#its weird to be back here those 10+ years later

[artificialbreezy]

i was antsy about my biker folio world and just wanted share snippet of it that doesn’t really fit in the actual one shot i’m writing.

CW: indications of weed and smoking, smut, shy!reader, inexperienced!reader, nicks got a filthy mouth, flirty nick needs its own warning, lots of dialogue sorry bro, a real shit ending (why are endings so mf hard????)

it was late, the sun had gone and went. your front porch no longer the place to be reading. those solar lights in your back yard with a blanket in the hammock when just where you wished you were.

grabbing your blanket and book, you were quick to run outside. if anyone asked you your favorite part about being an adult, it was this. staying up late, reading in the dark in a big comfy hammock.

you were quickly pulled from your thoughts by the weird smell and a subtle cough from next door.

“sorry sweetheart! i didn’t mean to distract you.” your neighbor yelled over the fence. you just waved at him, a silent signal it was okay.

you don’t know what was wrong with you, you could talk to him outside of your little hi every day you saw him. he just made your brain short circuit, it was better to not speak than embarrass yourself.

before you know it, he was leaning against the fence with his hands over on your side. “ya know sweet thing, you stare a lot for someone who doesn’t talk to me. you see something you like looking at? cause i can name a couple things i like looking at and they all start with you.”

your throat was dry, eyes a little wide and face bright fucking red. words wouldn’t come from your mouth. you just stared at the man at the fence.

“what’s the matter sweets? not gonna talk to me now? i’d love nothing more-“ he grunted a little as he hopped the fence. “than to hear your pretty voice say my name again. can you do that for me, pretty girl?” he was standing directly in front of you now. there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. you had to face him now.

“Nick..” your voice was barely above a whisper. you swear if he wasn’t watching your mouth he wouldn’t have heard you.

“don’t think i heard you fully, try it again.”

“Nick…” a little louder now.

“oh no, honey. that’s not my name. whatcha call me out in the driveway?”

“Nicky.”

“atta girl, can i touch you?”

you almost choked on your own spit.

“uh, um. yeah. yeah. okay, sure.”

his hand reached down to yours, pulling you up and out of the hammock. “come on, let’s go inside. somewhere that Janet is gonna get a free show.” he chuckled mentioning your grumpy old neighbor who hated hearing his bike rev at 10:30pm.

“a free show?”

his hand was on the slider door, opening it as he spoke. “you’re real sweet ya know? yeah honey. was making a reference to us doing something. but i won’t do anything if you don’t want too. i’m okay just talking too.” he was comforting and soft.

“no! i want too! i just, im nervous. i haven’t had a whole lot of experience with that kind of stuff. i mean! i’ve had sex. i’m not just a virgin. just, not a lot. dear god i’m gonna shut up now.”

he smiled down at me, “more than happy to do whatever you want. think you deserve it really. always such a good girl.”

he sat himself in the recliner in my den, “right here.” he was pointing to the floor between his legs. “want you to sit, gonna go over some stuff.”

“need you to know, been thinking about this alot. have been for a while too. just been too nervous to talk to you. wanna do this at your pace, whatever you want today we’ll do. and don’t fret, we can do more stuff later. don’t feel rushed. we got months and years ahead of this okay?”

“can i ask you something?”

he nodded, hand setting on top of mine that was settled above his knee.

“um, can you show me what you like? wanna do it for you. read about some things and i wanna feel that.”

he smirked, eyes brows raised a little. “read what baby?”

“just like. head and stuff. but i wanna do it how you like it.”

“happily honey. just wanna make me happy huh? wanna be just what i want you to be don’t you?” he pushed his sweatpants down just enough that his dick was leaning against his stomach.

“just gonna start slow, okay? couple kisses, hands on my thighs. then you’re gonna- fuck, your lips feel good. gonna kiss the tip a little, there you go. tongue out a second. atta girl. just stay like that a minute. wanna put this view into memory.”

mouth wide, tongue out just, cock resting against it. feeling the weight of him in my mouth was all i wanted. this was comforting.

“alright, lick the underside. all the way down and then back up. and just like those popsicles you’re always eatin. suck a little bit, relax your jaw baby.”

his hands went to my hair, gently guiding me where he wanted me to be. holding my head still, and taking whatever he wanted.

“honey your mouth is like heaven. real fucking close already. come on, off. don’t wanna make you gag right now. gotta work you up to that.”

“wanna feel you down my throat, Nicky. please?”

“open your mouth. just like before. tongue out.”

my knees were starting to get sore, but i wanted to make him proud. wanted him to come back again. watching him stroke himself was going to be forever burned into my brain. feeling his load against my tongue was gonna be there for a while.

“come on, let’s get you off the floor honey. i’m proud of you sweetheart. gonna have to tell me about your books tomorrow though. what other filth are you reading, huh?”

[officialah]

Achievement Hunter is changing and we're taking you with us

As you may have noticed, Achievement Hunter has gone through a number of changes this year. We’ve grown a bit smaller as our cast has moved on to work on exciting new ventures, including Inside Gaming and VTubing. Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of Dogbark, a new content group featuring Michael Jones, Alfredo Diaz, Trevor Collins, and Joe Lee. 

Rooster Teeth is at its best when employees have been given the opportunity to pursue new creative passions. Fifteen years ago, this meant giving Geoff the ability to create Achievement Hunter. And today, this means letting the Achievement Hunter cast move on to new creative projects.

Over the last few years, this has allowed our cast to put time into creating F**kface, ANMA, Red Web, Face Jam, and more. More recently, Jack and BK have put their efforts into streaming at Inside Gaming, Lindsay has begun exploring Vtubing as Ruby, and Ky is producing multiple projects, including some of those listed above.

With all of our new focuses, this means we will not be actively creating content for the Achievement Hunter channel. Let’s Play will also look a little bit different moving forward, but we can assure you that it’s not going anywhere, and it’s in great hands.

But why Dogbark, and not just new shows under the Achievement Hunter banner? At this point in our creative careers, we have grown as both people and as entertainers. Much like how early Achievement Hunter evolved from video game guides to Let’s Plays, we’re looking to take Dogbark in a bold new direction that is more heavily focused on improv and sketch comedy. It’s new. It’s fun. It’s weird. And it’s such a departure from what Achievement Hunter has been that we feel Dogbark is truly its own thing.

We’re very excited to share these projects with all of you, and we really do hope you’ll enjoy all the new content we have in store. Through the years, we’ve reached heights we never thought possible–from Haunter to the Hardcore series, from RTX Panels to AH Live Tours. Whether you joined us back in 2008 or 2023, we couldn’t have done this without you. We have been met with so much support as we’ve grown and changed over the years, and we can’t thank you enough for that.

We know this news might be shocking and saddening for you. It’s bittersweet. On one hand, we’re saying “See you later” to a truly indescribable brand. On the other, we’re getting to pursue new passions, explore, test ourselves as creators, and that’s an incredibly exciting experience. It’s hard to do the same thing for our whole lives, and we shouldn’t have to. But, just because we’re not a part of AH anymore doesn’t mean that we didn’t appreciate the time spent there, or with you.

It’s okay to be sad; it’s okay to take time to process. After, when you’re ready, come join us over at Inside Gaming, F**kface, RWBY’s Twitch, Dogbark, Red Web, Face Jam, ANMA, and So…Alright. We’ll be waiting for you.

Love, 

-AH

To watch our full video on this, check out this link: https://youtu.be/YVgACDwlgq0 To learn more about our future projects, check out the links below. 

Dogbark - www.youtube.com/@dogbarkshow || /www.instagram.com/dogbarkshow/

F**kface - www.youtube.com/@fckfacepod || twitter.com/FuckFacePod

Inside Gaming -www.twitch.tv/roosterteeth || www.youtube.com/@insidegaming

RWBY Twitch - www.twitch.tv/rwby_vt

We’ve anticipated your questions and have created an FAQ below that will hopefully provide answers.

Where are [insert the AH person you are looking for] going?

Honestly, nowhere. They’re still here at Rooster Teeth, but are jumping into new exciting opportunities that bring them joy and passion.Geoff and Gavin are focusing on F**kface, Jack and BK are streaming over with Inside Gaming, Lindsay is launching a RWBY Vtubing Twitch, and Ky is producing these projects. Michael, Trevor, Alfredo, and Joe are excited to announce their new project, Dogbark, which launches 10/2.

Does this mean AH content is going away?

Nope. It’ll exist in perpetuity online. Both on Rooster Teeth Site and Apps as well as the AH YouTube channel.

