#nor cool

[i-didnt-do-1t]

Be kind, please

[shyrule]

hey

yyyyyyy

yyyyyyyyyyy

your coool

and sweet

HI!!!!

also HUSH!! SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! none of that!!

i’m really just some guy fr

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Wrapping up the season with a redraw (Jan 2024)!

Thank you all for these last 6 months, I have loved making so many people laugh from my silly comics B*)

[knightofgoetia]

dmc madhouse anime they will never make me hate you. you mean the world to me.

[marzipanandminutiae]

"this old mansion is $20 million, but it's really hard to find a buyer because four spaces inside have preservation restrictions and the rest needs extensive work to convert it back from a dormitory to a house again!"

I know, off the top of my head, at least ten museum workers who make under $35K/year who would absolutely cherish this building and pour their hearts and souls into preserving and restoring it. and they'd make sure it was done RIGHT, too. you want public access for scholars and researchers? guaranteed. they'd fall all over themselves to make it a study center or something

but. they can't do that. because it's $20 million. so it sits there waiting for that rare billionaire who actually cares about something bigger than themself, empty and unrestored

do you ever just want to Bite Things?

[crabsnpersimmons]

thanks @random-tail and @enamoredfey for the questions! i'll let Sun himself answer:

long-story short, Sun doesn’t believe he has emotions since he is a robot 😔

of course, he sees Moon and Eclipse emote all the time. he usually attributes it to Moon being a fool (believing he is something he's not) and Eclipse being manipulative (given that he was originally built for the theater)

but there is a part of him that wonders if he is missing something—he just doesn’t understand what that is

Note: i should also mention, his voice is almost completely monotone. the closet idea of a voice claim for this Sun is Greg Chun's voice for Lukas from Fire Emblem Echoes—fairly even in tone, somewhat soft

[fellthemarvelous]

Jedi and attachment

The Jedi Order was around 25,000 years old when it fell at the end of the Clone Wars.

And I've seen people say "the Jedi don't teach emotional regulation" I guess because there are some Jedi who fell, but like, the number of Jedi who didn't fall far outweighs the number of Jedi who did fall.

And that's not to say that Jedi never made mistakes, but none of them gave into their anger and fear and hatred. Mistakes are normal, even for Jedi. Failure is the greatest teacher. They were apparently able to regulate their emotions well enough to actually learn from their mistakes and grow.

I'm not sure which part of "the life of a Jedi is not easy" isn't exactly translating well for some people.

What do people think Qui-Gon meant when he told Anakin being a Jedi would be challenging?

As Yoda said, it is a lifelong struggle not to allow fear to bend into anger. Fear leads to anger leads to hate leads to suffering. The Jedi never stop learning.

The reason they avoid attachments is because attachments distract them from the bigger picture, from their purpose. They are protectors and defenders of life, and they cannot be picky about who they choose to help, regardless of personal feelings.

As Obi-Wan has said, Jedi do not hold grudges. They cannot. They can be upset, yes, but they are given the tools to handle their emotions and often utilize them.

Anakin damned an entire galaxy when he fell to the dark side. The Jedi are not to blame for Anakin's fall. Anakin made his choice, and while he spent thirteen years being groomed by Palpatine, he made the choice to follow Darth Sidious.

ANAKIN FELL BECAUSE OF THE CHOICES HE MADE.

He is the one who slaughtered Jedi younglings. He's the one who slaughtered the Separatist leaders, and even though they were the enemy, they were defenseless and trapped in a room with the most powerful being in the galaxy after being sent there by Sidious and Grievous.

The reason the Jedi were so hesitant to accept him into the Jedi Order was because of his age. He was attached to his mother and his anger over her death is what caused him to slaughter an entire colony of Tusken Raiders. He didn't do it out of love. He did it out of hatred, and revenge is not the Jedi way.

It is not the fault of the Jedi that Anakin could not properly regulate his own emotions. He lied to the Jedi for three years. He hid his relationship with Padme, so how was Yoda supposed to know how to help him properly when he didn't have the full context? Of course his advice seemed bad because Anakin was not being forthcoming about the nature of his relationship with Padme. Yoda did not have a complete picture of Anakin's anxieties at the time, and while you can teach someone how to do something, you cannot control how they put the teachings into practice. You can only hope and trust that they are doing the right thing.

