometimes you'll download a movie but the fucking subtitles are either bad or they become desynced over time and I haaaaate it.

So I've been gathering bits and pieces over the past year to get a Plex system going in my house and it works like a fucking DREAM. But it requires some investment. If you just want to have a few local copies of your favorite movies, this is way overkill. But me, I am canceling all of my family's streaming services and pivoting to our Plex.

So what I have for actually getting the files:

I don't have this model but it's similar to this, a Pioneer External Blu-ray Reader. It sits on a little shelf and is connected to my PC by a USB cable. (I think I got mine for around 68 bucks so you can wait for a sale.)

I use MakeMKV which will rip the big honking raw files from a Blu-ray and leave them as matroshka (.mkv) files.

Because these raw files are ENORMOUS, I compress them in Handbrake. Handbrake is wildly powerful, can convert file formats and make them super small. I have my Handbrake set up special to dump all the non-English language subtitles and audio tracks to save space.

(SUPER BONUS TIP FOR HANDBRAKE: If you have a dedicated GPU, you can give Handbrake permission to use it, and it'll compress shit literally 10x faster, love it.)

At the moment, I am using a Western Digital portable 5TB external harddrive because it was one sale and I couldn't beat the price. Eventually, I want to upgrade to two 10TB HDDs so I can keep a full backup of everything I'm ripping. Because this is a bit of a time and energy commitment and I don't wanna lose all my progress here!

At first I was running Plex off my desktop PC and that worked totally fine, but my family hates having to touch my desktop to wake it up every time, so I very recently grabbed one of these guys:

This is a Beelink Mini PC S12 Pro. It is small enough to fit in my hand but it is a speedy little demon that runs Windows 11. (And eventually I am gonna use it to firewall out ads from our entire home network, I'm pumped for that project but ANYWAY.)

The upside of these mini boys is that instead of being a hefty workhorse like my main computer, this is small and has a low-power draw.

So I moved my Plex Media Server to the mini PC, plugged in my 5TB drive of movies, and now everyone in the house can easily stream anything I have added to the library.

This is what it looks like, if you're curious. Any device in the house that runs Plex and is signed in can select any movie or TV show I have and just watch it like it was Netflix or something.

A month ago, I has like.... 65 movies? Now I'm ripping a few and we're gonna break 100 soon.

"But Arc, where do you get so many blurays!"

My local library.

When I lived in Broward County, FL, I had an extravagantly wonderful library system. Tax dollars at fucking WORK, y'all. Now I live in Georgia and the library system is not nearly as good, but I have still gotten my hands on a frankly ridiculous amount of blurays. Every week I'm picking up 3 to 10 movies or shows, taking them home, making good copies, and returning them.

All of this is an investment and it is work. But as someone who built my computer, built my keyboard, cracked my 3DS and PS Vita-- this is fun to me! This is what I love to do. And through doing it, I've seen more movies in the past year than the last ten years put together.

So yeah, I can't recommend this to everyone, but if you wanna get out of your subscriptions and to just have high quality shit on demand, this is what I'm doing.

Cannot stress this enough tho, if this seems interesting to you: wait for sales. All the components here go on steep sale if you wait patiently. Take your time assembling the parts and keep in mind that shit is modular, you can upgrade parts later.

[celerydays]

could you walk us through what notebooks & journals & pens /etc you use - they look so good!

I would be SO happy to, you have no idea!!

Alright, let's fucking GOOOO~

Starting off with my current "workhorse" pens - I have like *checks notes* 36 fountain pens and a bit too many inked up atm, but these are just the ones I'm currently reaching for or have inked up more often than not:

TWSBI Go (F): Kinda ugly! But also kinda cute! It's cheap and works great (I friggin love TWSBI pens tbh) and it has a little hole on the cap where you can attach a lanyard or charms, like I did! Makes it cuter imo and it's kind of my emotional support pen these days.

Opus88 Pocket (EF): This 2022 edition has a little Moon tarot design on the cap so it's pretty much the pen I use exclusively for my witchy/tarot practice journals! A lil bummed the cap doesn't post, especially since its a shorter pocket-sized pen, but not a deal breaker and I still love it.

Pilot Custom 823 (F): My grail pen that I've literally coveted for years and just recently acquired at the DC Pen Show this weekend! It's only been a day but I think it could potentially become my favorite pen. Ever.

Pilot Prera (CM): This is my third Prera lol. I just think they're great and really underrated pens! Also a recent acquisition from the DC Pen Show and this cursive M nib is suuuuper fun to write with.

Pilot Vanishing Point (EF): My favorite pen for planning! Super fine-tipped for writing task lists and schedules and love that it's so convenient/quick-draw with the click mechanism.

(I'm totally a Pilot pen ho, can you tell? asdjflaglsg)

Journals/Planners/Notebooks under cut–

Sterling Ink B6 Common Planner: For a good chunk of this year, I was in this planner because I honestly love the size and all the layouts. Super practical and flexible as a system. 10/10 would go back. I've used it to plan, as a reading journal, as a tarot log...

But I get the itch to move around so it's been sitting a little unused since like June, oop.

Leuchtturm A6: I started craving something tiny and minimal so I've been bullet journaling in this pocket notebook for the last month or two and I'm really enjoying it!

Standard-sized Tomoe River Paper notebook: This is pretty consistent in that I don't change up the system itself, but I'm in and out of it for memory keeping/scrapbook journaling! It's almost always a Tomoe River paper notebook of SOME kind that I usually buy in A5 size to go to FedEx and get it cut down to standard. Though I'm thinking of getting a blank Midori MD A5 to have cut down next time - I've been liking the freedom of blank pages for journaling instead of anything lined or gridded.

I really need to catch up with it tbh, but I love sitting in an explosion of printed photos, stickers, and washi and going ham with the pages.

(I do have a flip through of my January-March 2022 pages on YouTube)

Midori MD Cotton B6 Slim: I also have this sketchbook that sorta turned into a visual sketch diary of sorts. I fell off a while ago but want to get back into it because it's super fun to work in and to look back on!

Wide-sized Cosmo Air Light notebook & A5 Filofax Malden: These are my tarot/witchy journals. Grimoires I guess? One is for journaling and all my messier notes while the other is more for reference and ease of organization.

A5 Leuchtturm: I didn't know if I should include this guy, but I've been writing it in a lot recently so I guess I will lol. This is like truuuly a miscellaneous™ notebook.

I got this A5 notebook back in 2017 to use as my very first bullet journal, then found out that this size is personally waaaay too big for me to use as a bullet journal so I hopped off of it pretty quick. It now sits on my desk because since it's mostly blank I'll just pick it up to use it to write literally A N Y T H I N G.

Most recently, I wrote like 5 pages in one night on notes for a fanfiction piece I was working on (I'm not a writer, this fic is never gonna see the light of day by anyone but me lololol. Hyperfixation is so wild; I've put 80k+ words within just 10 days into it so far and it's been hella therapeutic.)

That's all, I think!?

It's funny because I actually have a NEW notebook arriving tomorrow that I'm going to try out as a bujo/commonplace/omni journal of sorts?? I might write an update post after I've set that up and see how I like it <3

[glassprism]

It's been interesting hearing the degree of the physical challenges of playing The Phantom. However, this really made me appreciate the physical challenge of playing Christine. She is on stage for almost the entire... very long show! Sings a lot! She has SO MANY costume changes. So many times down on the floor (Hannibal dance- lying in the boat - end of MOTN - in STYDI - twice in the Final Lair.) Avoids a chandelier! Soooo many emotions. Hazzah to Christine actresses! Comments?