Will AH ever return?

Think of it like your favorite band going on hiatus. We don’t want to close the door completely and turn off all the lights. There’s always the chance that One Direction will come back.

Is Let’s Play content and channel going away?

Also nope! But stay tuned, you might recognize who will start showing up (and reshowing up) there.

[angeamant]

my disappearance ♡

hiii this is cynthia most commonly known as gentlehue/jgracie/irlangelics <3 i wasnt gonna make a post like this for reasons i'll go thru under the cut but after having three of you reach out to me on pinterest i thought it'd be unfair to leave everyone in the dark 💗 tagging @luvusrry @findmeonvenus / @daystarpoet and @bloodwrittenletters thank u for checking up on me lovelies xx

okay so the main reason i deactivated yesterday was because i realised being on here was negatively impacting my productivity LOL as you all probably know (because i never shut up about it) im in my second to last year of high school and everything i do now and next year is what has the largest impact on what uni i get into which then has a pretty big impact on where i end up in the future basically LMAO 😭 my life is so busy these days between doing the whole ib itself which im still getting used to since the british system is so structured and tells you exactly what to do in comparison to ib where a lot of it is you doing your own thing & prepping for uni by researching diff courses and the lnat which is an exam i'll have to sit in order to apply to study law & also getting back into all my extracurricular/picking up new ones which is another thing i have to get used to since im SUCH an academically oriented person & a BUNCHHH of other things i wont be getting into rn 😭 and so i cannot afford to be lounging around in any way whatsoever right now!! this is the socmed app i spend the most time on and i tend to tell myself its ok cause im not replying to notifs im just scrolling which is so silly LOL but i need to eliminate that from my life soooo i left

a mini second reason why i left is smth thats gonna be rly hard for me to explain here & im pretty sure probs has smth to do w my ocd (another thing i dont rly like to talk ab that much so idk how many of u know this) but i have this thing where if something negatively impacts me or like if i have a negative association w it it becomes "imperfect" and i acc cannot have it around me like it physically disgusts me and i cant function or think or anything 😭 and thats what was happening w my tumblr account because of how it caused me soooo much procrastination and so little work done 😣 soz if this doesnt make any sense or if its weird but its smth ive had for years now and am slowly working on 😭 my perfectionism is so horrible too and tumblr makes it worse cause im always overthinking what my feed looks like 😫 like i cant have too many talking posts or too many asks or too many reblogs and im always doing them in a way that balances it out in my head and i spiral so bad over it 🙁

ANOTHER reason (wow lots of reasons) is cause ive begun to enjoy my real life so so much these days and dont want to be distracted by being online 😭 i love my friend group i love sixth form i love having a crush i love it all! a lot of my friends r graduating this year as well and so i probs wont be seeing them as often afterwards cause obvs theyre not all applying to unis in our city let alone our country !!! i dont wanna take this year for granted at ALL cause i'll so regret it if i do :(

the second thing im addressing is why i left w out saying anything LOL basically i knew if i posted smth and said my goodbyes i wouldn't commit to it at all 😭 and i need to seriously be disciplined w myself these days if i wanna be rich and traveling the world in 10 years 🫡

i dont know if i'll ever come back but im so so happy i got to know u all whether u knew me from jgracie or discovered me later on after i abandoned her im so glad i got to call u my lovely friends :) i carry a piece of you all wherever i go ♡ you know you'll always know me! i wont deactivate this account but i wont be active on it either unless i decide to fully come back, but if u send me an ask within this week i'll answer it xx

for those of you who are worried about my fics on jgracie, i made a backup account back in the summer and everything ive ever written is reblogged over there :) @cynarchives

[staticofthetv]

Take two!

Favourite frames from the new B-Side chapter, featuring some analysis because I have coherent thoughts this time 'round :D

Beware, spoilers below for the B-Side as well as the manga

@veiled-bird that goes for you too, you're nowhere near meeting this guy yet

First up, I love this chapters art. It reminds me of when I was little and asking my dad to help my brother and I beat the last level of episode 3 in lego star wars tcs

Also the chapter title? I have so many thoughts, they'll be discussed more in depth further down but they will be discussed /pos

Numbers weapon 1 mention!! I'm very excited to (hopefully) get more lore about it. Although I am curious if it's like a contact lens or something, I thought it was closer to a surgical implant or maybe some weird side effect from using numbers weapon 1. Mostly because I don't think he's been drawn with normal eyes yet in the manga (at least from what I remember)

Either way very much hoping we get some more numbers weapon 1 lore in this :)

This whole scene but specifically "what good does a test proving I'm abnormal do" hits so hard, especially as someone diagnosed with ADHD in my late teens. Having that feeling of there's something wrong with me for so long and being brushed off every time because I didn't act like the stereotypical 10 year old boy with severe ADHD (a psychiatrist literally told me and my mum i probably had adhd but she wouldnt diagnose me,) I did start to kind of give up on ever figuring it out.

Narumi was incredibly relatable to me in the main manga (not because I'm a badass, I'm very lame lmao) because of the behaviours he exhibits, hyperfocusing on games, constant dopamine seeking (through videogames and online shopping,) needing to be fiddling with something to better process the information being given out, etc.

Narumi is also incredibly smart, its stated explicitly that he got top scores in the entrance exam and I can't imagine those tests are anywhere near easy. It gives neurodivergent kid being told they just need to apply themselves to do better in school/make friends/just function in a neurotypical way in general.

This also comes from his being kicked out of several orphanages, and then even after joining the defence force (especially after being told by Isao that they take anyone that can show skills and results) getting kicked out by the second division and every platoon in the first until he ends up under hasegawa. Considering the title too this is 100% supposed to read as the classic "troubled kid" (many of which are neurodivergent) that not many are willing to put effort into helping. Isao is giving him a way out of the life of having no home to go back to, only to be struck with the threat of getting kicked out once again a year later. Narumi is a very skilled and capable fighter and no one in their right mind would argue with that and it once again all comes down to being labelled as too difficult, hard to work with, never paying attention

This chapter just hits so close to home with me

Baby Mina!! I know there's a decent amount if it in the manga but it's still weird to see her with short hair. I love her so much

There are many more words of appreciation I have but all thought went into dissecting Narumi's character lol

And so being kicked around by hasegawa begins

I love his face here, top tier expression

And here we see Isao solidifying the thought of skill and results being all that matters, there's no way Isao was going to let Narumi get kicked out, especially not after showing aptitude for handling numbers weapon 1. I like to think at this point he does also care for Narumi, I think he sees a lot of Kikoru (or what she could be) in him and especially he sees himself in Narumi. And even though he's only ranked captain Isao would clearly fight to keep Narumi on the force (he probably already had to for Narumi to get transferred to the first division instead of just being dropped when he didn't mesh with the second)

This is also the beginning of Isao and Narumi's mentor/mentee relationship, Isao knows exactly how to handle Narumi and his child prodigy-ness and help him reach his potential as a defence force officer. I think that's part of why Isao shows little care for how Narumi handles himself when off duty, it may be that he knows he can't change Narumi in that way, it may be that he himself just doesn't care for all the professional decorum, either way Isao plays the very important role of being Narumi's main support while he's in the defence force (until Isao dies anyway, whoops.) Narumi needed a space where he could not only be himself but be accepted for it and have the trust of his peers and superiors that he would get the job done when he needs to, and whether it was on purpose or not Isao provided exactly that for him.

This also ties back into the earlier ramble about Narumi being the typical undiagnosed neurodivergent "troubled kid"

(Also the origin of what Narumi says to Kikoru ~9 years in the future :D)

Omg jaeger is canon? Kaiju no. 8 and pacific rim crossover when? /j

Another interesting tidbit about Narumi is his self confidence, he knows he's capable and isn't afraid to tell people that. He says playing support is annoying but what I see is someone that knows he can do better placed somewhere else and has decided to take that into his own hands. He won't get kicked out of the defense force but I wouldn't be surprised if he gets into a shit ton of trouble for taking Isao's words to heart and disregarding his orders, even though I do think he'll be an asset to the battle and perform better being closer to the front lines.

Poor hasegawa has his work cut out for him keeping Narumi in check (a captain and vice-captain match made in hell)

[catboybiologist]

So. This has lived on my hard drive for over a year and a half now, and in my head for much longer than that. I have the entire plot mapped out in my mind, and it's not *too* long. But it's gonna require a lot of careful writing that I think is beyond my ability, and definitely beyond my current available free time level. Maybe when I advance to candidacy, or maybe this is the story I use a portable backpacking writing setup for.

