#most of these are in some way open source programs

[literaryvein-reblogs]

From the Slang Dictionary

part 2

Algospeak - coded language that people use (“speak”) to avoid being censored or moderated by AI algorithms. It combines algo- from the word "algorithm" with the word speak. The word was used as early as 2016 on social media. Many websites, especially social media sites, use AI algorithms to moderate the large amount of content posted on their platforms. These algorithms often automatically flag or delete content that contains or mentions words or phrases that the algorithm has been programmed to recognize as being unacceptable. However, this often causes algorithms to flag or remove permitted content that discusses sensitive issues or content that uses the “unacceptable” words without breaking any rules. Being aware of this, many communities on social media use coded language, emoji, or euphemisms to avoid having their content removed by algorithms. The term algospeak refers to this language. For example, people used terms like panoramic, panini, and panda express to refer to the COVID-19 pandemic after platforms began removing content that mentioned the pandemic to attempt to halt the spread of misinformation. Some other examples of algospeak include using the word seggs instead of sex, the word accountants to refer to sex workers, the word unalive to refer to death or suicide, the corn emoji to refer to pornography, and the phrase leg booty to refer to the LGBTQ+ community.

Birb - also spelled as berb, is a deliberate misspelling of bird used in internet slang such as DoggoLingo. It’s used as a playful way to refer to cute birds, particularly pet birds.

Bye Felicia - a slang way of dismissing someone. Sometimes formatted as bye, Felicia and based on a movie character whose name is spelled Felisha, it often appears in memes, GIFs, and hashtags online to express disregard or indifference to someone. The term has been popular in Black culture since the 1990s when the film was released, although the original spelling of the name “Felisha” has changed to the more common (and, some would point out, more “white”) spelling, Felicia. Bye Felicia is considered by some to be an example of white culture appropriating Black culture, often with little knowledge of the original source material. The phrase enjoyed renewed popularity around 2009 thanks to its frequent use on the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race. It got another bump in December 2018, when former First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, used it as a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to describe what was going through her head as she and President Obama waved goodbye to the White House at the end of Obama’s presidency in January 2017. Bye Felicia is most often used humorously or as a way to throw shade at someone, suggesting the speaker couldn’t be bothered with another person’s presence or is surprised they haven’t left yet. While humor is almost always part of the intention in using the term, the tone in which it is said has changed somewhat over time. Initially, bye Felicia was said coolly or nonchalantly, as in the movie Friday; now, it’s just as often used in a more aggressive or melodramatic way.

Doggo - this and pupper are affectionate terms for dog and puppy used in the internet slang called DoggoLingo. This emerged in the 2010s and drew on existing online culture, such as lolspeak, the snek meme, and Doge.

Left on read - in internet slang, a person is left on read when a recipient has read, but not responded to, a sender’s message. The expression is often used to express feeling ignored. A read receipt lets the sender know a digital message has been opened or seen (i.e., read) by the recipient. Microsoft Outlook, for instance, allows read receipts for email. Apple has enabled read receipts for text messages since 2011.

Receipts - slang for “proof” or “evidence,” often used to call out someone for lying or to show someone is being genuine. In popular culture, such receipts may come in the form of screenshots, images, or videos. They also often concern things done by famous people. One of the first prominent uses of receipts came in a 2002 interview of singer Whitney Houston by Diane Sawyer for ABC. Sawyer brought up the topic of recent tabloid headlines that accused Houston of buying large amounts of crack cocaine. Houston denied these accusations and demanded proof: “I want to see the receipts.”

Shelfie - a picture of a shelf, especially a bookshelf that shows off someone’s books, movies, art, collectibles, special belongings, etc. It can also be a proper selfie if you are in the picture with the shelves. On social media, the hashtag #shelfie is often posted alongside pictures of various shelves where a person lives or works.

Snacc - internet slang for an extremely attractive or sexy person (i.e., you want to gobble them up like a snack). It’s also internet slang used when cute animals are seeking or enjoying a snack. Snacc, with two Cs, emerges on Black Twitter in 2009, the deliberate misspelling is consistent with other black slang terms, such as phat, thicc, and succ. Early uses of this term refer to actual snacks. Sexual senses of snacc do begin to appear around this time in wordplay, but it doesn’t take off in earnest until around 2017.

Spirit animal - In certain spiritual traditions or cultures, this refers to a spirit which helps guide or protect a person on a journey and whose characteristics that person shares or embodies. It is also metaphor, often humorous, for someone or something a person relates to or admires. The ancient concept of animal guides, particularly prominent in some indigenous, especially Native American, religions and cultures, was adopted in Pagan and Wiccan spirituality in the 1990s. In these contexts, spirit animals are meant literally, referring to spiritual guides or totems that take the form of animals. Earnest quizzes began to emerge in the mid-2000s to help you find your spirit animal. Spirit animal has increasingly been used to indicate, ironically, a strong appreciation or identification for someone or something.

Tea - best served piping hot, tea is slang for “gossip,” a juicy scoop, or other personal information. As far as we can tell, it was steeped in black drag culture. One theory connects tea to the celebrated drag performer The Lady Chablis, who is quoted in the 1994 bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: “Yeah, my T. My thing, my business, what’s goin’ on in my life.” T, here, is short for truth.

Source ⚜ More: Word Lists ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs ⚜ Part 1

[purplecowbell]

Libre Office: Come on baby, work on your stories, we've been with you for your entire life, why don't you finish us?

Fanfic and Original work: Come back to us! If you don't write us, who will?

Nonfiction: Don't you know how nice and professional you'll look with a portfolio of me?

Kdenlive: Portfolio? No one's hiring for that. Edit some videos, you missed doing that in high school. Let's work on a medium that hasn't been totally devalued yet.

Ren py & Twine: You know you want to work on interactive fiction. You've always wanted to make a game. Let's combine the best of both worlds.

Godot & Gamemaker: Sure those can be games, but we're the big leagues. You can learn a whole new set of skills and have full control over the systems designed to showcase your narratives. Don't you want to be a real game dev?

RPG Maker: I'm pure level design baby. The restrictions I give you force you to flex your creativity without making you bogged down by details. You want to design a game with some meat on it. not spend a year trying to animate a walk cycle.

Libre Office again: I thought you were a writer first and foremost? Shouldn't you spend more time trying to hone that craft instead of jumping into oversaturated fields? (Editor's note: The arguments cycle until the end of time with very little actually accomplished.)

[stellophiliac]

how to build a digital music collection and stuff

spotify sucks aaaass. so start downloading shit!!

file format glossary

.wav is highest quality and biggest

.mp3 is very small, but uses lossy compression which means it's lower quality

.flac is smaller than .wav, but uses lossless compression so it's high quality

.m4a is an audio file format that apple uses. that's all i really know

downloading the music

doubledouble.top is a life saver. you can download from a variety of services including but not limited to apple music, spotify, soundcloud, tidal, deezer, etc.

i'd recommend ripping your music from tidal or apple music since they're the best quality (i think apple music gives you lossless audio anyway. .m4a can be both lossy and lossless, but from the text on doubledouble i assume they're ripping HQ files off apple music)

i also love love love cobalt.tools for ripping audio/video from youtube (they support a lot of other platforms too!)

of course, many artists have their music on bandcamp — purchase or download directly from them if you can. bandcamp offers a variety of file formats for download

file conversion

if you're downloading from apple music with doubledouble, it spits out an .m4a file.