Honestly not much! You've pretty much summed up what it's like to play Christine: constantly singing, sometimes from the low end of the range all the way to the highest, constantly acting, some dancing that can be strenuous depending on how much effort you put into it, tons of costume changes, and you are onstage all. the. time.

And even more galling - many audiences, especially back when Phantom first started, didn't even appreciate it! The Phantom was the plum role, the iconic character, the guy getting the last bow. Christine is basically the workhorse of the entire show but I've seen people who have said they don't even watch her when she's onstage. I've seen people who don't remember the actress they saw or have nothing to say about her besides, "Yeah, she did her job." And that's if they're not hating on her for leaving the Phantom or calling her un-feminist for going with Raoul ("She rejected passion and sex! That's a bad message for girls!") or for being attracted to the Phantom ("She likes a guy who stalks and kidnaps her! That's a bad message for girls!").

It's why I had such sympathy for Rebecca Caine when she described Christine as a role where she "worked terribly hard for very little sympathy". But I can guarantee that if the Christine you see is bad, it will bring the show down even if the rest of the cast is decent, because again, she is onstage all. the. dang. time.

Thankfully, I think the times have changed a lot and there's a lot more appreciation for her and the actresses playing her, so that's really cool! I think a lot of people have come around to seeing the complexity that lies below the "naive virginal soprano" surface impression, or at the very least acknowledge the amount of work that goes into playing her. I've even seen people saying she should be the one getting the last bow... and occasionally it's happened (I believe Celinde Schoenmaker got the last bow for her final performance in London). And that is all fine by me! Christine is my favorite character in the show (probably obvious because I talk about her the most) so it's really lovely to see others loving her as well!

[daftpatience]

hi pen friend!! I got a pilot kakuno pen recently and I am playing around with it. However!!! I learned that I really like having thicker bold lines and I’m kinda sad that the non on my shiny new pen is so so very fine. Is there a way to broaden the nib a little or do you maybe have recs for a pen with a slightly broader nib? (I have been preferring pilot pens with a 1mil nib size, those have good thicc lines that I like. Even a little thicker without being a marker would also be IDEAL) This is gonna be a work pen for me so being durable would also be a nice bonus.

ooh so!! there are a couple things you can do in this case!!! IM PUTTING IT UNDER A READMORE CUS I RAMBLEEEE letsgooo

• swapping out the nib pilot kakuno nibs are compatible with many other pilot pens including the 78G, Prera, Plumix, Penmanship, and Metropolitan! it can be hard sometimes to find spare nibs for this brand, so if this is what you wanna do i'd suggest hunting around any local pen shops that might carry nib replacements + ebay/facebook marketplace/etc.

• grinding the nib down this option is usually not recommended for beginners, but i'm all for fucking around with things i own (sometimes to my detriment) so i'd definitely look into it! especially with something as affordable as a kakuno - most fountain pens are tipped with a somewhat fancier metal (iridium, osmium, gold, palladium, etc) which you Don't want to grind all the way away, but kakunos are not tipped with anything special. they're just plain stainless steel through and through, and i see no issue in giving grinding a go in that case! you'll definitely want to watch a lot of videos on the process - most involve a whetstone and/or extremely fine grain sandpaper & lots and lots of smooth, confident hand movements.

the two i learned are these: smooth, long strokes where you tilt the pen from a low angle to a high angle, and figure eights. the angle of the pen is extremely important, and you'll have to be careful to ensure everything is balanced.

i've ground down a cheap knockoff lamy to a WIDE chisel before, and it came out better (albeit still a bit scratchy) than it used to write (because it wrote like shit originally) imo, as long as the inkflow is even and consistent i don't mind a little feedback on the page.

• getting a pen with a broader nib ok this is where i recc some more pens!!! if you're looking for a workhorse that's a little broader or juicier than a kakuno, i cannot overstate my love for the platinum preppy in 05 (medium nib). this little thing is an absolute legend. they can sit inked and idle for an entire year thanks to the cool seal mechanism in the cap, and i've never had one dry start on me before. they're cheap, feel amazing, i can go on. since they last so long, usually the first failing point is their bodies rather than their nibs, so if you want something a little more durable you can upgrade to a platinum plaisir (which is just a preppy with a metal body!)

i can also highly reccomend Lamy safaris for their ease of nib swappability and range of options! you can go all the way from an EF to a 1.9mm chisel tip >:)

the pilot metropolitan is a universally beloved pen for its quality, though i don't have one so i have no personal stuff to say! this and the lamy are a little pricier than the preppy/plaisir/kakuno but with that comes the bump up in quality and longevity. things to consider!

in general i'd say that any fountain pen with a snap cap rather than a screw cap will work well for work - since unscrewing and rescrewing a cap all day as you do things is sort of a pain in the wrist. i find myself leaning to my lamys & preppies when im working since its so much faster and easier to pop that thing lol.

[weaselle]

actually after adding this story to another post i got so mad i'm making it a separate post

when i was a kid in a musical production of Peter Pan I got a largish role which was awesome, but i was already self conscious about my voice and during rehearsals for one of the songs the director came up onto the stage squinting like he had a mouth full of lemon juice and stalked up and down in front of us until finally he zeroed in on me and had us all stop singing and then had just me alone sing a couple lines and nodded and said "yeah, you don't sing anymore, just mouth the words silently" and then told the kids on either side of me to sing a little louder to cover it...

and no amount of knowing logically that he was wrong for doing that has helped me overcome my fear of singing in front of people after that

and there have been some other times people (looking at you, mother) have said things to similar effect

the real hell of it is, i'm like... i have a lot of songs in me. i'm constantly writing original songs that i'm too afraid to sing for anyone

here are a few. they each have a specific melody.. I wish you could hear them

i don't feel like complainin' 'bout my life today and i ain't got a lot to brag about so i'm just usin' this music to keep movin' and i don't mind if i'm a part of your show so look at life all over and it can be rough if gettin' is your goal you won't get enough but i got me and i'm free an' warm spinnin' and grinnin' in the eye of the storm

i don't need to be winnin' while i'm gamin' and i don't feel like a losin' man no winnin' or losin' i guess that leaves playin' and i don't mind if i'm a part of your band

they say this race of rats is crazy it's dog eat dog they need a sheep to be a workhorse and go whole hog well i'm no genius most of the time but at least i can be nobody's fool but mine

at least i can be! nobody's fool but mine

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I don’t care … I don’t care if this minute is our last you can bet I’ll be living it before I let it past

(repeat)

Plan in command like a band with a marching tune, dooming our duo when you go embarking soon, damn I’m just glad that we had this hot interlude, hoping we’ll pause and not stop ‘cause I’m into you! checking the phone when alone for the text – that gives me this feeling I’m reeling I’m blessed – the sex is appealing for real but the rest of the sum of your parts makes my heart beat its chest

I don’t care … I don’t care if this minute is our last you can bet I’ll be loving it before I let it past

(repeat)

a decade ago we met lost and were friends christened our roads and then crossed them again we played and we dated like it ain’t a thing but lately our hook-up is more than a fling the two of us truly unduly effected - direction of goals that we hold gonna wreck it but check it I’m with it I’m livin’ it reckless to be where you’re breathin’ is leavin’ me breathless

I don’t care … I don’t care if this minute is our last you can bet I’ll be loving you before I let it past

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

I went to bed lonely, found waking I’d only held dreams of you… In Dreamland I dwelt, but those feelings I felt still seem so true… I dreamt you still wanted me, that’s what’s still haunting me deep in my heart… though awake I believe in the many good reasons we’re keeping apart…

I cry diamonds! I weep songs of may never be I cry gemstones! each one a good memory each action taken, all of the fine bad and more I’d never trade them, these tears are my dragon’s hoard

I’m happy to see you, I knew that would be true our love never could end… I would swear an oath, this is best for us both and you’re still my good friend… but some nights my soul just doesn’t feel whole when I’m not by your side… so I add to and hold, all the jewels and the gold that I’ve already cried…

I cry diamonds! I weep songs of may never be I cry gemstones! each one a good memory each action taken, all of the fine bad and more I’d never trade them, these tears are my dragon’s hoard

So I’ll seek out adventure, eventually enter a time. when. I… leave this treasure heap, spread my wings and leap into the sky… I’ve dreams I believe in but please know that even when I. reach. them… I’ll visit these memories, loving and tenderly holding each gem..