Either way. It's very deliberately allegorical, and taps into a few sci fi cliche "twists" that you're supposed to kinda figure out early on, but are used for bigger themes later.

As I said. Probably beyond my ability.

But here's how I kicked it off a while back. It has a similar "flow" to the intro of biologics, where it cuts between expository introspection and the actual events happening. Idk if that's weird, but it's what made sense to me.

Also I hate the working title I gave it, but I can't think of it as anything else now.

Symphony of the Stars

The bar I found myself in wasn't much different than millions of others like it. A couple cheap liquors that could be found anywhere, maybe a halfway decent local beer or two, and some tacky tourist paraphernalia hang haphazardly on the walls. Absentmindedly, I swirled my drink. My eyes slowly drifted through the panel windows behind the bar, and onto the orange gas giant visible through it.

That was one thing that made me partial to this little backwater- that damn view. Sure, the closer moons might advertise themselves on their intimate little peeks at the red spot, or the faintest glimpse of Jupiter's barely visible rings, but the people there... Not that I minded the workers, I'm a mechanic of sorts myself- but the miners, water pumpers, and atmospheric skimmers of Jupiter's inner moons were a particular brand of insufferable. Thinking that a couple years managing equipment in the Hellas basin made them the most rugged people on the planet, and then shipped themselves out to the furthest flung inhabited spot in the damn solar system. Joke's on them- most of them don't survive 10 years out here. The ones that make it are a different story, I'll give you that. A certain breed of person actually has what it takes to make it out here, and those people have earned some respect.

But I digress.

Callisto was a remote place, damn far from the sprawling metropolises of Mars or the more cushy mining jobs in the belt. Up until recently, it had been my own little sleepy backwater that I had used to escape my extended hours fixing ships for the harvesters on the other moons.

That was before jumping.

Callisto boasted a small engineering and research center near the south pole, most famous for getting artificial gravity fields working nearly three centuries ago. That bit of notoriety let someone set up a particle accelerator that looped the whole damn moon on its equator. Forty eight years ago, a researcher hit the right island of stability when making ultra-heavy elements, and something just... came together. The exact right amount of mass was focused in the exact right amount of space to dent space time in a perfect little way. A few measurements later, they realized that they had created the smallest documented black hole.

My eyes again wandered to the space in between us and Jupiter. That was the other reason I came to this bar so often. It was also the only place around where you could watch the show.

After a few times generating and collapsing this infant of a black hole, some idiot of a scientist decided that they just had to throw something into it. It wasn't much of anything, just a probe that blasted a repeating live image from its camera in all directions. And hopefully, if it survived in any identifiable form, someone would pick up on it.

Well, someone did. A little over four years later, we got a picture of a star. Real helpful- there's only a couple septillion of those out there, right? But what mattered was the timing, and the direction. The star was eventually identified as Proxima Centauri. The moment the image from the probe had been received, the receiver was exactly 4.2465433 light years away from Proxima. And the image was received exactly 4.2465433 years after the probe was thrown into the hole. Meaning that the probe was at Proxima, exactly 4.2465433 years before the image was received. And it was thrown into the hole, on Callisto.... also exactly 4.2465433 years before the image was received. One moment, Callisto. One moment, Proxima Centauri. In some unit of time that was smaller than our ability to measure, it had traveled to the next star system. It was the textbook definition of a wormhole.

And with that discovery, well....

Jupiter's red spot quivered ever so slightly. They were right on schedule, it seemed. Just need to gain a bit of mass in the accelerator, get the magnetic railgun to throw it all into the space above it....

Like fluid down a drain, the image of Jupiter swirled as a dark spot appeared in front of it. Slowly, it grew, twisting the orange and red tones of the gas giant in mosaic patterns, until the black orb stopped, hovering in the emptiness.

After the initial wormhole generation all those years ago, it was found that by nudging the mass to be a little less, or a little more, or nudging to position of the superheavy object that created it, you could target distant parts of the universe. Soon, small spacecraft were being sent to distant stars. The scientists started it, of course. Shortly afterwards, the Callisto government began lobbying to make our little outpost the first official launch point for interstellar settlement.

That was forty years ago. And at this point, the five established settlements were fairly self sufficient- they just needed occasional contact and resupplies. Every week, a wormhole would be opened to one of the colonies. And every week, a freighter would be there to make the jump through, grab what supplies it needed, leave behind a new list of requests, and then disappear again until their specific colony was contacted again in another five weeks. And every week, I would be in this same bar to watch the fireworks.

My eyes narrowed as the perfect black circle reached its stable state. I watched these things every damn week. Part of me wants to say "blink and you'll miss it", but the truth is, at this point in the process, there's nothing to miss.

One moment, a featureless orb. The next moment, a deep space freighter. No flash. No gradual fade. No coming out of a tunnel. The hole was large enough for the entire mass of the ship to fit through at once, and the jump was seamless.

And to tell the truth... I didn't like it.

Humanity had reached and settled the furthest reaches of space, because of a magic substance that broke physics, stumbled upon by accident, in a random lab, by a some guy who was just trying to whip up a new element.

It was perfect. It was too perfect. And it bothered me.

And well, that's why I was here. I'd been visiting Callisto for years, and the pressure to make jumping more and more accessible to small spacecraft was insane. Pretty soon, everyone trying to engineer or maintain any kind of ship would need to have half of a quantum physics degree, and I wanted to be ahead of the curve. So when the launch point was made official, and they called for mechanics to service the ships that made the jumps to the colonies and back, I lept at the opportunity.

But the push was always for more applications, with little thought to the physics. More jumps, more colonies, more resupplies, more energy efficiency to increase the frequency at which it could be used. Some people were interested in the mechanics of the phenomena to exploit it further, sure, but most seemed to stonewall when you questioned too far. How the hell had this been missed? Why is everyone pushing for applications, and no one freaking out over how much this broke our understanding of the universe? Is it possible to measure the unit of time that the jump occurred in? Was it below detection limits? If it was, what did that mean?

And so, here I was. Sipping some herbal thing, staring at Jupiter, and thinking a little too hard about reality.

Eh, at least I could fix that last part.

"'scuse me bartender?" I asked. "Can I get another one of these, with an extra shot in it?"

He silently nodded, and poured me the synthetic gin mixed with... well, I didn't question it much. Anything to help keep these ideas in check.

The carbon fiber fingertips of my left hand gripped the glass with their usual calculated precision, while the skin of my right idly tapped the bar. I sighed.

[beesmygod]

today is webcomics day. i am bea and i make "A Ghost Story" - part 1: pre-gaming

webcomic day is a yearly celebration of the art form concocted by the screentones podcast team as a way for people to see how the sausage gets made. my webcomic "a ghost story" has been running for over 10 years, and yet i still don't think i can say i am good at making a webcomic. regardless, the comic is getting made because otherwise i become very, very sick in the head. today i would like to share with you the process of making a page of "A Ghost Story" from start to finish. either this demystifies the process or will make you think im so cool and strong for doing this 2x a week. instead of reblogging this one post until it gets very long, i will be posting individual updates that i will then compile and post on my personal website. block the tags now if you HATE comics and want them to EXPLODE.

if you have any questions, even things like "what the fuck are you even talking about" feel free to ask. i want to feel confident in what i make again and i think sometimes interrogation from an outside source is really

---

that said, let's get started. wait just kidding i want a cup of coffee first, hold on.

ok now im ready. i have a big glass of water. i have coffee. i have a headset for the parts of work that don't involve typing words. i can't type words and listen to some streamer babble in my ear at the same time, so it has to be instrumental music or nothing. i just took my meds so they should kick in after about 30 mins. i woke up late today, which is weird and annoying. but maybe i can work late instead.

first off, i need to know where i'm going beyond this one page. if i dont know where im going with something, then i usually create something that sucks that i have to deal with later. hold on my internet died, i have to reset the router. ok, anyway.

what's rattling around in my brain is that not only do i have to deal with maxine's current predicament, i am also dealing with multiple plot elements i need to wrap back around to from the previous chapter. luckily, im about to put maxine down for a nap, which means i can get back to those other elements:

i need to finish the exposition from the three ankou characters for this story arc establishing their motivations as the oppositional force in the story. the "villain" is not these three specifically, but their boss. they need to have a loose understanding of what's going on in order to communicate this to the audience. god this started turning into a huge ass paragraph so i'll just keep it short there.