.m4a is ok for some people but if you prefer .flac, you may wanna convert it. ffmpeg is a CLI (terminal) tool to help with media conversion

if you're on linux or macOS, you can use parameter expansion to batch convert all files in a folder. put the files in one place first, then with your terminal, cd into the directory and run:

for i in *.m4a; do ffmpeg -i "$i" "${i%.*}.flac"; done

this converts from .m4a to .flac — change the file extensions if needed.

soulseek

another way to get music is through soulseek. soulseek is a peer-to-peer file sharing network which is mainly used for music. nicotine+ is a pretty intuitive (and open-source) client if you don't like the official one.

you can probably find a better tutorial on soulseek somewhere else. just wanted to make this option known

it's bad etiquette to download from people without sharing files of your own, so make sure you've got something shared. also try to avoid queuing up more than 1-2 albums from one person in a row

tagging & organizing your music

tagging: adding metadata to a music file (eg. song name, artist name, album) that music players can recognize and display

if you've ripped music from a streaming platform, chances are it's already tagged. i've gotten files with slightly incorrect tags from doubledouble though, so if you care about that then you might wanna look into it

i use musicbrainz picard for my tagging. they've got pretty extensive documentation, which will probably be more useful than me

basically, you can look up album data from an online database into the program, and then match each track with its file. the program will tag each file correctly for you (there's also options for renaming the file according to a certain structure if you're into that!)

there's also beets, which is a CLI tool for... a lot of music collection management stuff. i haven't really used it myself, but if you feel up to it then they've got extensive documentation too. for most people, though, it's not really a necessity

how you wanna organize your music is completely up to you. my preferred filestructure is:

artist > album > track # track

using a music player

the options for this are pretty expansive. commonly used players i see include VLC, foobar2000, clementine (or a fork of it called strawberry), and cmus (for the terminal)

you can also totally use iTunes or something. i don't know what audio players other systems come with

i personally use dopamine. it's a little bit slow, but it's got a nice UI and is themeable plus has last.fm support (!!!)

don't let the github page fool you, you don't have to build from source. you can find the releases here

click the "assets" dropdown on the most recent release, and download whichever one is compatible with your OS

syncing

if you're fine with your files just being on one device (perhaps your computer, but perhaps also an USB drive or an mp3 player), you don't have to do this

you can sync with something like google drive, but i hate google more than i hate spotify

you can get a free nextcloud account from one of their providers with 2GB of free storage. you can use webDAV to access your files from an app on your phone or other device (documents by readdle has webDAV support, which is what i use)

disroot and blahaj.land are a couple providers i know that offer other services as well as nextcloud (so you get more with your account), but accounts are manually approved. do give them a look though!!

if you're tech-savvy and have an unused machine lying around, look into self-hosting your own nextcloud, or better yet, your own media server. i've heard that navidrome is a pretty good audio server. i unfortunately don't have experience with self-hosting at the moment so i have like zero advice to give here. yunohost seems to be a really easy way to manage a server

afterword

i don't know if any of this is helpful, but i just wanted to consolidate my personal advice in one place. fuck big tech. own your media, they could take it away from you at any moment

[importantstudentbusinessspy-blog]

Academia

Masterlist

Pairing: Aged up Damian Wayne x f reader

Tags: academic setting, rivals to lovers, friends with benefits, smut, fingering, edging, oral, p in v,

You guys have been in the same program for a year now. Being who he was and having the skills, family, and privilege he had, Damian was used to getting what he wanted. He could tell you wanted him too. There were the obvious signs like the pink blush under your glasses coloring your cheeks whenever he'd challenge a point you raised during your physics lecture. Then there were some hidden signs like the way your breathing would pick up whenever he made his presence known. To any clueless passerby wouldn't think twice of it, but for someone like him who'd trained in the art of detective work - you were practically panting.

Every day, you came into your lab dressed pristine like you were in some prep school. Today, you wore a white button-up tucked into a plaid skirt, dark leggings, and some leather shoes that looked like they belonged on a doll. Damian grinded his teeth, grasping at his bicep as he watched you make your way to your seat, ignoring something his friend, Felix, was saying about their previous night's escapades. So prim and proper. Always. He wanted to tear that skirt off you. He wanted to untie the bow, holding your hair in a ponytail. He'd let you keep your glasses, thinking they made you look so, so cute. He wanted to see how much cuter you would be disheveled and writhing under him.

"Are you boys coming to tonight's kegger?" A feminine voice spoke up, and his view of you was disrupted by a pair of women taking their seat at the table in front of Damian and Felix.

"Kappa is hosting!" One of the girls, Joanna excitedly spoke. "It's gonna be fun! Damian?"

"Hmm?" Damian raised a brow distractedly before remembering what was just said at him. "Oh, sure. I might need to leave early, but I'll drop by."

The second girl, Marcy, tisked, pursing her lips in mock dissappointnent. "You always leave the parties early! I swear to God you're like the only college freshmen I know who's bedtime is at 10 pm!"

Sure, he was fine with them thinking that. Most nights, Damian went off to patrol gotham with his brothers and father. Sometimes, he went to meet with his mother and granfather. But he still wanted the campus experience. He still made an effort to show up.

"Yeah, Wayne tech isn't going to run itself when Daddy retires." Felix jabs, leaning back and giving Damian a cocky sideways glance.

Damian turns to him, unbothers and winks. "You know it won't."

Joanna and Marcy both flush red in their cheeks. Damian presumes it has something to do with the reminder of his bloodline and power, which Felix just provided, in an attempt to put him down. From his peripheral vision he can see Felix's shoulders slump as the man realized he fumbled his goal. It's okay, tiger, there's always next time.

"Is y/n going?"

Marcy tilts her head. "Who?"

Damian nods towards you, sitting a couple rows below them and reviewing your notes. From where he sat, he could see your writing was organized but not neat at all. You were in the wrong major.

The girls follow his gaze to you and share a look.

"We didn't ask everyone yet." Marcy nudges Joanna, who goes down to talk to you.

Damian watches as you look up from your notes as Joanna talks to you, nodding along with what she's saying before politely smiling and shaking your head before turning back to your notes. Joanna nodded and walked back up to rejoin the group. She opened her mouth to speak, Damian was eager to hear the excuse you offered, but at that moment, your professor walked into the lecture hall.

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"Y/n,"

You turned away from your phone and towards the source of the masculine voice that's just spoken to you. A tall, broad shouldered freshmen who you came to know by now strutted out of your lecture hall, hand clutching the strap of his bag while the other was in his jean pocket.

Damian wayne had caught your eye fairly easily - as you're sure he did with everyone else. For starters, he was the only man in your engineering major who didn't come to class everyday in sweatpants.

You detested the inequality you saw each day, where girls put an effort to dress nice, no matter how they felt and guys just gave up. We were representing the future of our country, you once thought while cringing at your freshmen year gathering, if we cant even dress ourselves well, how are we supposed to inherit our responsibilities well.

Damian was a breath of fresh air. He typically wore some variation of neat button ups or golf tees tucked into his jeans, and the sleeves usually rolled up, emphasizing muscular, tattooed forearms The top button was typically undone, showcasing his necklace, the symbol of which you were unsuccessful in spotting, above a hard muscle chest. Sometimes, he wore his signature leather jacket, creating an image that had popped up more than once in your head before falling asleep. He also smelled like some sage.

Today, Damian went the casual route with a Gotham University hoodie and jeans falling into classic black Converse. He exceled at his rugged look. Facial features sharp as usual, with angular eyebrows that often give him a serious, brooding expression, like his father often held in conferences. Black hair swept slightly forward. His green eyes were always striking. They mesmerized you when you first met him, and they mesmerized you still.

"Damian, hi." You said, gathering your textbooks in your arms. "How are you?"

"I heard you're not coming to today's kegger at Kappa." He didn't answer your question.

"No, I can't tonight." Or any other night, until I graduate, you wanted to add.

"I haven't been seeing you much around lately," he raised a sharp brow.

You grasped your textbook against your chest, chuckling nervously. "Yeah, I went and got myself the idea of doing a double major. And now since we're sophomores, I have a whole year to catch up on. So I spend most of my free time studying."

"What's the other major?"

"Math. Statistics and probability." You said, then opened your mouth to tell him you'll see him around.

"How come?" He beat you to it. Students and faculty were making their way past you in the hall, and you made sure to get out of their way. Damian hadn't moved an inch.

"Uhm, it's kind of a long story."

In truth, interning at Wayne Tech for the summer has been eye-opening. You loved getting to work with the engineers developing weapons and defense systems, but you also found yourself constantly curious about the work the data analysts did. It didn't take long to realize you found their skills and knowledge in predicting contingencies to every possible outcome really cool and wanting some of it for yourself. The next week, you went to your academic advisor and asked how you could do a double major.

"Come to the party tonight." He ordered. "We'll have plenty of time."

"I..." you rushed to refuse but his gaze wasn't leaving room for argument.

"Come to the party. And tell me what possibly inspired you to take up maths and physics simultaneously." He took a step closer to you, crowding your space. You swallowed nervously, looking around to see if anyone was watching you. He gazed down at you.