And the thing is, the Jedi would have helped Anakin and Padme. Yoda and Obi-Wan loved Anakin. We saw several instances of just how much Yoda cared about Anakin, especially so at the end of season six of the Clone Wars.

Anakin betrayed the entire Jedi Order because he allowed his fears to consume him. He participated in the genocide of the order he had been part of for thirteen years just to save the life of ONE PERSON who ended up dying anyway BECAUSE of him.

No one has ever said the Jedi Order is perfect because there is no such thing as perfect, but they were not ever the villains. They were never the bad guys. They were pulled into a war orchestrated by Darth Sidious who weaponized the compassion of the Jedi as a way to destroy the order.

When you look at the handful of Jedi who fell and claim that the Jedi "don't teach emotional regulation" you're just erasing all personal accountability from the fallen Jedi WHO MADE THEIR CHOICES.

There is only ONE Jedi (that I am aware of) who fell to the dark side involuntarily, and that was Ahsoka Tano. She was corrupted against her will and then killed. Anakin was able to resurrect her, and while he did a good thing, it only made his fear of losing her again even worse.

Maul murdered Satine and forced Obi-Wan to watch, but Obi-Wan managed to control his emotions and not go on a killing spree. He actually held a dying Maul in his arms. Ahsoka was failed by the Jedi Order, but she didn't fall to the dark side. Yoda lived for 900 years and never once fell to the dark side.

There are a variety of factors that went into Anakin's fall, but he is the one who made the choice to do the monstrous things he did. He was not being mind controlled. He had Jedi training, but he threw all of that away for one person. He gambled the fate of the galaxy on the belief that Palpatine would help him save Padme from dying, knowing that Palpatine was a Sith Lord and knowing that he was the one who was actually responsible for the war. He made a selfish choice at the expense of everyone else in the galaxy and the only person who won in the end was Darth Sidious. It was the biggest lesson that Anakin ever learned.

This is not a failure of "teaching emotional regulation". This is the failure of someone who allowed his personal feelings to overshadow his Jedi training, and he is responsible for the consequences of his own actions.

End note: This is not an Anakin Skywalker bashing post. I love Anakin Skywalker, but he absolutely is to blame for his fall to the dark side. He's a fascinating character. I could write a whole ass separate post on why I love him so much. Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader is an icon.

[uncanny-tranny]

Periodic reminder that unless a person specifically and clearly tells you it is okay to tell others they are trans or queer, you should err on the side of caution and assume they do not want you to tell people (especially random people!) about their transness or queerness.

You have no idea, generally, why somebody doesn't talk openly about their trans or queer status, and you have no idea, truly, how somebody might react to that information. The most progressive person out there is still capable of harbouring incredibly negative thoughts about somebody's queer status.

[network-rail]

A very long complaint about the trains in Stardew Valley

So there is this indie farming game called Stardew Valley that you may have heard of (although knowledge of the game is not essential to understand this post), and there is a railroad with the occasional train in it. The point of the train is that it sometimes drops items (not especially rare ones either), but that's not what this is about. You see, I have many problems with the train from a rail enthusiast perspective rather than a gameplay one (although it could use some improvement in that regard as well) so I'm here to complain about those instead.

Anyway, intro over, time to rant about this stupid train.

So, first of all, let's start by taking a look at the railroad (this image is from the wiki, and shows the station):

Looks mostly normal, right? Sure, there might not be any station buildings –just a platform and a shelter– but this is a small rural town, so that's not too surprising. And it is a little odd how the spacing between the sleepers/ties is inconsistent, but maybe it's just old. Not to mention, there isn't any ballast or track bed, but that does sometimes happen on less-used rural lines. However, if we zoom and enhance, we discover several problems that, once spotted, will bother you forever.