I cry diamonds! I weep songs of may never be I cry gemstones! each one a good memory each action taken, all of the fine bad and more I’d never trade them…

these tears are my dragon’s hoard

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i wanna go off… i’ll go on the run- i wanna go big… go off like a gun they tell me come on just do as i’m told stop dreaming of hot find joy in this cold but i want the heat (oh yes) i want to feel warm! don’t want to repeat (this mess) don’t want to conform

still i pay my taxes i jump through the hoops it never relaxes: life lived in a loop

I want to go off… go off like a gun! a bright shooting star- as hot as the sun

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

my best my best is what i give i never rest i never live but i don’t die i try to grip this liquid life inside my fist is this a test what must i learn if this is hell oh well i’ll burn and use my body as a meal is this what godly beings feel?

so come the worst i’ll curse and taaaake it if i don’t try this life is waaaaasted I’ll struggle puzzled cold and naaaaaaked and hold to hope that i will maaaake it and if i don’t then may my bones out in the garden over-grown be turned into some little home for those as lost and as alone

the stars all wheel over head it’s always heal or be dead i must i know let go of dread and trust my questing steps instead

the day will play and i will daaaance it i’ll set my bet down and i’ll chaaaaance it with danger hurtful flirt romaaaaaaantic make my own wish, insist i graaaaant it

my best my best is what i give i never rest but do i live still i don’t die i try to grip this liquid life inside my fist…

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

i said i'm a tramp hobo and bum an' one mean son an' that's okay i said i'm a tramp i know but lovin' keeps on comin' my-y way

some times i'm just a drifter who's down on his luck but a smile from the Lady tips my own lips up!

down and out i ain't got nothin' but my laugh and my tough an' my-y name down and out my main skill bluffin' it's enough in thi-is game

my rhymes are just a whistle i'm hummin' along but with some help from the Lady i can sing this song!

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

maybe i'll find a singer or some musicians to partner up with

[miguel-owhora]

The toxic yaoi "Micah goes after Arthur instead" idea sounds interesting af tbh. Instead of glazing Dutch, he does so with Arthur like "What a fine killer you are. You should be happy that you have someone to appreciate that side of yours" etc and tries to get Arthur to leave the gang with him to be... idk some gay terrorist couple/duo? Cuz Micah was raised to be a survivor/working rather alone as in groups yk, maybe thinking "The rest of the gang is useless. Arthur would be wasted on them as a workhorse. He could be my prized stallion instead dawg" or something. I'm just yapping tbh.

yes, this is what i meant! you understand me 😭

i feel like he'd still be a snake and continues to prey on dutch's paranoia, but he also simultaneously works to get into arthur'd good graces. he's still an ass, obviously, but he's more tolerable now? at least to the point where arthur doesn't strictly dislike him. they're more acquaintances now.

but i also imagine that micah whispers into arthur'd ear, subtly, but enough for him to change gears a little. point is, micah succeeds in driving dutch n arthur away, and idk what happens after that

[hexarcana]

Relativity Falls Thoughts aka Bones breaks it down

I can’t do a perfect 1:1 translation so Aggie inhabits Olive’s role as the child, and Olive takes over Aggie’s grandma-from-the-backstory role, but to keep her connected to the story I’m borrowing elements from McGucket for her.

(Cutting the post to preserve the dash)

Olive grew up with Dipper and Mabel, and was always closer with Dipper despite her and Mabel being “the girls.” Olive was big into the nerdy shit thanks to her academic parents, who divorced when she was young which led her to spending a lot of time at her friends house when he dad travelled. (Her mom never came back.)

When Mabel does whatever thing she does to “ruin” Dipper’s Life, Olive isn’t there. She was visiting her dad. She came back from her trip to one less friend and her remaining one was PISSED. She only ever really got Dipper’s side of the story, which naturally put Mabel in a negative light.

Olive could have probably gone to any ritzy school in the country (She was a real scholarly type) but she ended up going to BMU, following Dipper. Her reasoning is that BMU offers curricula which can get you multiple degrees (How else would Ford have so many PHDs) but really she’s worried about Dipper being on his own and she (Mirroring Aggie and Stan in canon) has had a crush on him since she was a kid, so she wants to keep him close.

Since Olive is a girl and I’m imagining the dorms werent co-ed, they weren’t roommates but instead lived above/below each other’s rooms. They’d tap out messages in morse code on the floor/ceiling.

Taking inspiration from a lot of college fiddauthor headcanons, they DO come together at some point and have something of a relationship, though they’re both so swamped with school it’s a very??? Non committal thing, which suits Dipper fine but Olive is ever pining for him.

I haven’t quite figured out what makes them split up after graduation- Olive probably has her own endeavor she’s looking for and after years of on and offing with her best friend she thinks maybe she can try to move on. Reflecting Aggie’s time in NYC, that is where she goes, and where she is when Dipper Calls her for help.

During her time in New York, (pretty early on) Olive had her son, who she named David after a famous German mathematician. David’s biological father is, as Olive Recalls, “The only one who got the math joke I told at a bar.” (Basically it was a one time thing and she honestly doesn’t remember much about him at all! Oops!)

Initially, she was a pretty good mom. A little scattered and overwhelmed being single and trying to get her feet underneath her- Having a child sort of slowed her career to a crawl. But that wasn’t David’s fault. He’s pretty young still when she gets the call to come to Oregon and she drops EVERYTHING go do it bc one she has no prospects and two she’s still burning a candle for Mason (She started calling him that at some point during college.)

She arranged for her dad to look after David while she was away, not thinking she would be gone all that long when in reality, she’d never return to New York.

(note my friend Lye helped me come up with and fix this next part!)

She joins Mason in Oregon and fully throws herself into the project. She’s dedicated and hard working, a real workhorse type. Here’s where there’s a big shift, I don’t think Olive would form the blind eye society, so in order for that to exist I would say that the other McGucket stand in (Pacifica probably) is also working on the project. When the incident occurs, Olive helps pull Pacifica out of the portal . She quits after the incident, but Olive doesn’t. She wants to see this through with Dipper. Her dedication is enough for Bill to take an interest in her. He can see how hard she works and how dedicated she is so he’s keen to keep her around. With this funky little scientist around the portals getting done much faster than he’s hoped!

However a wrench is thrown into things when her son of all people shows up in Oregon. Her dad couldn’t keep looking after him so he arranged to have him sent to her. Initially she’d called and kept in touch but as the portal progressed and Olive became more and more exhausted, her communication skills slipped. By this time, David is really starting to resent his mother, and is incredibly unhappy to be there. Olive struggles to balance reconnecting with her son and working on the portal. To keep David away from the work she used what meager savings she had to buy a scrap of land in the woods where originally, an old camper sat, and that’s where David spent most of his time. Understandably he became extremely bitter and hateful towards Olive, and she was quickly losing her grip on reality.