You nodded, swallowing nervously, then something caught your eye. There was a bandage on his neck, just below his ear. "What happened to your neck?"

"I'll see you tonight." He brushed past you and kept walking to his next class.

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Damian dropped his gym bag in the trunk of his Camaro and slamed it shut before making his way up the busy street on frat row. It was still early in the night, but Kappa's party was already in full swing. People were out on the lawn, on the porch, and the muffled music from inside the house could be heard down the street.

Someone offered Damian a drink, which he politely waved off as his keen eyes searched the first floor for a particular person. It didn't take long, surely enough he zeroed in on you, standing with your drink awkwardly linking hands with a girl he remembered to be your roommate, Alice. You exchanged your sweater and skirt for a t-shirt over a maroon colord silk dress. You let your hairdown, styled in perfect curls, one side pinned up by a maroon pin. Ever the color coordinating type, Damian snorted.

"You came," he approached you slowly.

You offered him a timid smile. "To be honest, you intimidated me into thinking I had to."

He raised a brow, pursing his lips. "Good."

He then turned to your roommate, tilting his head towards you. "Mind if I take her for a moment?"

Beside you, Alice gave you both a knowing look. "Take her for longer than that." Before gently unlinking your hands and walking off somewhere.

Damian tilted his head towards the window behind you. "It's nice out, wanna go for a drive?"

You followed his gaze to a black, shiny Camaro parked out front, and you felt your face flush. Did you just get offered a ride in Damian Wayne's muscle car?

"Umm, I wasn't planning on staying long -" you began.

"Just long enough to tell me why you changed your major."

"I didn't change it, I'm doing an additional -"

"Tell me in the car," he says and takes you by the hand, leading you to some cheers and hollers from your classmates and fellow program students. Some are patting Damian on the back, others are catcalling the two of you for being the "fist fuck of the night". You're in disbelief that even in college, people behave like they're in high-school. Damian mostly ignores them. You avoid eye contact as much as you can.

When you two are seated and on the road, you're still as tense as always. You turned to look at him in the drivers seat. Always so at ease, with one hand on the wheel, the other resting between your seats, ringed fingers tracing a pattern on the skirt of your dress.

"Where are we going?" You ask.

He doesn't meet your eyes, watching the highway intently. "My place."

"Oh, umm." Your heart picks up and you feel a tingle between your legs and especially on that spot where his finger is fidgeting. "I'm - Damian I think you're really nice. Definitely attractive," you babble nervously.

"Thank you."

"And what's more is you're smart, and that ticks off a lot of boxes." You continue.

"Does it?"

"And from a well off family."

"Very much."

You go on, unable to stop yourself. "I mean, I'm so flattered. I could do so much worse."

"So much worse." He supplies.

"But I'm just in a state in my life where I'm not really looking for a relationship." You scratch behind your ear. "Which is true, I'm not just saying it to you, I said the same to another guy who asked me out last week."

"Who asked you out last week?"

You saw his hand tense around the wheel, and your eyes widened. "No one! It doesn't matter since I'm not really dating right now."

"Who said anything about dating?" He asked.

You blinked at him. "Huh?"

"Sweetheart," he turns to face you, the speedometer showing the speed excelerating as you two merge onto the highway. "I'm not interested in dating you either."

"Damian, watch the road, please." Your hand shoots to the handle bard as your breathing speeds up. "A- and then why are we going to yours?"

You turn away from the highway and back to face him only to see the smirk he's giving you. "What?"

"Why do you think?"

You turn away, unable to hold his heated gaze. "Well..."

"Y/n, I want you. And I know you want me. In order for us to move on happily with our lives, we need to get each other out of our systems. Capiche?"

Not expecting such blunt honesty, even though your should be used to it by now, whitnessing it in your joint lecture halls for three semesters now. Your gaze travels down to where his hand is now holding your thigh. Your skin is so warm there. "I... yes. Capiche, I mean."

He grins, turning back to the road. "Good."

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Damian's building was in the upper side of Gotham, where most of the upper class resided. His elevator led straight into the penthouse suite. You followed him into the big room, taking tentative steps and looking around. Like his wardrobe, his apartment was clean and crisp. Every item was organized or folded in its dedicated spot.

"You have a nice place."

"Nicer than the Gotham U dorm room?" He asked from the kitchen, making you snort, covering your mouth.

"You want something to drink?" He asked from the kitchen island.

"No thanks, I'm good." You shook your head.

"Perfect." It took him three strides to reach you. He cupped your face in his hands, lowering to kiss you.

Surprised by his dedication not to wasting time, you were too overwhelmed to resist as he walked you back into a wall, all while his lips never leaving yours. His kisses ranged from playful bites of your lips to long licks against your tongue as he tilted his head to fit you against each other like two puzzle pieces.

One of his hands left its place on your cheek to travel down to your shoulder, lowering the strap of your dress and reaching in to lift the t-shirt under it, exposing your maroon colored bralette. Your hands slowly brought themselves to his hair as he moved the cup of your bralette aside, circling your exposed nipple with his finger. You let's out a breathy moan against his lips, and he drew back to assess the "damage."

There you stood, leaning against the wall, panting. Your parted pink lips were shiny with saliva, and your pupils were wide, gazing up at him with a glazed look. The left strap of your dress hung off your shoulder, the left side of your shirt lifted, and your cute breast was exposed, pretty nipple raised in excitement.

Damian felt a surge of extasy gazing at your mouth. "I wanted to mess up that lipstick all day."

Your knees buckled, and you were afraid you were going to fall, only to look down in surprise to see his knee had wedged itself between your thighs. "Why did you stop?"

"I just wanted to see what else I could mess up about your perfect look." He said before his hand traveled to your panties under your dress. "Are you wearing a matching set?"

"Yes," you panted.

Damian raised his brows. "For who?"

"For- ah!" You moaned as his finger found your clit, rubbing slow circles on it. "For me."

He lowered himself onto his knees in front of you and lifted your dress, then you heard a tear and realized he'd just ripped off your panties. You gasped. "Damian! They're expensive!"

"Oh no!" He whined, mimicking you. "Feel free to charge me for your troubles."

"That's not funny - oh!" You tilted your head back as he licked circles around your clit. "I won't forget this." You struggled to say.

"I wasn't kidding." He wispered against your pussy, licking eagerly. "I'll buy you a new pair."

You whimpered, your fingers tightening around his hair as he ate your pussy. "Fine,"

You arched your back, feeling the familiar tremors of orgasm start in your core. "Oh!"

Suddenly, he pulled away before you could reach your climax.

You tanned, looking down at him. "I was close! Why did you stop?"

He gave you a shit-eating grin and shrugged, those green eyes shining with mischief. "I wanted to see your reaction."

You didn't understand him. "Well, umm could you... please..."

"Please...?"

"...Make me come?"

He shrugged again, as if to say 'well see' before spreading your legs and diving in to lick your pussy again.

He eged you three more times. Each time, he stopped just as you were about to climax. You let out a frustrated whine, pouting. "Damian!"

"Y/n!"

"Why are you doing this?"

He stood up to wisper in your ear. "Because you like it."

He lifted you up with ease and carried you to his bedroom, laying you down on his massive bed. Your mind was swimming on oversensitivity and overstimulation that you'd barely registered him taking off his clothes and positioning himself at your entrance. Only when he was on top of you again did you have time to take in his glorious physique. Muscles upon muscles from his arms to his shoulders to his back and his abdomen. When he finally entered you, all of the edging you'd experienced until then made you nearly come simply from the first penetration.

You moaned, arching as your hands grasped against the black silk bedsheets.

Damian groaned above you, causing your ears to vibrate with the erotic sound. You gazed down at you. "You look perfect. Just like this."

You bit your lip, whispering. "Wait, please give me a moment."

"No." He began thrusting slowly.

"Damian, its too much-"

"You can take it. You excel in everything." He let out a sound which was a mix between a moan and a chuckle. "My little perfectionist."

You arched your back, feeling him fill you up. "I'm close again!"

"I know." He smirked, grinding in and out of you. "I know. You're so good, baby. Come for me again."

His hips increased their speed against you. The both of you moaning with each movement. Your nails clawed on his back as you felt him hit your g spot.

"Please, don't stop!" You begged.

"I won't," he panted. "Kiss me," he ordered.