we've jumped back to before jack's horrible day from the first chapter of this storyline so we have to make our way back toward that and then lapping it, which means wrapping up his various open threads like:

feeding victoria and learning something new about her

finding out alice is a very exceptional employee who is getting many awards

watching valdo call lily while interrupting her during something personal to ask her for help with maxine's situation.

jack meeting with valdo and lily the day after they first met so jack can just tell them straight up that lily has 4 sisters she doesnt know about.

help that girl with her poltergeist problem. remember that. i've had jokes for this rattling in my head for like 4 years. im going insane.

and also the fucking tilberi!!! that has a point its going somewhere!!! there's a larger menace here!!!

other things to set up the climax of this storyline. sexual tensions, hints at larger emotional problems not immediately evident to the reader

lots of moving parts. and i feel like im moving in slow motion to get to them. i can see them all weaving together in my head, its the process of putting that onto paper that's proving difficult.

ok that took an hour starting and stopping. -_- let me write the next part as i keep brainstorming on how to approach this page. taking a "rubber duck" approach to this might help. heres an image from the last page i worked on (i have a 5 page buffer rn so the site does not match the finished pages) to get us semi-situated.

also because images will help people understand what skill level we're working with here. i need to be able to communicate an idea to the audience; if the art also looks good on top of that, then that's just an added bonus. but the ability to communicate my ideas is sometimes hampered by my lack of artistic skill or comics language ineptitude. like those speech bubbles kind of fucking suck but at a certain point you have to just hit print on what you're working on in order to keep your already glacial pace.

webcomics is a tightrope act where you're also spinning 4 plates at once. the trick is to keep the audience from realizing how many actually fall or how wobbly they all are. the act sucks but technically its not a failure.

[aeternallis]

Haven’t dabbled in VK in many many years now, but looking back at that fandom in retrospect through the likes of LJ, Community forums, then on here, I lament the fact that it was always so difficult to find people to discuss that manga/anime without the conversation descending into “it was so weird and icky that there’s incest involved.”

Like, hardly anyone—at least within the English speaking sphere of the fandom—appreciated that Hino was working with complex, morally grey themes in her work, yknow? It was hard to find people who were mature and thoughtful enough to discuss WHY Hino chose to incorporate themes such as incest, social hierarchy, Nurture vs Nature, etc etc, and to talk about how those themes contributed to the story, without all the pointless pearl clutching.

Hell, even now, you still find that sort of attitude in the tags.

I’m not sure if it was because the fandom was younger back then, but I will say that there was definitely a bit of…I would say, a conservative push to dismiss VK as just some fetishy, off shoot manga/anime whose lasting legacy was its odd reputation. When in reality, I would argue that VK is actually a hallmark of its genre, especially considering that even now, 10+ years later after the OG run of the manga had ended, we haven’t really seen anything like it since, not in terms of storytelling, art style, etc etc.

I guess what I’m saying is, at the end of the day—it was a missed opportunity back then (and even now, I’d argue) to truly create something transformative in the fandom, because of all the pearl clutching that went on, and by that point, VK’s legacy as that “weird manga/anime that has incest in it” had been thoroughly cemented.

[honourablejester]

With all the discussion going around about kids and reading again, and just because I’m in a nostalgic and reflective mood, I thought I’d have a quick look back over books that had an influence on me over the years. You know. I trawl back through my childhood and later memories for those books that stuck out. Not necessarily because of quality, but because they had something that stayed with me, for one reason or another.

Rambling below the cut:

The Shannara trilogy, by Terry Brooks. The original one, so Sword of Shannara, Elfstones of Shannara, and Wishsong of Shannara. Plus the prequel, First King of Shannara. For a lot of people, Lord of the Rings was their first big fantasy series, but mine was Shannara, because my parents were big fans. We wore those books out. Wishsong and Sword, in particular. The copy of First King we had was a hardback, so it held up better, and Elfstones for some reason was everyone’s least favourite, so it got read a bit less, but the other two were in tatters from everyone reading them. I can’t even remember how old I was reading them, but it was pretty young? Less than 10, for sure. I loved Wishsong in particular so much as a kid.

The Knight of the Word (Word & Void) trilogy, also by Terry Brooks. Again, my parents were big fans. I remember this one, though, because I bounced off it as a kid, and had to come back to it later when I was bit older. Because KotW is much more … adult than Shannara. Not in the sense of more sex and violence, but in the sense that it was set in the real world, and there were a lot of adult topics in there that I didn’t get yet. Things like towns slowly dying as the money dried up, and complicated family dynamics, and bigotry, as well as the more fantastical elements of the demon hunting Nest and the apocalypse looming behind John Ross’ dreams of the future. I had to come back to this trilogy as a teenager, when I had a bit more framework for it. It’s been merged into Shannara as a prequel in the years since, but honestly I never really agreed with that. Knight of the Word was its own vibe, its own bitter, dying, small town fantasy of damaged bloodlines and slow decay. I think, of all the books I read as a kid, this one probably had the most long-term influence on my writing. There’s a tone in it that feels like it comes back to me sometimes.

Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien. It wasn’t my first fantasy, or my most formative, but our house also went through several copies of this trilogy too. I actually miss them, we got new ones after the movies came out, but those one just don’t look or feel as nice as the ones we wore out. I do have an absolutely gorgeous illustrated copy of the Hobbit, though, and it is a prized possession.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle. My dad had a massive green hardback collection of the stories, so big that I could barely lift it as a kid, and I loved it. He still has it. I’ve got my own fancy leatherbound copy now, a Christmas present, but that big battered green hardback is such a piece of my childhood. Reading the Holmes stories young has had weird influences here or there, some odd context for history learned later, and a willingness to read older fiction.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth, by Jules Verne. It was the first book I ever got out of the library. I remember it so clearly. I was seven when my mam first got me a library card, and I remember being so overwhelmed by the number of books around me that I just sort of ran in, grabbed a couple nearly at random, and ran out again. The two I picked were this one, and a book called ‘The Tribe With No Feet’, which I can’t remember the author of, but it was about the indigenous americans meeting white settlers for the first time and calling them the tribe with no feet because they wore shoes (again, I have no idea who wrote this, but this was the mid-90s). I don’t remember much else about that book. But I remember Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Most specifically, I remember the expedition climbing down through the tight caves at the start, and I remember the subterranean prehistoric sea. Which. I feel like people might recognise as an influence for a few things? Heh.

The Famous Five series, by Enid Blyton. In case anyone gets the idea that I was reading mostly fantasy and classics as a kid, nah. Like I said, I got a library card when I was seven, and I read a lot. A lot of what the library had were older books, this was again small town Ireland in the 90s, so they tended to prioritise long series and older series. I read Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Goosebumps, the Babysitters Club, you name it. I also, perhaps more weirdly, read some of the Chalet School series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. Because for some reason our library had a lot of british children’s series from like the 50s? Hence, again, Famous Five. But I did enjoy them, so I don’t know what that says. It also meant that Harry Potter was nothing particularly new to me, because I had read a lot of the old boarding school series that it was somewhat inspired by.

A couple of other kids books that have stuck with me:

Strange Hiding Place, by Graham Marks. Kid’s sci-fi about a kid finding a crash-landed alien on the run from a war and trying to help him. I mainly remember the bit in the first book where they’re camping, and Dez (the kid) does the old camping prank of spinning in the dark with his torch pointing up at his face to scare the alien, and Yakob (the alien) having a complete meltdown because he’s a traumatised guy on the run on an alien world where nothing is familiar and can you not do that, please and thank you! And Dex realising that this adult alien is stressed to fuck and scared and in real danger, and realising a bit more genuinely that he needs to help him.

The Luvender trilogy, by June Considine. I don’t remember too much of the plot of these, but they were just spooky as hell in such a cool way, and I loved them. The basic plot is kids in an old seaside town called Merrick having to deal with an evil sorcerer and his minions (the titular Luvenders), and there were possessed dolls, and the ghost of a girl who was a champion against him a hundred years ago, and then a massive mudslide that nearly wipes out the town and the old wrought iron town gates being carried away by it. I got those books out of the library many times.

The Giltspur trilogy, by Cormac MacRaois. I seriously you doubt you can get these outside of Ireland these days, or even within Ireland, but they were just my favourite casual kids fantasy as a kid. Irish mythology, spooky scarecrows, and brave kids. I loved them.