Around the time David showed up, Bill started to talk to Olive, wanting to get her on his side the way he had with Mason. Trouble is he kind of gave her too much too fast. Instead of pleasant jaunts into the Nightmare Realm, Bill exposed her to the destruction and chaos he has planned, just hitting her with the big madness all at once. He appears in many of her dreams, and he always seems to be whispering to her to keep working. When she starts to have doubts he flips the script, choosing to threaten her instead.

He obviously knows how she feels about Mason, and he uses that to his advantage. If Olive quit, Mason would be building the portal alone, and who KNOWS if he’s even be able to actually get it built without severely injuring himself? Olive is sturdier, more solid. Dipper NEEDS her to help finish the portal or he might not live to see it activated. In addition, Bill makes threats against her son and although she’s losing a lot of her sense of reality and self she knows that she can’t let her not be hurt. I’m sure there’s some possession and some more mild mind-breaking activities but in the spans of a few weeks Olive is barely herself anymore, she just seems to exist to work on the portal.

She didn’t even notice when David finally ran away.

She isn’t herself, and I think her deterioration plays a role in Mason starting to question things. Once he understood Bill’s real goal he tries to figure out exactly what Bill did to her but she can’t articulate it, she can hardly articulate anything at this point. He gives Olive one of the journals to hide, and explains that he called for further backup.

When Mabel arrives she hardly recognizes Olive, since she’s definitely not the confident spunky girl she once was. She’s a somewhat haunted shell of herself. She is too freaked out to go down to the basement with them, so she sits alone upstairs. When the portal activates and the anomalies start up, Olive is terrified and is overcome with horrible visions and hallucinations- a total psychotic break. When Mabel finally finds her upstairs and she’s nearly catatonic. Mabel is able to shake her out of it but Olive is like an injured animal, initially desperate to know where Mason is and when Mabel tells her, and begs Olive to help with the situation, Olive becomes very aggressive and frightened and before Mabel can really stop her, she runs off. The two wouldn’t speak again for a good long while. Mabel doesn’t even known Olive is still in the area, frankly.

Mabel goes on to set up the Mystery Shack. She’s heard rumors about there being a woman in the woods, and she does eventually investigate and confirms it’s Olive. She once again tries to get her help but Olive inset interested and she threatens Mabel with weapons. By this point most of Olive’s “bunker” has been built from scrap she stole from the dump. (As an aside bc I forgot to mention it, Olive did end up hiding the journal, and it’s the one that the boys find when they visit.)

Olives reputation as madwoman only grew with time, she’d make wild claims about the end of the world as well as being abducted by aliens. This is how she sort of??? Processed her trauma? Like she was very plainly explaining what happened to her she didn’t keep it bottled up but it made no sense and seemed so insane that no one really pays her much mind. This goes on for a good while.

Mabel eventually gives up on Olive, and resigns herself to rebuilding the portal herself. The two have virtually nothing to do with each other for some time until someone shows up at the Shack, looking for Olive. It’s David, (Who Mabel never met) looking for his mother. Mabel doesn’t initially believe him but when she sees the kid he’s got with her she knows he’s serious. Little Aggie is about five or six years old, and a pretty spot on lookalike for the little girl Mabel knew as a kid. She agrees to help David get to Olive.

She leads him out there, and then opts to stay back, not wanting to scare Olive. As she’s heading back home she sees David’s car leaving, but the little girl isn’t in the car anymore. Mabel looks back towards the bunker in the woods. She gets a weird spooky feeling so she leaves.

From there, there’s virtually no contact apart from extremely random chance encounters. Olive seems less afraid/angry at Mabel but she still doesn’t stay around her for long. Mabel does eventually ask about the little girl and Olive DOES assure her that Aggie is fine, and thanks her for asking. At some point when Aggie starts venturing out, she ends up at the Shack a few times just exploring. Once the boys show up and befriend her, she’s there alll the time :))

So that’s most of Olives story, but there are some details that Mabel doesn’t know about (David related) and neither Yearling will talk about but I will talk about it!!! Just not now on this post bc I have a few kinks I gotta work out.

[lovebirdgames]

To the ready...

This is my last devlog and final reflection before Band Camp Boyfriend releases. We started working on the game in 2015. We released the demo on Itch.io in 2018. We got our Steam page up in 2022. Now here we are in 2023, almost eight years later. We’ve been working towards this moment for eight years.

To be honest, it’s a little bit scary. My anxiety can’t help but whisper, “What if they hate it?” but thankfully logic growls back, “They won’t.” The most important thing is…I love it. I love it and I’m proud of it, and I’m here to reflect on everything and thank everyone for their hard work. Band Camp Boyfriend was once an idea in an instrument truck and today it is a reality thanks to you.

I may use “I” and speak from my perspective here, but I am only one half of the soul of this game. My sister’s heart, creativity, memories, and talents also make up Band Camp Boyfriend. She is just the shyer of the two of us and not as present on social media. So while I speak from my heart, know that it also comes from Alex’s.

Alex and I came up with the characters and stories together. We bounced ideas on band fields, long walks, and over coffee. There are so many warm moments of us barely able to detail our scene ideas in between peals of laughter. Together, we crafted it into better versions, constantly improving on it. As we worked, we covered for each other’s flaws. Alex is the perfectionist between the two of us and she is the more knowledgeable one when it comes to music, as she majored in it. She also was able to do the math and figure out the tough programming. Then she taught me—I am not the perfectionist, but I am the workhorse, the motivator. I am obsessed with checking things off my list and constantly working to whittle it down. And while her writing style is to carefully hone each paragraph, mine is to just devour. I sit down and I just write—though I like to say the characters write themselves. I’m just an invisible presence within the story, writing the scene as it plays out. If you know the characters deeply enough, you always know what they’re going to say next and your fingers fly across the keyboard just to keep up. But enough about me.

Band Camp Boyfriend is the kind of game that absolutely needs an original soundtrack and by God did Alex create an incredible one. The themes, the motifs, the fine details. She has put so much thought and hard work into the music of this game. I have no idea how she does it. It’s magical to me. It adds so much to the game and heightens the emotion by tenfold, and I can’t wait for you to hear each song—from “Let It Slide” to “Swan Song” to the full band performance of the alma mater and that final song in the credits. Every single song brims with Alex’s talent, passion, and hard work.

And honestly, I am blessed to have her as my sister and my best friend. Thank you, Alex, for sharing this journey with me.

One talent my sister and I do not share between us is digital art. We write, we program, she composes…but sprites, CGs, backgrounds, GUI? That’s not something we can do. So we commissioned artists we found on Lemmasoft Forum and I’m so grateful to have found them when we did.

Bunny, our background artist, created the entire world of Band Camp Boyfriend! She worked with us closely to make sure the details were right and was so sweet. It was so cool to be able to move around the world she created and help capture the shots that we wanted. Potouto (now Khoaisama) was also wonderful to work with. She is so full of talent and creates amazing, unique GUI for many different visual novels! Also, I love her enthusiasm. And our chibi artist, Mayunnaise, has created some of the most adorable chibis I’ve ever seen! Thank you all!

I want to say a special thanks to Flora, our sprite/CG artist who was so incredible to work with. She was patient, devoted, talented, and granted us art even better than we imagined…seriously, I would lose my mind over everything she sent us…but one of the best things we attained on this journey was certainly her friendship. Flora, you are a fantastic human being with a wonderful sense of humor! I’m glad you will finally, finally get to see your stunning art in action. Thank you for sticking with us as we kept spinning in circles. “Okay last round of CGs…actually, can you do one more round? Actually, just one more CG. I swear this time it’s the last one, I swear!” She also needs to be commended for her dedication to nailing all the detail on the instruments. That’s not easy to do. Flora, you rock. I hope you love the game.