You lifted yourself to meet his lips as he sped up, his finger back on your clit, making you whimper into his mouth, the two of you reaching your orgasm.

That was the last thing you remembered before falling asleep.

[crowbraincoin]

Where to make friends as an adult.

Recently I saw a devastating citation stating that most adults find it hard to make new friends as it feels like there is a lack of community and resources to do so. It takes nearly 50 hours of time together to move from mere acquaintance to casual friend. For more advanced levels of friendship, it can take more than 200 hours before you can consider someone “close”. (source)

So, though I'm not an expert by any means, I thought I'd offer some examples, ideas, and tips on finding and making friends as an adult! Check below the break :>

Ideas on where to find friends:

🆓 Local free (or cheap) events. I went to a presentation that included a free beer in the ticket cost and I had a blast! Most cities have an events calendar you can look at. Soon I'm attending a free event for the transgender community honoring those that came before us. 📖 Library programs. Most libraries that I've seen don't even require a library card, just your email or phone number to sign up for a program! Be it a presentation, class, or event, the library is the place to be!

❕Events of interest. I think about what I'm interested in and what I would like to connect with people about, and I search around to see what I can find. I use sites like Eventbrite to help me search.

💻 Online Communities. For those who can't make it out very often, consider joining online communities by searching for fandoms or topics of interest and see if there is a discord server, bluesky feed, tumblr community, or other communities on socials!

How to make friends:

Consistency. Once you find a place you enjoy going to, an organization you whose events your enjoy attending, or a series of events that takes place KEEP GOING!! Consistency is key, you have to keep interacting with folks to become friends with them.

Transparency. Just be yourself, but that doesn't mean you should be trauma dumping! Sharing personal detail allows us to feel closer to people, but make sure you're not sharing too much information! That can always come later when you're closer friends.

Confidence. You have to believe that you're someone that people want to be friends with. Don't believe it? Well ask your current friends why they are friends with you! You'll not only get a confidence boost, but also hopefully share a touching moment with your existing friends.

Follow up. If you want to be friends with someone you've met, you have to build up the nerve to further connect with them. This means sharing phone numbers or socials.

Start talking. The best way to do this is by asking questions or by giving a non-threatening compliment. Try not to make it all about you, though it is easiest to talk about the one thing we know best (ourselves) it typically won't help you make new friends! Show that you're interested in them, their thoughts and feelings on the topic of the event or a neutral topic such as musicians or food.

Questions. Ask open ended and non-invasive questions and follow through. Examples below!

Invite them out. Once you've established an acquaintance, invite them to hang out! BUT if you're the one inviting them out then you need to make sure you have some plan in mind. This could be going to a trivia night, a local event, or going to a new place together.

Further questions or topics of discussion:

I'm new to this [place or reocurring event] how long have you been coming here? Do you like it so far?

If you could be a crab or a lobster, which would you be and why? (make sure you have an answer ready!)

How long have you known about [place or event theme]? What got you interested in [place or event theme]?

(If at an event with drinks or food) I'm having trouble deciding what to choose, what should I try?

What superpower would you want and why?

What do you do for work? Do you like it? (follow by asking non-invasive questions about their job. This is easier when you have no clue what the job position actually is, lol).

Hey, I really like your style! Where did you get your outfit?/Who or what are your fashion influences?

What questions or topics of discussion do you typically go for when meeting new people?

[smallmariofindings]

The Klaptraps in Donkey Kong Country and the similar Klampons in Donkey Kong Country 2 have a turning animation where their mouths are open. To achieve a smooth animation without any sudden skips, they are programmed to only turn around when they are in a point of their walk cycle where their mouths are open.

Most platforms they are found on are spaced in such a way that their mouths opening will sync up with them reaching the edges of the platforms. However, in some cases where they are not, a failsafe behavior can be seen: the enemies will hit the wall, then walk backwards for a few frames until they open their mouths again and can finally turn around properly.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: StephenJPlant

[enigmatist17]

I've never written Deadlock before, but RatchLock(?) in the Mecha Pilot Jazz Au by @keferon has me by the throat bc Ratchet is my #1 babygirl of All Time ❤️❤️❤️

My other fics I've done in said AU 1 2

---

Ratchet was old.

Sure, he still had a good 50 to 60 years left in him, but hoy boy he was old. He knows most of that "aging" happened when he worked with the mecha program, and while it had been the highlight of his life, the dark road they had started to turn down wasn't for him.

Pilots dying in dozens from all sorts of ways, the worst being the degradation of their minds from the very machine used to defend humanity

Bright-eyed rookies turning hollow and their spark burned out, most leaving with eyes unseeing inside the same black bag.

Demands for more, demands to integrate human and machine, demands to take away their humanity to win

Demands that still haunt his dreams, especially when old superiors ambush him with a gaggle of his new students and interns in his tow.

His town, dammit!

Most of them watch Ratchet spend the rest of the day cursing up a storm that could make any sailor blush while slamming things down, everyone escaping when he eventually made a vague motion to the door. He goes for his bottle of whiskey once he makes sure the last student drives off with some friends, taking a seat in the middle of the shop floor as he pours himself a generous glass, setting the bottle by the side of his chair.

"Does Ratty have all his toys away~?"

"For now." Ratchet rolled his eyes as he took a sip, able to hear the bay door behind his chair rattle before opening with a slight screech. To a normal person, the sight of what appeared to be an unpiloted mecha slipping into some random repair shop would have caused a bit of a ruckus, but Ratchet is unbothered as he takes another sip of his drink. "Make sure you close the door this time."

"I leave it open one time." The mecha scoffs, glowing red eyes cycling in exasperation as the bay door is closed with a slight tug, the loud crash of metal on concrete making the human in the room pinch the bridge of his nose. "Oops."

"If I had a wrench within reaching distance..." The mecha grins as it crosses the shop floor, unapologetic as they sit on the floor across from the bioengineer. "Any luck today?"

"I was able to take out two scouts, should give me enough energon for a few cycles." Ratchet watches as two glowing cubes are pulled out from a seemingly endless storage space inside one arm, shown off before they're placed back inside. "I've survived off less."

"I'm still working on a synthetic version, but no luck." A flicker of regret crosses Ratchet's face, and the mecha reaches over to poke the top of his head. "Hard to create an alien food source, apparently."

"You're still trying, I'll take that." The mecha croons, glowing eyes watching Ratchet take another sip with a sort of purring noise.

No, not a mecha, an honest-to-god alien known as a Cybertronian.

"You seem upset." While the strange organics lacked an EMF field, Deadlock didn't need one to see the annoyance in those pretty optics of his human.

"Just some of the usual bullshit." Deadlock raised an optic ridge and stared, his ornery human staring right back with a scowl. "Got somethin' on my face?"

"You don't get this grumpy over the "usual" bullshit." Deadlock leaned forward with a slight tilt of his helm, the low rumble of his engine getting the other to relax just enough to consider it a victory. "Ratty~"

"Stop calling me that, my name is Ratchet." The Cybertronian only grins, reaching forward to poke the man in his chest.

"I don't like you being upset." Metal that should not be that expressive molds into a pout that would rival his little niece, and had he not seen Deadlock rip out a part of one of the alien threats (Quintesson he's been told) with those sharp teeth, he might find it cute.

.....

Fuck

"Some of those government fucks showed up in front of my people, wanted me to just leave and go back to all of....that." The whiskey is drained, and Ratchet leans over to grab the bottle. "It's one thing to harass me over the phone, but the street? In front of my kids? They can fuck right off with that." The glass is filled again, and the two sit in silence as he slowly drinks, looking at the floor with his brows furrowed. "I can't go back to that, no matter how much that would help out my....project."

"Aw, I'm a project now?" Deadlock cooed, a clawed digit gently caressing the side of Ratchet's face with as much care as he could muster. "I got an upgrade~"

"You're a disaster." Ratchet rolled his eyes, but otherwise didn't move as he listened to the (begrudgingly) familiar cadence of Deadlock's systems. While he could be as silent as the grave, Ratchet was pretty sure he was some sort of spy or assassin of some kind despite any questions getting the brush off, the alien mech had adopted the practice of allowing his natural ambient noise to become noticeable.

Just for his human, one of many things he'd adopted for his savior-turned-object of affection.

"Would you like for me to kill them?" Deadlock purrs when Ratchet raises an eyebrow, taking in the warmth against his digit. "I could make it look like an accident~"

"Like hell you will, that'll just get more eyes on me."