The Forbidden Game, by L.J. Smith. As we got a bit older and graduated from Goosebumps to more young adult fair, one of my sisters and I were obsessed with the Point Horror books. We tried a bunch of them, but easily our favourite, and the one that stuck longest, was the Forbidden Game trilogy. Which is actually a love story masquerading as a horror book, about a girl who buys a game from a beautiful young demon boy and then has to play it for her and her friends’ lives, while also falling for said demon. Despite this, I was still shocked when I found out, literally just now, that the author went on to write The Vampire Diaries. Huh. But, you know. Still a great trilogy!

Then, as I got a bit older:

Discworld, by Terry Pratchett. One of my dad’s friends heard I liked fantasy (again, Shannara, LotR, but by this stage I’d also started reading the massive fantasy tome series out of the library) and loaned me Guards Guards, and the rest is rather history. Shannara was my first, LotR not long after, but despite arriving late when I was a teenager, Discworld stuck hardest. It’s the one of all of them that I reread most often. I adore this series, and I will cheerfully fight people over it.

Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts. When I say I’d started reading massive doorstopper fantasy series out of the library … I actually don’t mean these two. They came later, when I started buying my own books, mostly out of second hand shops. I still have a massive stack of Wheel of Time books in the bottom of a wardrobe somewhere. I never actually finished the series, but then neither did Robert Jordan? I … I’m not sure if I recommend Wheel of Time, in hindsight there’s a lot of … he definitely had a weird view of women, and relationships, but it was a pretty formative step in my independent reading. And Janny Wurts … Okay. Do you enjoy potentially overwrought whump fic? Read Janny Wurts. I also somewhat blame her for my over-reliance on italics when writing. But. If you would like a doorstopper fantasy series about a beautiful fantasy prince tortured by his (quite literal) empathy while mired in a war with his half-brother by a curse, have I got the series for you!

More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon. As you may have gathered, I haunted the sci-fi/fantasy section of the library as a kid. And a lot of the books I read went over my head. This one was a bit like Knight of the Word when I’d been younger, I did not get it. I mean, I read it, I understand all the events that happened in it, but it was one of those books that didn’t actually mean anything to me until much, much later. But it stuck, and I’m still not sure why. But if anyone wondered why telepathy is a theme in some of my work, it does probably go back to this book.

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. I have read … a fairly eclectic selection of classic novels over the years. Random ones here or there, starting from Sherlock Holmes as a kid. But Les Miserables was probably the second most influential of them. I heard the musical first, again because of my parents, but when I went to college and got access to the college library, it was the first time I got to read the book. Or the brick, if you prefer. And I really, really, really loved Javert. So.

It was also via the college library (and the classics shelf of the bookshop in the college town) that I ran into both the Arsene Lupin stories by Maurice Leblanc and the Fantomas stories by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre. Which, if you enjoy early French pulp crime stories? Excellent choices. The college library also let me watch the early (as in 1910s) Fantomas silent movies, which I also definitely recommend! (I do think Verne being such an early influence inclined me a bit towards French genre fiction for a bit).

Also in college, I discovered that I really love short horror fiction. I love ghost stories. I have several hardback collections of classic ghost stories on my shelves these days, because if I’m in the mood to buy a book, but not in a specific mood, I usually can’t go wrong with one of those. And college was also were I discovered Project Gutenberg, an online archive of classic works, which introduced me to some weird and wonderful classic horror fiction. A particular one of which that I remember was the Carnacki the Ghost Finder stories by William Hope Hodgson, an early entry into the paranormal investigation/weird fiction genres. As in, again, 1910s. They’re weird, and very early-20th-century, but they’re also fascinating and cool. For example, Carnacki made a lot of use of multicoloured electric light tubes as warding materials, because they were new and fascinating in the 1910s. The stories are on Project Gutenberg still, definitely give them a shot. Unfortunately, that version doesn’t have my favourite of the stories, The Hog, which has the most weirdly terrifying demonic pig you will ever encounter in a story.

The Flashman series by George McDonald Fraser. I had read his book The Pyrates before, my dad loved it, and the bookshop in my college town had large chunks of this series, written in the 60s-80s, about a cowardly British soldier during the Imperial conflicts of the Victorian era. So I read them. Again, Sherlock Holmes as a kid laid a bit of groundwork. And … They’re not for everyone. Flashman, the title character, is a horrible man, though Fraser quickly backs off from some of his more horrific qualities in the earlier books (he rapes someone during a battle in I think the second book?). But. They’re pretty well written and historical fascinating, and I learned a lot about a lot of the darker and smaller conflicts of the British Empire through them. Which I remember because it actually came up in class, and made me sound like I’d done a lot more of the reading than I had. We were discussing Lebensraum and the concepts of national expansionism in a lecture, and the lecturer was asking why the land routes through Russia and Asia were considered so important to many European countries, and I was there with Flashman’s experience of British India and Afghanistan floating in my head, so I piped up ‘British navy’. And he was all, yes, thank you, someone’s done the reading. Which, uh. I decidedly hadn’t. Or at least not the class reading. Heh.

Honor Harrington series by David Weber. Somewhat linked to the previous, by way of things like the Hornblower and Aubreyverse books in a similar vein of ‘military historical fiction’, I also discovered military science fiction as a genre via second hand bookshops in college. And Honor Harrington was the one that stuck, mostly because of several characters (mostly Havenite, a couple Manticoran) that I latched onto hard. The series starts out very obviously as ‘Hornblower in space’, but after the first four books or so starts to swerve hard and picks up much more of its own identity.

The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Again, somewhat linked to the previous. As a kid, it was the fantasy half of the science fiction and fantasy section that fascinated me. Later on, I started to venture more into the sci-fi side. And Vorkosigan, like Harrington, has a lot of the bitey, toothy, ‘the bonds and ravages of loyalty’ themes that have rather stuck with me. When you weigh your honour and your loyalty on the scales of war, how much of them, and you, comes out intact? Again, you might recognise some themes I enjoy here.

The In Death series by JD Robb (aka Nora Roberts). Completely different, now, but … these were more my popcorn books, the ones I got out of the library in college and even still when I just want something more low-effort to read, but they’re not bad for all that. They are very much romance fiction tropes in an urban sci-fi coat, but they’re eminently readable for all that. Heh. The main romance is questionable, especially in the early books, but it settles into something more equal and less potentially-skeevy as it goes, and the crime plots are actually pretty interesting here or there. They very much are ‘Law And Order Twenty Minutes In The Future’, with a healthy skeleton of Mills & Book underlying that, but if you want a book to read in an hour or so, you can do a lot worse.

The Charlie Parker series, by John Connolly. If you want horror crime instead of science fiction crime, definitely try these. And by that I do not mean urban fantasy ‘detectives and vampires’, I mean horror crime. As in gruesome crimes where something dark and supernatural lurks around the edges of the world. The books get increasingly bogged down the further into the series you get, but the early books have a spectacular atmosphere to them.

The Philip Marlowe books by Raymond Chandler. Now. Most of the reason I love noir as a genre was because of Batman: The Animated Series as a kid, and then the odd movie here or there later (L.A. Confidential, The Big Sleep, Casablanca), but libraries are a girl’s best friend, and when I stumbled across these, I gave them a shot. And it was definitely worth it. Chandler has a really light, pulpy style that’s quick and snappy and fun to read, and there is definitely a mood and an atmosphere in his work. If you want to see what all the noir parodies were referencing, do try him, he’s excellent. (I never tried the other big pulp hardboiled author, Dashielle Hammett, and I keep meaning to).

… Reading this back over, it’s so obvious that I was a genre kid. It’s all fantasy, science fiction, horror, crime, and then hybrids thereof. Heh. And I’m also noticing a lot of older fiction, as a result of reading what was available to me in a small town in the 90s as a kid, and then being willing to chance older stuff as a result of that as I got older.

Another thing I’m noting is that I read a lot of books that I didn’t get, because while I had the reading ability for them, I decidedly didn’t have the experience or context for them. But the thing with those is, they often stick longer when you do gain the knowledge or experience or understanding for them later on and go back.

Anyway. Apologies for the random trip down memory lane and through my childhood and later influences. Carry on!

[intotheelliwoods]

Woah lots of asks! Augh you guys got such good questions!

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That happened when Medium Leo was 26, and Big Leo 50! They got an extra 10 years after the movie to just, relax, honestly? Those were probably some of the best years of their lives

Then well, after that I think it only took about a month (as in they left a few days later after Raphs death to venture off to the horrors)

After that, 20 years of the newfound apocalypse, leaving Medium Leo at 46 when he gets sent back in time!