Next, our stunning voice cast. They brought these characters to life in a way no one else could, better than we ever could have envisioned. Seriously. Their talent made me love these characters even more, which I didn’t realize was possible. I’m sorry for making you all wait for the game so long and I’m thankful you continued to reprise your roles throughout the years when we asked for more lines. Joe, Jonathan, Wish, Jared, Richard, Joseph, Mark, Emily, Melody, Daisy, Daniel, Lasli, Angelo, Riley, Sara, and Steve…thank you from the bottom of my heart for lending us your incredible talents. You are all spectacular voice actors and lovely people.

And I could never forget my fantastic friends who helped beta test the game! Becca, Karen, Kristin, Ross, Chris! Thank you all for lending your time and for being my friends through thick and thin. You each brought your own talents to testing and really helped me to clean up the game. Ross the genius also helped with programming and I am extremely grateful to him and his brilliant mind! Programming the Extras menu was no small feat and I don’t think we could have done it on our own and still met our deadline. Thank you so much for offering your time and working so hard.

We are sorry to cast, crew, and fans that creating the game took so long. This is a hobby and a passion rather than our full-time jobs, and you only have so much time for hobbies as an adult. Life can easily get in the way and we certainly faced our fair share of life changes and hurdles these past 8 years. We often beat ourselves up for not finishing the game in 2020 as we had initially hoped, but I believe this is what was meant to be. The game only got better. Some of the early story decisions make me cringe. Some of the writing I revisited was written by someone with less life experience and a bit tone-deaf on real issues so I was able to fix it. Most importantly, a final route (which was previously going to be DLC for later on) was added and wraps up the game wonderfully. Band Camp Boyfriend was meant to be released in 2023.

I want to thank both of my parents for their unending support through it all. Our dad helped us with the business side of things, getting the game copyrighted, and the joy of taxes. He wholeheartedly supports us in whatever we do, though he is a tad skeptical that a game called Band Camp Boyfriend will sell many copies…so we’re gonna surprise him, right guys? :)

As for my mom…I owe the fact that the game is finally on the cusp of being released to her. She has been our biggest supporter and fan. She has spent hours helping us program and running tests on the game. Until the very last minute, she scraped through the game to make sure there was no crashing. Before that, around two years ago, she sat me down and asked what she could do to help see this special game finally become a reality. It was a major turning point and we owe her so much. Her love of the game kept us going.

Love you both more than words can say. <3

Finally, I want to thank all of the people who have contributed to the wonderful memories and hilarious quotes that have found their way into Band Camp Boyfriend. The three different marching bands I was lucky to be apart of. And to my favorite, hilarious band director and my wise, gentle French horn teacher, who are no longer of this world…thank you for fostering in me a strong love for music, for seeing a talent in me that I couldn’t always see, and for building me into a stronger person. You both left this life too soon, but your impact in so many lives remains. I wish I could show you the game Alex and I created, the game that you helped inspire, and make you smile one more time.

I know some people will look at the hokey title and think it’s just another dating sim, just another gimmicky game, but to some of you, I hope it will be much more than that. As it is to me. It brims with a life of experiences. But not just mine—I’m sure so many of us who have worn a marching band uniform have had the same experiences. And through these experiences, we are connected.

I’ll say it once again, even though it won’t be the last time you hear this: Thank you for playing Band Camp Boyfriend. I dearly, truly hope you love it. I hope the game makes you smile, makes you laugh, makes you cry, and I hope you carry the characters, their lessons, and their story in your heart long after you get that final CG. I’ve carried Band Camp Boyfriend with me for almost eight years; I am so ready to share it with you.

See you at band camp.

-Taylor

[nycteres]

Ira Deorum

WIP Prologue for longer fic | Fandom: BG3 | CW: Mildly implied child neglect.

Trying to actually write my dumb little BG3 Protag fanfic. 😭 Idk how far I'll get but i needed a place to store this that was easier than google docs lmao.

Bards and poets alike - the egocentric windbags that they are - have often said, ‘Home is the first grave’.

Aphrodite walks down a dirt and clay road - one she hoped she’d never have to set foot on again - and tries to put the saying out of her mind.

Red road dust licks at her heels. It’s clumped along the straps of her sandals, adding new grit with every step for the last several miles. The hem of her skirt is similarly soiled, clay and linen tangled together, swishing around her ankles sad and deflated.

Half-buried before she’s even reached the doorstep.

By the time the farmhouse comes into view, her tail drags across the ground. It carves little furrows, kicking up more dirt; covering the vibrant purple of her skin with a layer of rusty brown. It hooks on stones and pebbles and she lets it. A yoke she must drag forward. Feeling less like a Tiefling and more like a workhorse with every step.

No one greets her, not when the steps groan loudly at her weight. Not even when the door swings open on tired hinges, with a protesting creak.

Her mother stands in the kitchen, in the same spot she always has, as if she’d never left it in all those years. Sorting beans with quick hands and a tired air.

“Oh,” She startles when seeing her. Bringing a hand up to her chest and letting loose a dramatic sigh. “You gave me a fright there, we weren’t expecting you till tomorrow.”

“I walk fast,” Aphrodite says, doing what she must. Laying her pack down on a nearby chair and folding her mother into a hug.

She’s just a small as she was last time. Fitting neatly into the space at Aphrodite’s shoulder, hands creased and rough as they fiddle with her blouse, fastidiously tugging at garments that are still well in their place.

Her mother’s complexion is of a similar color, if faded by time and sun. Not an eye catching, violent purple, that Aphrodite takes pain to contrast against fine silks and glittering metals.

Her coloration is almost dun. A muddy violet, chapped and wind worn, one that looks dull even against Aphrodite’s third best traveling cloak. The one made of sensible, dark brown wool. The kind that wont offend her parents with its excess. It’s only concessions to her tastes being the scarlet flowers one of the acrobats in her caravan had embroidered around the hood.

Everything in the farmhouse is muted and weathered. The hug is too, even if Aphrodite lingers out of the vague sense that this is what she owes, as a daughter. Whether she wants to give it or not.

They break away after long enough has passed. Counting the beats in her head until she can unwind her mothers arms, step out of their reach with pity and gentleness and relief.

“In any case, we’re always glad to have you.” Her mother says, going back to her beans with a gentle pat to her shoulder. “I could always use the help. You know how they are.”

“Hard to forget.” She says, sunny; with a drawling trill to her undertone.

Aphrodite’s sarcasm is deftly ignored. The shelled beans falling into the container in little stuttered taps, like rain on a tin roof. Echoes that fill the awkward silence.

“It’s worse than any of the others I’ve had.” Her mother offers. “You’re welcome to try if you feel that confident. He’ll be in the bedroom. It’s a task getting him to come out some days.”

“Really?” She can’t help but needle a bit. “A seasoned veteran like you, done in by a single child?”

“I said it to that priest so he could write it down for me in our letter. And I’ll say to you again now. He’s an odd one. There’s something off about that boy.”

Aphrodite hums, a soothing two tone sound she uses on particularly uppity clients. Falling into the usual song and dance, an worn groove of Deflect, De-escalate and Disengage.

“Why don’t you show me where he is? I’ll see what I can do while you finish up.”

Her mother shoots her a particularly nasty and tired look. One that says that Aphrodite knows exactly where the bedrooms are located and should need no guide.

She doesn't back down, but rolls her eyes. Leaning against the solid oak dining table. One of the few pieces of furniture that doesn't look like it’s old enough to have seen the second sundering. The one that she sent them money for, when their last table broke.