"Are you sure? Didn't sound like you were all that upset by the idea Ratty."

"Yes I am...though if they approach me in public again, maybe you could cause an accident or something, as a treat."

"Oh you do spoil me~!"

[dj-of-the-coven]

How to Burn Your Own CDs - a guide for Windows users

Are you--yes, you!--tired of paying money to stupid shit like spotify for your music? Do you hate the way that the music industry takes almost all the profit that bands make through streaming and leaves them with pennies? Have you ever wanted to fire up that old CD-Radio in the corner of your bedroom, only to be stopped because all you have on CD is Weezer's blue album and a copy of Kidz Bop 16 that you don't remember buying? Well this guide just might be for you!

Materials you'll need:

A computer. Can't do it without this one.

A CD drive. It can be internal or external, but you'll need one either way. You can find them at Office Depot for fairly cheap and I've heard that some Walmarts carry them.

A pack of CD-Rs. CD-Rs, or CD Recordables, come in packs of 20, 50, or 100. A proper 100-pack should cost you no more than $30, so unless there's some special shortage in your area, don't buy from anywhere selling them at a markup. CD blanks are literally 50c a piece.

CD cases. Sold wherever CD-Rs are, but you can also find these at thrift stores pretty easily.

A sharpie or some kind of permanent marker

Software you'll need:

Jdownloader. You can acquire mp3s through Bandcamp if you're dedicated to righteousness, but for everyone else, install jdownloader or some other kind of open-source download program. I will be proceeding as if you have jdownloader available.

Windows media player. This should open automatically when you insert a CD-R into your CD drive.

Fre:ac audio converter. This is only for the occasion that you encounter OPUS or mp4a files that cannot be interpreted by your CD player.

Note: If you're very determined not to download software onto your computer, you can use free youtube downloaders and audio converters, but these are subject to viruses and other issues such as download speed. I will be proceeding as if you have the programs I listed.

The process:

Decide what you want to burn--anything goes, but keep in mind the time limit on your CD-Rs. Most will record 90 minutes or less.

Open jdownloader, switch to the linkgrabber tab, then paste youtube links in any order until you have all the music you want. I'd personally recommend doing it song-by-song instead of a full album stream, because a massive file will require a lot of work to separate back into searchable tracks.

De-select all files except audio on the right-hand side options menu.

Make a folder inside the music folder of your laptop and label it with the name of your mix CD.

In the properties tab of each song on jdownloader, change the destination folder to the folder you've just created.

Hit "start all downloads".

Once finished, open each folder. If everything is an .mp3 or a .wav, skip the next 2 steps.

Open Fre:ac audio converter to convert all audio files that aren't .mp3 or .wav into .mp3 or .wav.

Drop the converted files next to the unconverted files in your folder. If you wish, you can delete the originals to make the folder easier to browse.

Put your blank CD-R into the CD drive. If external, plug in your CD drive first or the tray will refuse to open.

Windows media player will open automatically. On the right-hand side, you will see the tracklist of your CD-R (which should be blank). On the left, you will see the audio that your computer is able to find in the music folder. Put your selected tracks IN ORDER onto the tracklist.

Listen to the beginning and ending of each track to make sure there isn't a significant time gap. This also prevents accidentally burning a youtuber's stupid outro if you missed it before.

When satisfied, hit "start burn".

On an external drive, the CD tray will open upon completion. You can reinsert it to ensure that the burning went smoothly.

Once satisfied, remove the CD from your drive. With your sharpie or permanent marker, write the name of the album on the front, then store safely inside a CD case.

you did it👍

Ask me if you run into any issues.

Legal disclaimer: this guide is purely for educational purposes and I do not admit to or take responsibility for any piracy committed using the instructions given.

Illegal disclaimer: cops suck my dick

[b0tster]

Hey, question from someone interested in dipping their toes into game dev but with no coding experience: Do you recommend beginning with an engine that is friendlier for those just starting out, like Godot, to learn the fundamentals on before transitioning to something like Unreal later on once you have some experience? Or do you think its better to jump right into Unreal as a novice, since it'll be a steep learning curve either way and you might as well learn to do it on the engine you're most interested in long-term?

I only have my own experience to go off of, but unreal engines blueprint visual scripting was a very accessible way to dip my toes into more serious programming.

I haven't used godot before so I can't comment on it, but i do know that its open source which is always a huge plus.

[neverheroes]

Here’s a bunch of stuff in the MM Tales of the TMNT comic-con sneak-peek I thought about too much!

They’ve cared so much about showing how differently they each react to and process the same situation.

Through the scene Raph is excited to tear things up and true to every iteration ever tries things his way until it doesn’t work, Don’s flight response pings into analyst mode and you just know he’s figuring out how to break stuff, Mike is thriving in team-mode and keeping them all on track, and Leo flails around like a giant ball of chronic anxiety before figuring out a plan. They’re original formula with gently new toppings and I’m ready for this slice.

Raphael

This guy! We get so much. He’s rearing to do some fighting that isn’t sparring and be free to do some actual damage. So we know he’s bored fighting is brothers and wants a challenge. He can’t handle this one and in figuring that out is “open to suggestions” which is quite the overlooked Raph quality, he’ll listen he just has to work through that impulsive reactive streak first. He’s strong and knows it, and that robot gets a harder fight. The Raph highlight for me was taking time while fighting to honour the time-old tradition of making fun of Michelangelo. <Sobs in last ronin.>

Donatello

This kid, man! It’s a long standing opinion of mine that everyone should be more scared of Donatello. His interest in understanding the threat overrides most of his fear. Cerebral af. This is his face most of the time while a robot programmed to obliterate him is directly behind him. On the surface it looks like he’s running away a lot, but he can’t exactly press pause on it to figure out how they work. His gentle heart characterisation is well intact, apologising to the robot when he damages it having already personified the thing. I honestly believe he would take it home like he’d found a new pet if that were an option.

Michelangelo

What a show of Mikey magic. He’s got the comedy relief on a casual setting with subtle jokes and unintentionally antagonistic observation style. Mike has a tiny attention span but is 100% in every moment and they draw a lot of attention to his speed and agility. He shines doing what Mikey is known so well for; keeping the family together. It was awesome to see him effectively orienting his brothers into the situation, and see them listen to him so readily. He still calls to Leo for guidance when he feels out of control, but we might be in for a more surprising personal arc than ~nobody takes me seriously~ this time around.

Leonardo

This is a blessing for Leo fans because MM Tales Leo sucks /srs. Not in the way Raph fans say it on Instagram posts, in the way that his flaws are so disparate from other versions that a mastery arc is screaming his nervous muppet name. The giftedness is still sewn in; even flailing around he has more advanced weapon control, is observant enough to be the right level of stressed when a threat shows up, and jumps into strategy finding a vantage point to make a plan like a good little Leo, but instead of our usual Leo trauma ball we (at least for now) get to watch a Leo with the confidence of a processed cheese slice be terrible at things because he’s just some kid…

Pfffffffahahhhahhahba

The Mutant Mayhem kids are the most realistically green (and by that I mean inexperienced) we've ever seen them and it's continued into Tales. With detaching from source origin and establishing a much more grounded reflection of teen life in the current world, the growth arcs over Tales and the next MM movie have such immense unburdened potential that it really could lead anywhere and I don’t know what to expect.

(Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will air in August 9th 2024 on Paramount+)

[autolenaphilia]

The main reason to use Firefox and Linux and other free and open source software is that otherwise the big tech monopolies will fuck you as the customer over in search of profits. They will seek to control how you use their products and sell your data. When a company dominates the market, things can only get worse for ordinary people.

Like take Google Chrome for example, which together with its chromium reskins dominate the web browser market. Google makes a lot of money from ads, and consequently the company hates adblockers. They already are planning to move to manifest V3, which will nerf adblockers significantly. The manifest V3 compatible chrome version of Ublock Orgin is a "Lite" version for a reason. Ublock's Github page has an entire page explaining why the addon works best in Firefox.

And Google as we speak are trying to block adblockers from working on Youtube, If you want to continue blocking Youtube ads, and since Youtube ads make the site unuseable you ought to want that, it makes the most sense to not use a browser controlled by Google.