(and auguoahg ty wren you are amazing!)

@wraenata

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No he does not! Each timeline has its own goop fella, the one in the Krang timeline remained traped through the apocalypse and will probably never actually break free in that time-

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Yeah... :( Big Leo, the saddest character to ever exist. He tried his best he really did, but in the end though I dont think people will remember him for his failures. They will remember him for his kindness and effort

@memorialis

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Funny story, I do have a backstory for the guy in mind! A good one actually, I was going to make a comic for the backstory but I have no clue how to make it look visually? And I am also not sure if I am going to have the energy for it with everything else going on whoops, I might just type it out in text form by the end of the week to save my strength for everything else I need to draw aha...

But back to your first question, yes, they are intertwined! Very much so actually! The goop has a lot to do with the Krang and their similar trap!

As for your second ask here, nope! Well, yes and no? Hamatos are involved in the backstory but not involved in the freeing half- Anyways though, after that last update and the potential of some later nightmare sequences, that will be the last you see of the guy until the finale! In other words, not really any more lore for him! Again I have a backstory just not much energy to actually draw it! And by this point in time, the backstory is not even really spoilery, its just neat worldbuilding at this point :)

He/Him pronouns be good, or they, honestly the thing jsut has big he/they energy overall tbh

@amazing-captain-castiel (if I worded this weird I am so sorry, I answered your first question before going back realizing oh shoot you sent another ask aha-)

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Haha.. yeah.. yeah he does... (im so sorry, I would do something about this but I can barely keep track of 2 huggy leos)

Though in compensation he did have a relatively nice rest of life. This is also something I sooo wanted to make a comic for but I dont know if I will have the energy for it whoops

He found being in a apocalypse again relatively, surprisingly comforting. Felt like home, his old home, his first home, his own timeline. He thrived in this newfound worldly chaos for years until about 5 years before Medium Leo got sent back, where he ended up leaving the home base they set up with his mother, to explore what was left of the world before that was gone too. This was due to just some good deja vu but well, younger turtles, Medium Leo never stopped looking more and more like someone who would never come back so-

@cavern-of-shenanigans

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yeah.... oops. But Sprout is alive and well🥺At least he will be well by the end of the series-

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<3 uhhhhhh oops <3

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Sweats, theres so much inspo pulled from FMA here my guy!

@cavern-of-shenanigans

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o7

[fitzrove]

(if you're still doing these!) 3, 8, 34 for the ask meme?

3. 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of?

Oaghh this is actually a tricky question!! But maybe I do know how to answer...

The Cat Returns (Studio Ghibli / Hiroyuki Morita)

It's my #1 comfort movie haha. I used to watch it with my sister when we were little, more so than any other Ghibli film (I did grow up with them and liked a lot of them - but I have to admit: I've never understood the appeal of Totoro specifically, I still think it's overrated hfhfjfj). Apparently it's widely considered to be a less good movie than the others, partly because Miyazaki wasn't that involved in it, but I think it's amazing. Also, I saw Whisper of the Heart (the one it's a spin off of) as an adult and didn't like it at all ajdjfkfk. The music, the worldbuilding/aesthetic, the (sometimes very eccentric) Finnish dub and the inherent whimsicalness of the story are very nostalgic and fun for me, and I've always loved cats, so :D

2. LOTR trilogy

It's cheating haha but putting all three under one heading. I've gone to a cinematic back-to-back marathon event of the extended edition... It took 12 hours and was one of the best moviegoing experiences of my life xD I feel like once you've done that, you're at a point where you can definitely say you're not going to get bored of it. I mean, I've been known to dip to get more snacks during some sequences (particular non-favourite is Shelob - not for any lack of fondness for spiders btw, I just find it a bit tedious as an action scene and it's at a point in the story where I'd rather be Moving On), but overall I really love these films - the story, the world, the characters, the music, the sheer amount of effort and care that went into making them and how it really shows >:]

3. POTO 2004

<333 Favourite musical film hahahahahah. I know this is controversial, but for me personally it's in some aspects even more fulfilling than seeing the show in the theatre. My favourite part/character of the show and book is and has always been the opera house!!!! I looooove theatres and theatre backstage stuff, especially big fancy old opera houses, and the movie is very immersively costumed and staged (set?). I don't watch it often (in full anyway - I rewatch the Carlotta scenes semi-often though), but I feel like if I was strapped to a chair and made to, I would just be vibing.

8. any reoccurring dreams?

I've only had one (1) actually repeated dream in my life, where it played out the same beat-for-beat as if watching the same VHS tape again, first when I was about 5 and again when I was maybe 7 years old - a weird Disney pastiche of Aladdin and The Little Mermaid haha. Repeating themes are more common. My least favourite of those was when my mental health was at its absolute lowest in my life during high school, and for around too months I kept dying in different kinds of highly specific ww2-related circumstances 😭😭 (I don't know if I started reading survivor stories too young - around the age of 10 or so...) ANYWAY yeah haha, not many specific reoccurring dreams. I wish I could repeat the one or two times in my life when I've dreamed about flying, it was a lot of fun >:]

34. any pet peeves?

Too many - I feel like half my tumblr posts are about these xD

One big one rn is that many German theatres don't let you book your tickets in just one step. They make you put in all your info and pick a seat and everything, and only then (after a 5-10 minute delay) do they send an email asking to transfer the money to secure your booking. Well, I was meant to go somewhere tomorrow, but turns out I never remembered to send the money in time and have lost my seat :----) It's okay haha it's going to thunder and rain tomorrow anyway, I'll just stay in my hometown and go see something here later lol...

[elderscrollsconceptart]

how many tes games have you played, what was your first build/character in each, and why did you pick those skills/traits/etc?

Hi and thank you!

I've played admittedly not a lot of Arena. Its hard to get into due to its age 🧙‍♂️ Love Jeff Perrymans work on the game though!

I've played a good amount of Daggerfall! I played a bit of it ~13(?) years ago but it was the original version so like Arena it was super hard to both play and get into it. I was actually doing a classic "sword and board" play through via Daggerfall Unity just last year and was having fun until my saves got corrupted somehow 🥲

I actually touched Redguard for the first time this year but I'm holding off until I finish my current Morrowind playthrough 🏴‍☠️

Battlespire I've actually never touched despite owning it. Its weird because I've POURED over that games wiki and its actually my favorite old school TES game based purely on aesthetics and its designs. A full play through is on my to do list for this year!

All the old TES mobile games, shadowkey, Oblivion Mobile, etc. I have limited experience with. I've seen them IRL on friends phones back in the day but never got hands on since I actually didn't have a phone until later in Highschool. I think the internet archive has at least a few of them playable? I'd have to check, maybe it's worth checking out!

Morrowind...ahh morrowind :) its my fav TES game in terms of quests. My first play through was not a full one, it was at a friends house on the XBOX version way way back in the day. For my first REAL play through it was on my first gaming PC and I played an athletics focused halberd wielding orc who bonked people on the head 😂

Oblivion..This one PAINS me..I've only actually played though it entirely a single time and it was ages ago on the Xbox 360 and I played a...stealth archer 😵‍💫..It wasn't a meme at the time I swear! I just liked sneaking and archery! When I got it on PC, every time I tried setting it up with or without mods I had technical issues. I've mentioned it before but I absolutely loathe the bad draw distance and pop in that plagues even "ultra" settings on PC. OpenMorrowind on PC is a technical marvel. I wish they'd do something similar for Oblivion or port a stable version of Oblivion to PC. I really want to do a full playthrough again!

Skyrim. Fun fact I calculated it one time and I'm certain I collectively have 3,000+ hours in Skyrim over the past 13 years. Possibly close to 4,000 but thats from my Xbox 360 playthoughs and I don't remember the exact times for that. The base game is long worn out for me but god damn is Skyrim's modding community incredible. Thanks to mods, the game has remained fresh in various ways for the past 13 years and at this rate I'll probably add another 1k hours before TES 6 comes out 😁

ESO. I'm gonna be 100% upfront here. I got the game when it came out and had lots of issues with it. The game had a rocky start and I wasn't ever a big fan of MMOs to begin with. That said! Zenimax has done amazing things over the past 10 years and really kept that game alive with continuous improvement. I haven't kept up with it the past few years ago outside of the lore (and art) stuff but I think after I give the older TES games another go, I'll probably hop back in to ESO.