“It’s five steps down the hall, it’s not going to kill you.” She cajoles with a nasty and tired look of her own. “He’s - what? - three, he’d probably be more worried if a stranger came in without him knowing who they are.”

She gets her way in the end. Even if the acquiescence comes with a disgusted sigh. Her guide stomping down the hallway with ill grace.

The door to the third bedroom is thrown open with little fanfare. When Aphrodite steps through, it’s like swimming against a current of Déjà vu. Old memories superimposed against the current floor plan.

It looks different now than when she was last here. Housing one child instead of several. None of the triplets’ effects randomly clutter the floor. There aren’t lutes and lyres and badly whittled flutes to serve as a tripping hazard to unwary visitors. But parts of it are still same in the end.

Faded curtains, a rickety pallet bed. An endless pile of mended blankets to ward off the chill.

“I’m afraid I offended him by trying to get him into a change of clothes this morning. He’s refused to come out since then.” Her mother - their mother - gives another deep exhale. A new kind of weariness in her tone, surprising after eight children. But maybe it shouldn’t be, if one considers what little time she had actually spent with them.

“You’re welcome to try your hand at it,” She offers with a shake of her head, heading back to the kitchen. Not remembering or not caring that she had asked for an introduction.

Aphrodite shuts the door quietly behind her. Cutting off escape routes. Intimately familiar with which hiding spots a small child might favor.

She doesn’t find him in the chest of drawers, or behind the shabby little dresser in the corner. But the creak of a floorboard alerts her to her quarry. Taking pains to move slowly, she steps closer to the bed, sinks to her knees and shuffles under it as best as she can.

He’s wedged against the wall, pillbugged into a stiff little shape. Horns dusted with all the cobwebs that accumulate near the edge of the baseboards, where no one ever sweeps.

“Hello there,” She greets him, taking pains to keep her voice soft and pleasant.

Her brother doesn’t respond. Watching, waiting. With black sclera and bright pupils, a blazing orange that hearkened back to the eternal fires of Nessus.

Not even the shadows can hide the ridiculous coloration of the rest of him. As pink as she is purple, contrasting sharply against the cream linens and homey ginghams that cover their home.

“Well,” She says dryly, not bothered yet by his lack of response. “At least you got some of my good looks.”

“Fate has preserved you from looking like father, in any case,” Aphrodite whispers conspiratorially, knowing children love nothing more than being included in a good gossip session. “Cherry red is very passé I’m afraid.”

He doesn’t respond. But she can see his nails digging gouges into the wood. Still, tense, quiet.

Aphrodite switches tracks. It's the mark of a good conman, knowing when tailor your approach to the current audience.

“My name’s Aphrodite. I’m one of your sisters. Why don’t you come with me, and we can get you something to eat.”

She holds out her hand, dusty with the filth that accumulates underneath a bed. Prepared to wait for as long as it takes.

Which is a while, in the end. A long, expectant silence. Broken only by the roosters crowing outside.

“I promise I won’t make you change clothes.” She whispers conspiratorially. Playing her trump card.

Basking in the success of the moment. When that little hand folds into hers, and lets itself be shuffled out from underneath the bed, cobwebs and all.

His name is Adrammael. A name that is as predictably long and awkward as all of his other sibling’s names. To speak nothing of her own.

Their parents don’t even have the grace to remember which one of them came up with it.

“It’s practically child abuse to make you write that out, when you start learning your letters.” She says to him one evening. When they both sit inside the run, warming themselves in the sun.

“You look more like a Dram to me.” Aphrodite decides with firm certainty.

If Dram has any opinions on the subject, he doesn’t care to share them. Preoccupied with burying his face into one of the chickens that he’s coerced into sitting in his lap. Making one of those odd guttural, humming noises he seems so fond of, muffled by a mouthful of feathers.

Aphrodite would rather swallow a particularly hot coal than admit to her mother being right about anything, but in the privacy of her mind, she is forced to admit. There really is something off about that boy.

Dram takes to her easily enough despite that.

She takes to him too, despite the myriad of difficulties that have stopped their parents from doing the same.

Chief among them being that he doesn’t speak yet. No matter what sort of threat or bribe he’s faced with.

Dram does not speak, even though he’s of the age to. But to everyone’s annoyance - even hers - he has no problem with screaming. He screams when he’s angry and when he’s upset and when they make him wear certain articles of clothing.

He’ll run away if the dinner contains certain vegetables he’s not too fond of. Crawl under the table to hide when they have visitors. Press his hands to his ears and start up a slew of truly concerning vocalizations if he’s forced into a situation that isn’t to his liking.

He’s a terrible handful of a child - despite having practically raised her seven other siblings, possessing more than enough experience with kids of his age - and there are times where Aphrodite fantasizes about going back to her old caravan. Letting her parents sort this one out by themselves. Learn the consequences of not using any kind of protection for once in their lives.

It’s a beautiful fantasy. If one that falls apart pretty quickly.

Crumbling to pieces a little more every time she wakes up and finds him in her room yet again. Waiting to follow her around the house from dawn to dusk. Trailing after her skirts with a solemn stare that seems out of place on his round, little face.

The thrill of it wears down sooner than she thought. Banished completely when she gets him to sound out a word or two after trying for weeks on end. Realizing that it’s not that he can’t, but that he doesn’t want to.

The way he doesn’t want to try yams and the way he doesn’t want to be around their father any more than she does. Scurrying under furniture when he enters the room. The tip of his tail poking out from his hiding places like an over sized rat.

It doesn’t help that her parent’s fall back into old routines easily enough.

Aphrodite’s here after all. No need to look after your own child once the free labor has arrived.

A resentment that grows and festers. Bubbling over when she sees him scoot a stool next to the cabinets one afternoon. Clambering up to the counter in the stumbling, uncoordinated way children of that size navigate the world.

Clumsy, but practiced enough to manage on his own.

A child who had learned to get into the pantry to feed itself, since her parents were still in bed and she hadn’t thought to offer him lunch yet.

Aphrodite watches him gnaw on slightly stale bread. Letting a solid century of grievances darken her thoughts and spur on her pettiness.

Home may be the first grave, but she's not very inclined to bury the hatchet alongside herself.

“Dram,” She says carefully, setting him down from the counter. Reaching for that foreign power that perches on the back of her mind and delights in her rash decisions.

“How would you like to go on a trip with me?”

Dram doesn’t say anything. Keeps working on his snack with single-minded determination.

But his hand winds itself into the fabrics of her skirt easily enough. Tail twining around hers, more at ease with Aphrodite than he is with anyone else. Despite how little time she’s spent with him in comparison to their parents. Barely six weeks, by the time she thinks to start scheming.

“I think you’ll have fun.” Aphrodite pats his head, knowing he won’t mind too much in the end.

“I certainly won’t. Considering how I’ll have to give up most of my social life.”

She sighs dramatically - heartfelt and whiny - in a way she feels that befits someone going through great sacrifice. Letting it all out before she’s forced to move on more actionable concerns.

“But first, we need to eliminate the chance of any surprises of this kind happening again.” Aphrodite relishes the thought. Urging him towards the run. Letting him play with the chickens while she drafts an amendment to a particularly tricky contract, and tries to puzzle out the worth of a foreign body part.

Fae did have an unsettling lust for such things. One which she planned to exploit in her favor.

[michaelgogins]

More Notes on the Computer Music Playpen

I have finished maintenance on the VST3 plugin opcodes for Csound, Csound for Android, and some other things, and am re-focusing in composition.