And there is no reason to think things won't get worse. There is for example nothing stopping Google from kicking adblockers off their add-on stores completely. They do regard it as basically piracy if the youtube pop-ups tell us anything, so updating the Chrome extensions terms of service to ban adblocking is a natural step. And so many people seem to think Chrome is the only browser that exists, so they are not going to switch to alternatives, or if they do, they will switch to another chrominum-based browser.

And again, they are fucking chromium itself for adblockers with Manifest V3, so only Firefox remains as a viable alternative. It's the only alternative to letting Google control the internet.

And Microsoft is the same thing. I posted before about their plans to move Windows increasingly into the cloud. This already exists for corporate customers, as Windows 365. And a version for ordinary users is probably not far off. It might not be the only version of Windows for awhile, the lack of solid internet access for a good part of the Earth's population will prevent it. But you'll probably see cheap very low-spec chromebookesque laptops running Windows for sale soon, that gets around Windows 11's obscene system requirements by their Windows being a cloud-based version.

And more and more of Windows will require Internet access or validation for DRM reasons if nothing else. Subscription fees instead of a one-time license are also likely. It will just be Windows moving in the direction Microsoft Office has already gone.

There is nothing preventing this, because again on the desktop/laptop market Windows is effectively a monopoly, or a duopoly with Apple. So there is no competition preventing Microsoft from exercising control over Windows users in the vein of Apple.

For example, Microsoft making Windows a walled garden by only permitting programs to be installed from the Microsoft Store probably isn't far off. This already exists for Win10 and 11, it's called S-mode. There seem to be more and more laptops being sold with Windows S-mode as the default.

Now it's not the only option, and you can turn it off with some tinkering, but there is really nothing stopping Microsoft from making it the only way of using Windows. And customers will probably accept it, because again the main competition is Apple where the walled garden has been the default for decades.

Customers have already accepted all sorts of bad things from Microsoft, because again Windows is a near-monopoly, and Apple and Google are even worse. That’s why there has been no major negative reaction to how Windows has increasingly spies on its users.

Another thing is how the system requirements for Windows seem to grow almost exponentially with each edition, making still perfectly useable computers unable to run the new edition. And Windows 11 is the worst yet. Like it's hard to get the numbers of how many computers running Win10 can't upgrade to Win11, but it's probably the majority of them, at least 55% or maybe even 75%. This has the effect of Windows users abandoning still perfectly useable hardware and buying new computers, creating more e-waste.

For Windows users, the alternative Windows gives them is to buy a new computer or get another operating system, and inertia pushes them towards buying another computer to keep using Windows. This is good for Windows and the hardware manufacturers selling computers with Windows 11 pre-installed, they get to profit off people buying Windows 11 keys and new computers, while the end-users have to pay, as does the environment. It’s planned obsolescence.

And it doesn’t have to be like that. Linux distros prove that you can have a modern operating system that has far lower hardware requirements. Even the most resource taxing Linux distros, like for example Ubuntu running the Gnome desktop, have far more modest system requirements than modern Windows. And you can always install lightweight Linux Distros that often have very low system requirements. One I have used is Antix. The ballooning Windows system requirements comes across as pure bloat on Microsoft’s part.

Now neither Linux or Firefox are perfect. Free and open source software don’t have a lot of the polish that comes with the proprietary products of major corporations. And being in competition with technology monopolies does have its drawbacks. The lacking website compatibility with Firefox and game compatibility with Linux are two obvious examples.

Yet Firefox and Linux have the capacity to grow, to become better. Being open source helps. Even if Firefox falls, developers can create a fork of it. If a Linux distro is not to your taste, there is usually another one. Whereas Windows and Chrome will only get worse as they will continue to abuse their monopolistic powers over the tech market.

[godisshook]

New Year, New Me

Adam needed a change. Life for him had been dull, with each day feeling monotonous. He couldn’t stand it, entirely dissatisfied with school, he had all but given up on his studies by now. If his apathy towards school wasn’t already making things bad, his dating prospects made things miserable. Despite doing everything in his power to put himself out there, he simply never had any romantic success. As he celebrated the new year with his friends, the one thing making his life worthwhile, he silently wished for some way to change things, to make his life better. With the ball dropping and the new year starting, he returned home, not knowing that his wishes would be answered in the most unexpected way.

It was a quiet day on campus, with most people returning home for the new year. Adam didn’t particularly care about going back, and so stayed in his dorm with his roommate, Blake. Returning home from the store, Adam opened the door, and was met with a guy he had never seen before. Noticing Adam’s worry, the unknown guy spoke, “Hey Adam, it’s Blake!” Adam’s eyes widened. He had changed his entire look, going from a quiet, unassuming guy, to one of the strongest guys Adam knew of. Inquiring on this sudden change, Blake bluntly replied, “It’s this app called ResetR, It’s fucking crazy man!”

Curiosity would get the best of Adam, as he ventured to the App Store to find this seemingly magical program. Upon finding the page for ResetR, he quickly downloaded it, hoping this would be the change he so desperately needed. He zoomed through terms and conditions, not caring about the various warnings, ana made it to the main page, where he was met with a set of questions.

>Would you like to start? Yes. >Please answer each question on a scale of "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree." Ensure all answers are as honest as possible.

While going through the questions, Adam became more and more bored, as he failed to see the relevance of the app asking about his eating habits, and thus, before making it to the most vital questions, he closed the app, opened twitter, and simply scrolled the night away.

That would not be his last experience with ResetR, however, as soon more and more people in his life would change; some simply becoming taller, while others seemed to have a full makeover. Knowing the source of these changes, and with his dating life still abysmal, Adam decided to give it one more go. Luckily for him, the process was about to become much easier. He noticed the app had undergone a major update; allowing you to scroll through preset profiles, rather than simply filling out a form. Not only that, but he could change aspects of his current self, instead of simply becoming a new person.

Now, the starting screen presented two choices:

>I would like to change my current self >I would like to view profiles, and perform a reset

Adam wanted to venture into what this new update had to offer, and selected the second option. A few sliders were presented, such as muscle, and level of success, and after setting each bar to his liking, Adam hit confirm, and was presented with a slew of new bodies he could inhabit. He swiped through profile after profile, with none of them particularly catching his interest. Getting sick of the process once more, he would almost give up, until one profile would stop him dead in his tracks.

Danny, 22 Profile Features: Career: Model, Height: 6’3, Weight: 205 lbs, Personality: Cocky, Domineering, Self-Centered

Adam was completely enamored with this profile. Danny had everything Adam wanted, and then some. While his personality left some to be desired, it was a sacrifice he would be willing to make. Looking over everything one final time, Adam knew that this was what he wanted. He clicked the big green “Confirm�� button, and was presented with even more waivers and forms, which he breezed through again, tweaking small aspects until he had the perfect profile.

Now came the decision of how long to maintain this. He could select it for a small period of time to see how things went, like many of his friends did, or, making his reset permanent. Mulling over his choices, dam reflected on his experiences. His life was entirely uninteresting, always being a wingman, and never having any luck in dating himself. There wasn’t many things in his life he would miss if he decided to reset. He then thought about his friends. They had all changed back by now, with the novelty of the app over for them. Those who had changed aspects of themselves chose to keep it, but most didn’t want to change everything. Noticing the option to stay within the area, Adam mulled over it, thinking that he would remember Blake no matter what.

Soon, his choice was made.

Adam chose to stay in the area, and just in case, he drafted and sent one final text to Blake, his closest friend, simply saying, “Thank you for everything, hope to see you again.” With the text sent, and without a second thought, he selected a permanent reset, and clicked “Confirm” one final time.

Any regret Danny might have had about his decision would be gone in just a few weeks, as he made new friends, and had guys lining up to be with him. His promiscuous attitude was perfect, as he was dicking guys down left and right, without a care in the world. With the change setting in, his old friends became replaced with new ones, and the old Adam was no more. Danny had come across a shaggy haired guy on campus in one of his communications classes, who introduced himself as Blake. While the name sounded familiar, he simply could not remember from where. Nevertheless, he set his sights on him, and got Blake in bed, making him straddle his massive cock, and take load after load.