Legends. I've never played it! TBH don't like card games, Hearthestone, Gwent, etc. Legends doesn't have much going for it besides the art BUT BUT BUT...Legends art is fucking incredible 😍😍😍 Seriously, after Perhaps Skyrim's concept art, the various artists of Legends are my 2nd fav to look at. I can ignore the actual gameplay but I really wish we knew more about who actually has created all the Legends art. We only have hints such as studio names for vast portions of the art, or straight up ZERO sources for who made a lot of the core decks and original release era art. I keep my head on a swivel for that stuff because its so amazing and beautiful!

Lastly, TES Blades. I'm not a huge fan of the game since I don't like touchscreen controls (eg. I play Morrowind on my phone but with a controller). I've played a fair amount but never beat it since the controls are bleh and gameplay doesn't appeal to me a ton. Most of the stuff that interests me about blades is the armor designs and the fact it gives us a super small glimpse into the period between The Great War and Skyrim.

Sorry this went a Lil long but thanks for your ask!

[thepowerisyouth]

Eh mental health is annoying. Buying & cooking cheap low-FODMAP diet is annoying. My best top note for now is I'm using this blog to practice writing. I need more practice in it. I only know business, accounting & economics stuff. Its stupid stuff. Theres too much actual fraud everywhere that its annoying

Also I use mobile so formatting sucks cause Nvidia GPUs, or Arch dont like tumblr site. Or tumblr site dont like tumbkr site

Also also I 100,000% support all my fellow ones-and-zeros and their identity. Everyone is welcome here.

Except transphobes/zionist/long list of others but you get it. I'll help harrass any of those types endlessly if someone wants to tag me, and bring me in on an argument like that friend you call for backup with fights

Im unhinged so who's to say exactly what will end up here but this is also a completely public blog to me friends, family, hell, even acquaintances i dont give a fuc.

Blog should be expected to be roughly as child-friendly as simpsons or bobs burgers. But also boring like a civics/economics lesson sometimes. Yay

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I (and my husband) am ex mormon. Its a weird thing. Look into it if you havent recently. Realllllyyyy look into. Takes time to figure it all out in this fuckin fucked up world.

I just moved a year ago. Didnt watch the US stock market as much as I normally do. Had my first snowstorm 10 weeks ago, that was.. fun to handle while ill prepared. About 6 weeks ago I was hopping back on the market and notice its a huge tech bubble about to pop and all the conditions Ive been warned about my whole career imply this is not good. Just took a little more thinking & digging and I'm a little too confident to stop talking about it now.

(Oh I'm also care-free as fuc so I dont really read or desire to change past posts more than lil-nitpicks. More informative for the reader & myself-in-the-future-reading that way)

And I'm not kidding I do love feedback & questions. Its a very public blog tho so I get that part for sure.

If you search "life story" in my tags I had that pinned for a min Im just moving shit around rn

Being poor sucks. Will write more on that later.

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First of all-- the exact timeline of an "economic shock" is literal insanity. Dont worry about the exact timing of any of this-- just know its doomed to happen soon.

Here are some effects I predict of this upcoming economic downturn

If anyone comes across any sources for these events that support my arguments please feel free to add in comments, reblogs, etc.

This concise list is mainly for my own reference, but it would be great to add to it if any one has something to add!

0.5. US Stock market collapse-- I have no desire to try and predict this one exactly. Too many conspiracies are actually correct about this big guy. Lets just say 7 US Tech stocks are worth 25% of the entire worlds market, roughly. "Too big to fail"-- I believe is the phrase

1. Corporate (slightly later will be residential by extension) real estate crisis: currently way too overvalued. Most of the houses, land, & urban corporate property we see could stand to decrease by about 60-90% from its current price.

2. Bankruptcy crisis: similar to the after-effects of the 70s inflation-- we can expect to see a huge wave of bankruptcies affecting a variety of business: from the micro-self employed; to the small business with leased buildings; to the largest corporations who commit massive accounting fraud & hope to escape accountability in time

3. Bank runs-- there is an extremely high overreliance on the Federal Reserve, who does not have good control over this situation. Once it becomes clear that there is a crisis (we call this a catalyst event)-- bank runs for physical cash are a surety. Hard to say how long a crisis like this might last. I should ask my siblings who lived near the SVB bank crisis hotspot (but those were rich fucks they do their "bank runs" over the phone)

3.5. Global currency collapse, which takes effect in every single local, state, & national economy at slightly different times. This means prices lower. Much lower. But takes time

4. Whatever the fuck the geopolitics is gonna do???. Its weird. You got Russia wanting to invade Europe? (Look at global economic forum 2024) Trump wants to let them. Biden wants to be an establishment corporate ass. North Korea has changed its #1 public enemy to South Korea (dont remember my source but it was a couple months ago). USA is stationing more troops in Taiwan, but probably only because of semiconductor technology?

The scope of our global financial woes are larger than can be explained in any of our lifetimes. Its much, much closer to pre-revolution France or the late 1920s. Big change is coming. Itll be soon

5. More to come

[antigregarious]

Get your kicks on Route 66. One phrase that haunted my childhood. Growing up poor, I was bullied for a certain name that was on multiple t-shirts. In the words of Kevin McCallister. “You could get beat up for wearing something like that.” I don’t think it was so much the clothes, but the place they were purchased from. K-mall. Well, K-mart was its real name.

Fast forward to the year 2017. I decided it was time to take a small photo trip. Just me, my camera, and a journal. Where was I heading? I was on my Way to Flagstaff, One of the many places that I have yet to see. Before leaving off on this adventure I did what any good son would do, called mom. After telling here where I was off to, and before saying our goodbyes, and I love yous. She started to sing, my ears started to ring. I was having deja vu.

My first stop, a gas station. The ol’ S-10 need a little bit more gas and well, we can say that nature started calling. It looks like everyone and their dog decided to take a trip today as well. makes sense, it was a Friday after all. The restroom was packed, so, like a dog I was on the hunt for a bush. Luckily I seen a little hill right behind the gas station. A perfect spot, and a perfect spot indeed. After business was handled, I got another call. This call needed me to go back and get the camera.

The landscape was stunning. Red mountains, green shrubs, and the way the clouds diffused the sunlight. Now would be a good time to call upon my inner Ansel Adams. You know just one of the greatest landscape photographers of all times. Not me, him. Unlike Ansel, 99.9% of my work is done in color. Earth tones and warmth are my jam. I decided to go with black and white for this one.

After being greeted with such a scenic view, I made it to downtown Flagstaff. Having the trusty D-7100 and a good ol 35-mm lens I was ready for anything. Well, just about. See, I have discussed this many of times, the traditional street photography isn’t for me. The type of capturing candid shots of strangers. Capturing, shots, and strangers. That is a weird sentence when said out loud. I will stick to shooting buildings.

Speaking of buildings, the Hotel Monte Vista is a site to see. A couple clicks of the shutter, I needed to know more about this place. After reading it was a haunted hotel, then something about spirits of prostitutes. I was sold! Wait, what? John Wayne stayed here? Oh, the cowboy not the killer clown. Still pretty interesting though. Being a fan of the show Ghost Adventures, I wondered why they haven’t came and investigated this place. Wait. No one can confirm its haunted, but the tales add to the lore. Question somewhat answered.

Making my way downtown walking past, an alley with stray dogs and cats they’re homeward bound. Something like that right? I am not a fan of seeing stray animals, but I know that is a problem to tackle at a later date. What I am a fan of though, alley’s. There was something about this one. It was the cracked asphalt leading my eyes right to the sunset. It was the mess of the power lines, and a tree that could cause a hazard. It was those vintage looking street lamps.

Isn’t it just my luck. Every motel or hotel I’ve called didn’t have any open rooms. I guess everyone was traveling. And we all decided to come here. It’s starting to look a lot like I’m either spending the night in the truck or staying with the ghosts of some hookers. That doesn’t sound to bad. I just wanted a warm place to sleep, because it got cold, real cold. Luckily, I was given a Carhartt jacket a few years back. Being from a desert town I always wondered when will I ever need a jacket like this. I needed it.

There was a loud noise hurling in this direction. A scene from a western movie. I haven’t seen a train in years. Standing, and waiting for it to pass. I started a conversation with a dude standing next to me. I asked him about the Monte Vista. He heard the stories and actually stayed there. I told him how I was debating whether or not to stay there, well, because of the prostitutes. Once the train passed, we were all good to go. We seen a group of ladies. They all had on mini skirts. We just looked at each other and laughed.