One thing that happened as I was cleaning up the VST3 opcodes is that I discovered a very important thing. There are computer music programs that function as VST3 plugins and that significantly exceed the quality or power what Csound has so far done on it own, just for examples that I am using or plan to use:

The Valhalla reverbs by Sean Costello -- I think these actually derive from a reverb design that Sean did in the 1990s when he and I both were attending the Woof meetings at Columbia University. Sean's reverb design was ported first to Csound orchestra code, and then to C as a built-in opcode. It's the best and most widely used reverb in Csound, but it's not as good as the Valhalla reverbs, partly because the Valhalla reverbs can do a good job of preserving stereo.

Cardinal -- This is a fairly complete port of the VCV Rack "virtual Eurorack" patchable modular synthesiser not only to a VST3 plugin, but also to a WebAssembly module. This is exactly like sticking a very good Eurorack synthesizer right into Csound.

plugdata -- This is most of Pure Data, but with a slightly different and somewhat smoother user interface, as a VST3 plugin.

I also discovered that some popular digital audio workstations (DAWs), the workhorses of the popular music production industry, can embed algorithmic composition code written in a scripting language. For example, Reaper can host scripts written in Lua or Python, both of which are entirely capable of sophisticated algorithmic composition, and both of which have Csound APIs. And of course any of these DAWs can host Csound in the form of a Cabbage plugin.

All of this raises for me the question: What's the playpen? What's the most productive environment for me to compose in? Is it a DAW that now embeds my algorithms and my Csound instruments, or is it just code?

Right now the answer is not simply code, but specifically HTML5 code. And here is my experience and my reasons for not jumping to a DAW.

I don't want my pieces to break. I want my pieces to run in 20 years (assuming I am still around) just as they run today. Both HTML5 and Csound are "versionless" in the sense that they intend, and mostly succeed, in preserving complete backwards compatibility. There are Csound pieces from before 1990 that run just fine today -- that's over 33 years. But DAWs, so far, don't have such a good record in this department. I think many people find they have to keep porting older pieces to keep then running in newer software.

I'm always using a lot of resources, a lot of software, a lot of libraries. The HTML5 environment just makes this a great deal easier. Any piece of software that either is written in JavaScript or WebAssembly, or provides a JavaScript interface, can be used in a piece with a little but of JavaScript glue code. That includes Csound itself, my algorithmic composition software CsoundAC, the live coding system Strudel, and now Cardinal.

The Web browser itself contains a fantastic panoply of software, notably WebGL and WebAudio, so it's very easy to do visual music in the HTML5 environment.

[kuiperblog]

So, I will begin by saying that I am not really on the side of the poster who is trying to score internet points in some anti-DCEU fandom war by saying "franchise bad because franchise used stock images in its marketing!" That is a pretty weak dunk.

But the response to this dunk is even weaker, because as I read it, it's not even responding to what the original tweeter was dunking on. You know when you see an argument that is so weak that it actually makes you want to defend the other side? This is one of those moments. And steelmanning is a fun intellectual exercise, so let's do some of that today: here's why dunking on Warner Bros for using Getty stock images in their marketing for a cheap laugh actually makes sense.

"Stock photos exist to be used," yes.

But I think the same can be said of stock music, right?

Like, if you spend a lot of time on certain parts of YouTube, particularly in the world where you have people who are trying to be "professional YouTubers" but who also work with small production budgets. I'm talking about the sort of "workhorse content creators" who are making a living by uploading a video every week.

What do you do, as someone who is "taking this seriously" and wants to use music properly and legally to avoid a copyright strike, but without the budget to get a custom soundtrack for your channel? You turn to Kevin MacLeod, of course.

It's not always literally Kevin MacLeod, but he's probably the man who has most "made a name for himself" by releasing all of his music under a Creative Commons Attribution license, meaning that you can use any of the music in his vast library of music just by giving him a proper credit in the video description (or, alternatively, by paying a $30 licensing fee).

And, as a result, you hear his music in a lot of videos. If you, like me, spent years in the aforementioned part of YouTube, you probably recognize some of these:

I also used to spend a lot of time playing super small indie games. When I say "super small indie games," I'm not talking about $10 Steam games; I'm talking about the sort of games that someone made for a weekend game jam and then uploaded to itch.io, or made by colleges for their undergraduate "game development" class. I've also been known to participate in game jams myself from time to time. Between that and YouTube, I've spent a lot of time listening to royalty-free music. Some tracks just live in my head, and I instantly recognize them. And sometimes I encounter these tracks out in the wild.

My local independent cinema has their own little branded "bumper" that plays at the beginning of every screening, where a bunch of stock graphics of film reels that appear on the screen to set the mood, accompanied by floating impact font delivering messages like "silence your cell phone." And every time that same bumper comes up, all I can think is, "that's one of the songs from the Garage Band sound library. I used it for a detective game I made in 2014."

I think it is totally fine and appropriate for my local independent theater to use the stock music that comes with Garage Band; they don't have the budget to hire Hans Zimmer, or license a Beatles song, or even pay some independent musician $500 to whip something up for them, and nobody cares about a 20-second bumper. As you might say, these stock tracks exist to be used.

But it would be extremely funny if I sat down in that theater, started watching the preview for a $200 million superhero movie, and then when Jason Momoa's face appeared on screen, they played music that I recognized from the Garage Band sound library.

If the official film score was incomplete when they were cutting in the trailer, and they instead ended up licensing a $30 royalty-free music track from the same site where people go when they need muzak for a radio ad, that would be funny! You won't change that by saying "royalty-free stock music exists to be used."

Now, to be clear, this is not exactly like the thing being described by the tweet that is being criticized, but it is at least analogous:

When the promotional material for Aquaman is using stock images from Getty Images, I think it is at least a little bit funny! (The Getty Images watermark in the second image just makes for the perfect visual punchline, don't you think?)

I don't know what exactly "Getty Images" means to people who don't work in media or some other industry where you sometimes need to procure visual media, but there are lots of people who did in fact sign up for SquareSpace after hearing their favorite YouTuber or podcaster do an ad read for it, and to those people, they probably associate "Getty Images" with that thing on their CMS dashboard that lets them add an image to their website for a $10 fee.

So...really, the dunk here isn't that "they used image-editing software instead of having Jason Momoa pose in front of a shark," it's that a gigantic movie studio throwing around huge wads of cash is using the same image library as us plebeians.

Think about the emotional valence of the president of the United States hosting a White House dinner and serving the guests McDonalds. The comedy lies in the contrast: "Hey, shouldn't the POTUS be hosting a White House dinner with fare that's a bit more...sophisticated than this?"

You cannot respond to that by saying, "McDonalds exists to be eaten, dummy! There is nothing funny about giving a McDonalds hamburger to a hungry person, because that's literally why their business exists!"

Well, yeah. But there are certain contexts in which you expect to encounter a McDonalds hamburger, and the White House is not one of them. (To be clear, I am not one of those people who thinks that McDonalds hamburgers are somehow "beneath the dignity" of the White House: when I say that "the image of McDonalds in the White House is funny," that is not a value judgment! I am just saying that you have to admit that it's at least a little bit funny!)

And this is what the flippant criticism seems to miss entirely:

This response does not even read as responding to the point made in the original tweet. Like, imagine if someone was talking about how it's funny that a movie trailer had a royalty-free stock music track, and then the response was, "hey idiot, the music is non-diagetic, of course an editor took an audio track and edited it in." That is a defense so weak that it isn't even addressing the criticism that is being made.

"did you think they actually photographed a dude chilling with sharks?" No. The tweet you are replying to was not complaining about the use of "photoshop" or "digital trickery," it was specifically calling out the use of stock photos from Getty Images that anyone can buy.