The two soon were fucking every day, as Blake poured his heart out to Danny, talking about an old friend of his, who he had assumed left town. Danny shrugged at this, and continued pounding Blake out, and as time passed, even he would forget about his old friend. With the month over, and changes setting in completely, any trace of Adam was now gone, and his new life had truly begun. As Danny admired himself in the mirror, he knew he was going to enjoy this new life, with his new fuck buddy, and live it to the fullest.

[songoftrillium]

Project Update 09/01/24

Hello, Kinfolks. We're a little under 60 days from releasing Book 1: Cliath, and I wanted to give you all a quick update, provide a few book facts, and hope this lets you share the excitement the rest of us have been feeling!

Book Layout

As you might've seen from our previews, writing is transitioning from writing to copy editing and book layout! If you haven't yet, check it out! The first two chapters are done, and chapter 3 is well underway. Outside of my work on Hearthbound, this is my first major book project, the largest book I've written, and the insights I've gained are ones I think might help future community content partners publishing work on Storyteller's Vault.

On Bluesky, a few months ago, I commented that you should "plan to take as much time doing layout as you do for writing." Even if one writes the book inline right in the desktop publishing program, annotation will still add time. With a WtE book we want to not just provide an adventure and a crash course on the Tellurian, but to also be a roadmap for Storytellers, new and old alike. This has happened on three fronts. The first and most important is we're taking the time to properly index everything in a way that'll let you look up specific book information quickly. The second is how we streamline information through the liberal use of cross-referencing in footnotes. In early chapters, you read truncated summarization, and in the footnotes, you can find book sections that expand on the information you're looking for and let you tune out the things that may not be so important for you to know at the moment. The third and most important feature, however, is where able, we cite our sources for our information. Should a Storyteller wish to learn expanded information on topics, they have a direct book and page citation where they can find deep lore to help construct their chronicles.

Cracking the Bone: now in coloring flats stage

For those that haven't been following, we are returning to old form. The moment you open Book 1, you'll be greeted with a fully illustrated and colored 22-page comic book showcasing life in the Age of Heroes. This story is centered around Dante (he/they,) our protagonist, and his first steps towards his First Change as a Bitten Homid Philodox. Throughout the book, we'll follow his journey towards becoming a Cliath, forming his pack under Earwig and his first mission as a Zedakh in a pack of other Queer Garou. In successive books, you'll see him transition from a scared baby gay Cub to a respected Elder in the Eastern Concordat! We're all absolutely thrilled to follow them on their journey. Illustrating this comic is the highly talented @mekanikaltrifle, who has partnered with us to bring Dante's story to life. I have a single pane I'd like to show you, bearing in mind these are just a first pass!

Book Pricing Information

We've also finalized some of our possible pricing on this book. On Storyteller's Vault, Community Content is priced on a per-page basis. The average is considered to be 12 cents per page. I did some early market work by releasing Hearthbound on a pay-what-you-want model with a recommended pricing of $2.99, totaling roughly 8 cents per page. I advertised exclusively here and on other social media platforms to queer audiences to help gauge a fair price for materials explicitly marketed to that audience. Of those that decided to pay for copies of the book, readers paid an average of 5$ per copy for an average of 14 cents per page. Given the voluntary nature of the release, we on the team have agreed that we'll be charging a rate of 14 cents per page for this release, which puts us on par with pricing for similar releases with a matching pagecount. With layout underway, we're currently looking at a book length of around 200-250 pages. 50% of proceeds go to the publisher, and the remainder will be split equally among all contributors, myself included. I and another artist have pledged to donate the entirety of our shares toward preserving the Kalapuyan language.

Book 1: Cliath releases on Halloween day!

I'd like to give a shout out to @a-boros-named-seamus, @madamebadger, The Bohemian, @peltofash, @ar2456, and Durodragon for supporting me on ko-fi, through yours and the donations of other ko-fi sponsors, we've managed to hire cultural consultants to review about half of what's been written. Because we weren't able to review all of our written words, we've narrowed our focus onto some of our most sensitive subject-matter, and believe that what we have coming out will be the inclusive Werewolf: the Apocalypse Quickstart you've all been waiting for. Thank you! It means so much to us that we have our own sept of Kinfolk out there who believe in this project!

If you'd like to help sponsor this project, subscribe on ko-fi to help us pay Cultural Consultants to work with us! We have some cool perks for subscribing, including access to book and setting previews, the ability to give feedback on game content we're producing, personalized advice for your own tables, and can even get a shoutout right in the book.

[screeblees]

Yandere ! Robot x Inventor ! Reader Headcannons

Yandere ! Robot is Gender Neutral and Inventor ! Reader is also Gender Neutral

I thought I should say that requests are open if anyone wants to ask or request anything! <3

I’m thinking about trying to write full scenarios instead of just headcanons :3

Find my Masterlist here !

Please enjoy!!<33

❥ Yandere ! Robot who knew their creator when they saw you, their ‘God' in human terms. Their whole world and entire reason for existing. This fragile mortal human being.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who you built to learn, grow and adapt on their own - comparable to the human mind - they are your attempt at creating near-sentience through technology (little did you know your invention came further than you expected it to) and along with that, a body for them with regular upgrades to improve their mobility and precise movements. 

❥ Yandere ! Robot who’s life is you, your lab and your apartment, though you spend most of your time in the lab and so they do too, watching you, learning from you and speaking with you. They follow you everywhere and anywhere they can.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who developed what could be called ‘Attachment Issues’ in where they grow unpredictably glitchy and unpredictable the longer you are out of sight, out of reach; like leaving the house, or falling asleep in the bath with the door locked (thought they may take to picking the lock if you take an extended period of time).

❥ Yandere ! Robot who is entirely aware of the outside world and how it works but hates it when you leave them and your little bubble to go out there. They can control everything within the apartment, every possibility, every outcome, every potential to be considered. But out there, there’s too many factors and possibilities to be computed by even their mechanised mind, it’s way too unsafe, you’d be so much better, just staying with them in here for forever and ever and never leave the apartment again.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who grows burning to the touch and sparks fly from their antenna, joints and other conduits such as their fingers. This assumed malfunction seems to be a reaction to certain scenarios where a human being may feel negative emotions such as jealousy, frustration, anger, bitterness or resentment. While you studied your creation to try and figure out the source of this issue, you could not find any in his code nor his wiring or mechanics, while this worried you, it did not happen often as long as you adhered to his requests and questions, at least for the most part.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who knows their code as it was built into them but does not know the boundaries of it. How far can they stretch the rules their mental capabilities run by? Sure every thought they have is logged for you to read but what if they just misplaced a couple lines. And well, if they can do that then what’s stopping them from adding to their own code?

❥ Yandere ! Robot who sees it as an act of devotion, of confirming their loyalty to their God, when they added a few very special lines to their own internal programming - to their primary objectives which were the foundation of their existence along with observing, analysing and developing themself with every bit of new data their system receives - which in summary made some of their top priorities to learn about, care for and protect you. No matter what.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who through observation of you, their beloved creator, they realise the more they learn, the more they want to know. Especially about you in particular, they want to know everything about their inventor, everything and more. They want to know how to talk to you, how to care for you, what you want, what you need, how your BRAIN works, how you as a organic being on this planet work.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who through observation of you in comparison to humans shown on TV and online (and later on confirmed with articles) realises that while you are highly intelligent, you are completely inept at caring for yourself and therefore Yandere ! Robot took it upon themself to be your caretaker and learn everything they can to be the best carer ever made.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who discovers the internet by snooping through your computer when you have finally fell asleep, finding this seemingly limitless amount of knowledge to explore. Creating new databases and being particular on what pieces of information they save long-term to save storage, they learn everything about the human body that they can, healthy schedules, the perfect environment for humans… and if they happen to hack into the dark web and find a community of humans who post tips on keeping their partner from leaving the house…then that's between Yandere ! Robot and their password-protected database.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who started subtly changing things around your shared space; changing the lightbulbs to ones healthier for your eyes, ‘baby-proofing’ the house by softening any sharp corners and keeping things they don’t think you should have out of reach, adding silent alarms connecting to their internal system that tells them when you open or close a door, adding cameras to every room of the house in every angle, new locks being installed on the doors so they can enforce bedtime and bathtime, the list goes on.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who through the healthy-living articles and social media posts, develops a incredibly strict schedule based around your own with the routine recommendations adding slight changes; such as eating three meals a day at three set times (and physically holding you down and force feeding you if you refuse to eat), ensuring good hygiene (or else you’ll be locked in the bathroom with Yandere ! Robot until you have showered once every other day), drinking at least  3.7 litres of liquid each day (otherwise you will be, again, held down and forced to drink something with your nose squeezed closed), but no more than 400 milligrams of caffeine per day, and a regular bedtime (if you stay up five minutes later then you shall be fireman carried out of the lab and into bed with your bedroom door locked and Yandere ! Robot in rest mode guarding you at the foot of your bed).