I was finally able to book a room. Yes! On my way back to the truck, I seen something that looked like it belonged in a movie. In this movie I am almost late to get to Platform nine and three-quarters. A little to excited I had to stop and admire this place. While I was admiring it I seen something out of the corner of my eye, something familiar. A logo, the original logo. Words aren’t my strong suit. But this was one time I was left almost completely speechless. The only thing I could say was.

Get your kicks on Route 66.

[saltygilmores]

Thoughts While Watching Gilmore Girls, Season 2, Episode 17, "Dead Uncles and Vegetables", Part I

I have little to no recollection of what happens in this episode except that it involves Luke's dead uncle (duh), which probably means it's filler. Glorious, glorious filler. And I can be free to be SILLY! This one will be silly. Read my reviews of all previous episodes here. The episode opens with Lorela growing irritated as she listens to an excessive amount of answering machine messages left by her mother. Oh, but when Dean does it, its cute?

I feel like I should put this screen capture in my pocket for later use, it might come in handy.

Oh Michel, how I've missed you.

I hope this is one of those episodes where everything is calm and I can just bask in references to outdated technology. Luke calls Lorelai at work because his uncle his dead and he needs to book the inn.

She found 9 available rooms that quickly, business must be slow.

"Today's Desserts" haven't changed in 2 years.

Haven't seen this guy in a while.

Sure, it's bad customer service, but I think Luke should tell more people to shut up. The citizens of Stars Hollow need to be humbled. Where's Jess to help juggle all those orders? Is a little bit of child labor too much to ask for?

I love how Stars Hollow in general is always behind techology wise (I'm not convinced they even have dial up internet yet) but Luke is always even further back. While the citizens are enamored with this new technology called a "cellular phone" Luke has banished them from his establishment and hasn't even caught up to "cordless landline" yet.

Okay, but Luke asking you if you know how to make coffee is a reasonable question. You are in here every morning, afternoon and night where Luke makes your coffee for you. I never see you brew it at home.

The answer to this question is always "Upstairs, jerking off."

If Jess should be at school, then why aren't you at school? Just sayin.

Rory dared to go upstairs alone to look for Jess and Lorelai didn't follow behind her and lasso her with the Rope of Sexual Abstinence? What is the urgent and pressing business that Rory needs to discuss with Jess? Why does she sound, idk, angry? This is puzzling.

Whoa, mama! He looks smoking hot here! His hair is gorgeous and that shirt looks great on him! I'm a slut for rolled up sleeves! I have no memory of this whatsoever. What a nice surprise.

Listen Rory, I like you, but like, why don't YOU get a job? Luke is the Kingpin of Teenage Labor. He's employed Jess, Lane, Zac, and April and he's even had his own girlfriends pitch in and wait tables. He wouldn't be against employing his future stepdaughter.

Rory never worked a paid job in high school except supposedly, working at the Inn in season 1, which I don't believe was a real thing.

Blah blah, she's focusing on academics, blah blah.

Love the bright orange dildo lamp complete with balls.

"I'll be down in a minute, the Spice Channell just unscrambled for a few seconds and I thought I saw a booby."

"I was just about to take my pants off." "Just assume that Jeannie's going to get Major Healey out of whatever scrape he's in." I've never seen that porno. #IDreamOfWeeny #ICreamOnJeannie #OkayOkay #IllStop

TOMATOS SIGN! MY BELOVED! I MISSED YOU! Lorelai's shirt says "For good luck rub my tummy." Lorelai accuses Kirk of hoarding packets of sweeteners to bring home, as if Luke didn't just offer Lorelai a gigantic no strings attached loan some episodes back and he couldn't afford to lose a few sugar packets. Jess emerges from upstairs with Rory close behind him after being out of sight and alone with her for several minutes and for once Lorelai doesn't seem all that concerned that Jess could have been having 2 minutes of raw unprotected sex with her daughter. Remember when she said Christopher got her pregnant in under 10 minutes (lmaaaao, what a sick burn) so she can't leave Rory and Jess unsupervised?

She's even being suspciously nice to him. Huh. Weird. Oh, right, Teach me Tonight is coming up so she's just conserving her energy.

Jess says Rory is gonna break his neck and Rory replies at least it's not his arm.

J: "I need my arm for jerking off." How many masturbation jokes can I fit into one post?

To be continued.

[ncisfranchise-source]

After Cote de Pablo left NCIS early into Season 11, Emily Wickersham was brought in as Ziva David’s replacement, Ellie Bishop, an NSA analyst who quickly joined the Naval Criminal Investigative Service after meeting Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs and became part of his team. Like her predecessor, Wickersham stuck around the popular CBS series for eight seasons, departing in the Season 18 finale, titled “Rule 91”. Three years year, Wickersham opened up about how much of an adjustment it was for her leaving NCIS, a period of her life she described as “wonderful and weird.”

Wickersham took some time to chat with the hosts of Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch, the aforementioned Cote de Pablo and fellow NCIS alum Michael Weatherly, who are currently in the middle of shooting their upcoming spinoff series, NCIS: Tony & Ziva. During the interview on the podcast, de Pablo asked Wickersham asked how long it took until it finally sunk in for her that she wouldn’t have to go back to the NCIS set, and she answered:

It took a while. I left the show, I found out I was pregnant a month later… So it was a combo of decompressing and trying to really relax and figure out how things were going to be without work. Because as you guys know, it's all consuming. Your life is all NCIS when you're on that show. It’s all day, every day, and you're not really left with much time to do many things outside of that. So that was a real adjustment for me.

Since NCIS is a TV show that typically has seasons comprised of 20-24 episodes, Emily Wickersham is right that acting on the series takes up a lot of your time with those long shooting hours. So it’s understandable it took some time for the actress to get used to NCIS not being part of her everyday life, and along with the discovery of the pregnancy soon after, she also found herself moving to the other side of the United States. The actress continued:

It was wild to go into pregnancy, and then I moved to New York really shortly after because my boyfriend lives here. It was a weird moment in time. It was wonderful and weird. As you both know, it's strange to leave something that has been ingrained in you for so many years.

Again, Emily Wickersham was on NCIS for eight seasons, an amount a lot of TV shows never reach. So she had a good run as Ellie Bishop, but after nearly a decade of being a main cast member on one of the most popular procedurals ever, she’d reached a point she was ready to close this chapter of the proverbial book. When Cote de Pablo asked Wickersham inquired about this and pointed out how it was “epic” that she left NCIS and had a baby within the span of just 10 months, Wickersham said:

It was, for sure. I don't know if I was necessarily ready, but it, it happened and it was amazing. I was ready to leave the show. It was time and I was ready to move on to something else, and I guess this was the something else I was meant to move on to. So it was good.

NCIS remains the last thing Emily Wickersham has acted in, but with the show going into its 22nd season this fall on the 2024 TV schedule, and the possibility of it continuing its impressive run into Season 23 and beyond, perhaps there will come a day when she’s ready to reprise Ellie Bishop, whether it’s for a guest spot or recurring stint. After all, Cote de Pablo eventually returned for the Season 16 finale and a handful of Season 17 episodes.

When we last saw Bishop, she was departing for an undercover mission that required her to tarnish her reputation as an NCIS agent. It would be great for either that assignment to finally finish or for Bishop to retire from operating as this kind of agent, even if she doesn’t want to return to NCIS either. Regardless, Bishop could come back to Washington D.C. and reunite with Wilder Valderrama’s Nick Torres and the rest of her work family.

[mechacringekitty]

YAYAYAYAY ok so aba was originally built in a lab by a doctor named paracelsus but he wasn't actually there for her "birth" so she may or may not have been living in isolation for 10 years so she started to just collect keys around the village the labratory was built in^^ later after going outside she discovered a demon axe that was I think something for war but it looked like a key so she named him paracelsus and then thwy became husband and wife ^^ at least that's I mostly know about I haven't played ggxx (I thinkkkkk that's the game? idk guilty gear games have weird names so it might be a different guilty gear xx) speaking of that game, she tries to find paracelsus (the key) a human body and in both endings she is successful^^ I also forgor to mention but in that game para is manipulative and blood hungry because demon axe but aba is just kind of following along because to her paracelsus is just an awesome key husband yayayayy ANYWAYS on to strive where he is back to being key but he is no longer manipulative and their story in strive is just aba and para becoming less of a toxic relationship because aba is obsesseddddd with para and I think that's about it for those two 👍BTW I think you should listen to their theme song here, ITS REALLY GOOD and I could honestly go on a rant about how good gg music is (especially bedman? oughhhhhhhh)

abba