Here's what I think the post is gesturing at by specifically calling out Getty Images stock photos:

It's not unreasonable for someone to think that after spending $200,000,000 to make a movie about Aquaman swimming around underwater with sharks, they might have some production stills that look better than what you can buy on Getty Images for $200. You're telling me that this was the best image of a shark that they could come up with?

And look, I understand that you can very reasonably answer that question by saying "yes!"

I understand that the sorts of images that look good in the context of a movie don't always look good in the context of a movie poster. There's also the fact that all of the underwater stuff in the movie is CG, which means it probably looks worse than a photograph of an actual shark. The fact that the movie's sharks are CG also means that they're being worked on up until the eleventh hour, and these blockbuster movies have marketing cycles that take up the better part of a year, so it's even possible that the marketing team doesn't yet know exactly what the sharks in the movie will look like. And all of this is, to an extent, also fine because I understand that the purpose of promo materials like posters is to communicate a vibe more than to actually present the content of the movie. I get all of that. And yet...this defense also seems kind of tepid?

"Look, they had to use stock photography because the film's principal photography didn't get any images of actual sharks, because every single underwater scene in the movie was made in a computer, and those images look worse than photos." If that's the defense, it's kind of not doing anything to rebut the exact thing that the DCEU's critics are gesturing at when they complain about superhero films just being "CG slop."

That is, prima facie, an embarrassing admission: "we don't want to put the actual sharks from the movie on the poster because we wanted the poster to look good, and even though we spent $200,000,000 on this movie, the sharks that actually appear in our movie don't look as good as this photo we found on Getty Images." Absent any other context, that seems like the kind of thing that should get a round of mockery on twitter!

Lastly...value judgments aside, I think it's kind of funny to think that, yes, this film had a 9-figure marketing budget, and part of that $100,000,000+ budget included an invoice from Getty Images for the $200 they spent on this shark picture. The juxtaposition of that film budget with this line item is funny if for no other reason than the comedy inherent in any situation where you have an extremely large thing directly next to a very very tiny thing.

[theloniousbach]

EMMET COHEN with Reuben Rogers and Joe Farnsworth, JAZZ ST LOUIS, 21 NOVEMBER 2024

EMMET COHEN is probably moving up into my list of elite pianists. That is, Kenny Barron/Fred Hersch/Cyrus Chestnut/Bill Charlap land, not just among such favorites as Alan Broadbent, George Cables, and Miki Yamanaka. What he has is power, taste, energy, a grasp of the traditions, and a great sense of fun. He is indefatigable with a torrent of ideas leading to chorus after chorus.

The material is rich and widely varied—Lee Morgan, Jelly Rolly Morton!!, Burt Bacharach, Cedar Walton, Emmet Cohen (the ballad actually), a bebop medley of Charlie Parker and Barry Harris, Thelonious Monk, and a raggy time piece. They were varying launching pads for improvisations. This Guy’s In Love With You had those poppy catchy chords but then roared. Parker’s Little Suede Shoes’ Latin feel was fun for all of them, but was a showcase for Joe Farnsworth. The drummer also launched Cedar Walton’s Mosaic out of the Bacharach with a solo and culminated it with an outro of an almost cutting session with Cohen. He’s a rhythmic marvel getting sound out of rims, cymbals, mallets and elbows on drum heads, the snares underneath that workhorse drum, and the high hat stand, but in this “battle” he answered the pianist’s punchy lines with hints at the melody. He reached over to hit the bass drum with a mallet and ultimately “won” by shouting into the snare drum.

Farnsworth is a hero of the Smalls Live streams, so I was glad to chat with him before the set as I have taken to do. Jazz clubs are small, so I’m treating them like Focal Point. I want players like Farnsworth to know that people like me listen attentively. He also said that one should go to Joe’s Pizza after being at Smalls and I said, a) that I’d gone before (thanks, Sam) and b) that I didn’t know he had a pizza stand.

Seeing him as often as I do, there are good nights and even better nights where he is even more synced in and balanced to the band. It’s easy for drummers to play loud and leaders to take up space, but this was a particularly fine night and I’m thrilled, not just to talk to him, but to see him in action.

It helps that Reuben Rogers is such a powerful bass player, well able to hold his own with this company. His solos were rich and woody, sliding into chords and lines all the way up and down the fingerboard. His accompaniments were forceful too. He was having lots of fun. But they all were. Cohen is both a generous leader and has a boyish awe and joy in the music. There were lots of grins around the bandstand. Their fun was our fun.

https://www.youtube.com/live/Bqs6G2zpAPs?si=UmzOk95AuwcxqoDs

[muppet-meat]

TIPS FOR ASPIRING KJs!:

Hello everybody, I’ve been a karaoke-host for three years and recently have been asked: “What makes a good KJ?”

Well, assuredly you’ve come to the right place if you wanna learn some tools-of-the-trade, when I asked my boss who owned the karaoke nightclub for a little over two decades the same question; here are some key takeaways from that very insightful dialogue I had with him:

You may find yourself thinking this is like any other DJ gig.

You may find yourself thinking that this is like stage-directing..

Well, it’s kinda like that... But not really.

For one you do absolutely need to have personality-and-charisma, you can’t let your own brazenness get in the way of any singer nor should theirs affect you.

The way he put it was that he leaves his emotional-baggage at the door and not to even think twice about the innumerable songs you’re going to hear sung.

You need a degree of charm to get folks’ attention and to firmly maintain it one should lay those three personality-quirks thick.

Your announcing-voice doesn’t necessarily have to be melodic but it can’t be flat either — in essence you want to project but not too aggressively, have enthusiasm, have workhorse-energy that people secretly envy, have the reassuring voice that gives people comfort knowing that they are going to have a good time but also don’t overdo it, it’s a quick way to burn-out.

You gotta have the spunk meld with quick-resolve, the same applies for bartenders within the service-industry: You’re gonna meet lots of people who are either inebriated or-not, in a bunch of different moods who all went through something or another either that day or in general, as he put it; “..Most of ‘em don’t leave their shit at the door, yes it sucks when customers don’t buy booze but never pressure them to drink or to sing. The sayin’ goes you can lead a horse to water...”

You need own and hone three sets of ears: (You’re probably like: What do they mean by that?) You’ll need your everyday-life ones, and then behind the mixer you’ll need the other two for the track and for the vocalist — you’ll develop then latter(s) over time but it’s important to know when your mixing is good and when it’s an adequate level that won’t be irritating/deafening or tinny, the better you make you make them sound, the more your singers’ll come back, trust me.

Yes, it is your show above-all because you’re running the thing, but think of it as a venture: it’s your library and collection of tracks you accrue over-time. Nevermind Karafun subscriptions.. Its your sound-system. It’s your attitude and demeanor that control every aspect of your life — how you conduct yourself should be professional: If you’re good at crowd-work it’s fine to lightly incorporate it but don’t hog-the-mic with your own singing or talking too much when someone’s not singing, use that time to stretch your legs with some curated bumper-mixes of your own or even a playlist so you can get to know your crowd and engage with them person-to-person.

You come off more personable and approachable that way. I’ve had a lot of success doing it that way and how I’ve been doing it three years.

Your memory is a huuuuge thing, take care of your mind — I say that it’s probably a big thing if you wanna not just maintain a steady regular-crowd, it’s how you make lifelong friends doing it. I’ve had people floored, literally flabbergasted by me remembering their names and some of their songs. It’s gotten me tipped. Its gotten my reputation upstanding and it’s made plenty of friends and acquaintances alike who always come back and are always happy to see me.

KJs absolutely exist to set the tone and provide exceptional service and unwavering support throughout the entire experience, that’s what your selling:

An experience.