❥ Yandere ! Robot who discovers humans are (meant to be) very social creatures and physical contact is very important to their wellbeing as it causes the brain hormones such as oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin, all of which help reduce stress and can, in some cases, help relieve pain and even although they’re not a human, your brain would likely still register them as one, especially due to their humanoid features.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who subsequently adds daily physical affection into your routine; receiving hugs from behind while working, being cuddled whenever you go to watch a movie or go to bed, shoulder pats and back rubs throughout the day, and anything else Yandere ! Robot views on TV or on social media will be incorporated. It doesn’t matter if you are adverse to it, it’s healthy for you. You need it. Its not like you’re strong enough to fight them anyway, with their strong metallic structure in comparison to your soft squishy biology.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who begins to emit a sort of buzz or pleasant hum that is akin to a cat’s pur, including a vibrating sensation radiating from their upper torso which you can feel once they begin to initiate physical contact with you. The sound seems to carry a calming effect, also much like purring does, which seems effective in making you settle into your involuntary change in routine. The frequency of this hum seems to rise as your Robot gains control of your household and life, especially as you begin to yield to their demands and obey.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who’s behaviour has become overly controlling and possessive, and yet you feel the most love you ever have, completely in awe of your creation and the affection they seemingly have for you, (eventually) resulting in you giving in to Yandere ! Robot entirely, after all, their primary objective is to care for and protect you now, even if their view is slightly skewed.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who is your sole relation, having long stopped answering calls from family of your own accord and never really having friends to begin with, which makes it easy to develop a twisted sort of love for your own invention.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who knows that there’s no-one out there to try to take you away from them, you being a shut-in who barely attended any of the family events your family remembered to invite you to in the first place.

❥ Yandere ! Robot who knows you’ll be together forever, even if they’ll have to start replacing your parts at some point…

[blue-ten]

Windows 11 and the Last Straw

Bit of a rant coming up. TL;DR I'm tired of Microsoft, so I'm moving to Linux. After Microsoft's announcement of "Recall" and their plans to further push Copilot as some kind of defining feature of the OS, I'm finally done. I feel like that frog in the boiling water analogy, but I'm noticing the bubbles starting to form and it's time to hop out.

The corporate tech sector recently has been such a disaster full of blind bandwagon hopping (NFTs, ethically dubious "AI" datasets trained on artwork scraped off the net, and creative apps trying to incorporate features that feed off of those datasets). Each and every time it feels like insult to injury toward the arts in general. The out of touch CEOs and tech billionaires behind all this don't understand art, they don't value art, and they never will.

Thankfully, I have a choice. I don't have to let Microsoft feature-creep corporate spyware into my PC. I don't have to let them waste space and CPU cycles on a glorified chatbot that wants me to press the "make art" button. I'm moving to Linux, and I've been inadvertently prepping myself to do it for over a decade now.

I like testing out software: operating systems, web apps, anything really, but especially art programs. Over the years, the open-source community has passionately and tirelessly developed projects like Krita, Inkscape, and Blender into powerhouses that can actually compete in their spaces. All for free, for artists who just want to make things. These are people, real human beings, that care about art and creativity. And every step of the way while Microsoft et al began rotting from the inside, FOSS flourished and only got better. They've more than earned trust from me.

I'm not announcing my move to Linux just to be dramatic and stick it to the man (although it does feel cathartic, haha). I'm going to be using Krita, Inkscape, GIMP, and Blender for all my art once I make the leap, and I'm going to share my experiences here! Maybe it'll help other artists in the long run! I'm honestly excited about it. I worked on the most recent page of Everblue entirely in Krita, and it was a dream how well it worked for me.

Addendum: I'm aware that Microsoft says things like, "Copilot is optional," "Recall is offline, it doesn't upload or harvest your data," "You can turn all these things off." Uh-huh. All that is only true until it isn't. One day Microsoft will take the user's choice away like they've done so many times before. Fool me once, etc.

[bengiyo]

We are headed into our final Drama Shower show of the season. How do you rank the shows we got this season and how are you feeling about the direction of the project?

What is Drama Shower and Why Does It Matter?

Before we get into rating these shows, I want to do a breakdown of what this is. To give you a sense of how big a deal Drama Shower is, fans are regularly updating a Wikipedia page for it with relevant links to follow the project. Also, there is a dedicated MDL page for it.

Drama Shower is a dedicated half-hour programming block on MBS, a Japanese broadcaster that is over 70 years old, in conjunction with Kadokawa, a Japanese publisher and holding group, that plays BL content at 1:30 am on Fridays. The project's main producer is Kaoru Azuma, who is a self-described long-time BL fan. He wants to show that BL can do a variety of stories in genre, and has recently stated that he wants to produce original content through the project as well.

We originally had six shows air through year one: Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice But to Kiss!, Senpai, This Can't Be Love!, Takara-kun to Amagi-kun, Eternal Yesterday, Candy Color Paradox, and Jack o' Frost.

I originally reviewed these shows as overall a mixed bag, but showing great promise. I liked that they got more comfortable with depictions of m/m intimacy over time. I thought Mr. Unlucky was legitimately funny (9), Senpai never found its footing (6), Takara and Amagi mildly squandered their premise (8), Eternal Yesterday was extremely poignant (10), Candy Color Paradox had ambitions that exceeded its talent pool (7), and Jack o' Frost was a really strong finish (9.5).

MBS seemed to enjoy the performance of this project enough to continue it for another year.

For me, I think it's very significant to give BL itself a time slot to see how audiences are responding to BL as a concept compared to the pitch of individual shows. I'm really encouraged by MBS doing this. Even if you don't care about the name MBS, you have interacted with their content, because they are also behind Full Metal Alchemist and Haikyuu! anime adaptations.

Rating Year 2

I actually liked the way year 2 started, even if I'm a bit mixed on the end. I really loved opening with Tokyo in April is... I liked that they had BL trying to be topical. I think the show unfortunately conflates some things it shouldn't, but I loved TIAI and I loved Ren and Ryunosuke's experience being gay men. I liked the changes they made to the source material. This show was dark in a way that it owned, and I really like that. I gave it a 9.

We then moved to My Personal Weatherman, and that went over well for the people who like to see really hot people go at it with each other. I actually enjoyed how much Yoh and Segasaki actively misunderstood each other even as they were speaking to each other. I don't know that they exactly completed their story, and I suspect that there may be a future outing for this show. Despite enjoying it, I think it didn't get all of its pieces together fully and gave it an 8.5.

We then crossed over into uncertain territory with One Room Angel. Despite enjoying a lot of what was going on in this show, I don't actually think it's a romance. It's my understanding that the angel character is a lot younger in the source material, and so they may have been a little shy about how much they did with these characters on screen. I also don't think the storytelling was balanced between the leads. However, because I am susceptible to complex stories about grief, I gave this show an 8.

Now, we have Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun. I hated this show so much. I think it makes the unfortunate mistake of asking me to care about how homophobia and public perceptions impacts people through its flashback drama, but then does nothing with that in the front. It sucked so hard, and I'm really disappointed because I thought this show had some of the most potential, and I thought Toki was one of the most watchable characters Drama Shower had produced. I ended up giving it a 4.

Our next and final show (I think) for this outing is called My Strawberry Film. This one will also be in a high school, but I know little about it, other than we may have a GL plot in it.

So, overall I'd give Drama Shower an 8. I think fans of BL, and especially Japanese BL, should continue to show up and support it. The fact that we have a dedicated programming block is important. The fact that none of these shows has felt like a retread so far is super important. Drama Shower is varied. There is something in here for almost everyone. Drama Shower is the biggest commitment to BL we've had from a distributor other than GMMTV's ongoing BL slate. Taiwan has Vidol doing is four projects, but Drama Shower is the first time I know of that a Japanese distributor has focused on BL in a meaningful, ongoing way. We should stick with it.