Firstly, if we look at the level crossing sign (the actual crossing is just to the left, out of the image, but it's not important right now) we can see that the image is clearly one of an electric train, with a pantograph more or less the only feature visible (other than the window) at this scale. But when we look at the tracks, do we see any overhead wires? No, we don't, and later on we will discover that it gets worse in regards to what sort of traction is used (no, not battery electric, it's not that bad). Of course, while promising us electric trains and then immediately disappointing us through a lack of wires (and a subsequent lack of electric trains) is not a good look, it isn't too bad – after all, some level crossing signs in real life promise steam trains and then fail to deliver as well. But the problems with the Stardew Valley Railroad (or SVRR, if you will) go beyond misleading signage, as we will see.

Second, if we look at the tracks themselves, we notice something unusual going on: the rails appear to have had nails driven through them to attach them to the sleepers/ties, which would make the ride much more bumpy, and if the heads of the nails were worn through by the trains, then the rails could easily be knocked out of alignment. This is why rails are attached at the sides, so that the surface for trains to travel on is smooth and the trains do not wear away the things connecting the rails to the sleepers/ties (and therefore disconnect the rails from the track).

While this might seem bad, it's the sort of thing you would expect from someone who isn't a train enthusiast and has only rudimentary experience sticking things together (perhaps the occasional piece of IKEA furniture). The thing is, once the train shows up, it somehow gets even worse.

Before we get to the epitome of this mess that is the train locomotive, we must first look at the train carriages themselves, of which there are two basic types (by appearance, anyways; there are ): passenger cars and hopper cars.

Now, there are several things wrong in this image, but we'll go over them car by car, so as to not overwhelm the reader.

First, all but one of the cars in this image are hopper cars, of which one is not covered. We'll start with that one: it seems to be filled with cupboards of some sort, which is quite frankly baffling; as furniture would never be transported in aggregate hoppers (The SVRR aren't british rail, though they may be taking inspiration from them). This is a problem with several of the open hopper cars (although none of them are visible in this image), as these hopper cars can drop items for the player, and the contents can be seen from outside. Some of these items, such as coal, stone, iron ore, and copper ore are normal things to put in hopper cars (although the stone drops from hopper cars carrying bricks, which is a whole different can of worms we won't go into), but some items – such as wood – would never be transported in a hopper car (it makes no sense, hopper cars are for loose material, wood goes on a flatcar).

Now moving on to the covered hoppers, there isn't anything really wrong with these, as they appear to be perfectly normal modern hopper cars. Except for when they have livestock inside. (see here, again) HOWEVER, as we will see in the next paragraph (stop reading ahead, learn some patience) this modern appearance is itself a problem.

We're in the next paragraph now (aren't you glad you waited?) and we're going to talk about the passenger cars. First of all, the passenger cars have open platforms at both ends, and generally resemble earlier North American passenger cars, where passengers would leave through doors at the ends of the carriage and disembark from an open vestibule. However, the passenger cars also have side doors, which is very strange, and don't really fit with the style of the car. Next, we have something to consider: these passenger cars appear to be modeled after earlier North American passenger cars, what with their wooden appearance and open vestibules (side doors notwithstanding); but the freight cars appear to be modern hopper cars. Not only that, but the hopper cars and passenger cars are often found ON THE SAME TRAIN, which is a safety nightmare, especially for wooden carriages. If that train derails, those passenger cars will be turned to splinters (and the passengers into tomato sauce) by heavy hopper cars filled with lumber, gold ore, and cabinets. There do also seem to be venetian blinds over one of the windows, although that's not really much of a problem compared to everything else.

You may have noticed that up to this point, there is one part of the train that we have avoided mentioning (except for a passing reference to it not being electric), and that's the locomotive. In case you hadn't figured it out. Why? Well, I'm saving the best for last, and by best I mean worst.

So, without any more nonsense, here's the absolute travesty that is the SVRR locomotive!

This locomotive – a 4-6-0 steam engine – just keeps getting worse the longer you look at it, especially if you know anything about trains (which I do).

There's a lot to unpack here, so for this we'll be using bullet points to keep things concise:

There's a massive gap between the rear drive wheel and the front ones

The middle drive wheel is not attached to the coupling rod

The coupling rod is only connected to the wheels, not to the piston (how is it moving?!)

The leading wheels are incredibly small (WHY?!)

The leading wheels are stuck to a large metal box that I can only assume is meant to be a bogie (what else could it be?) that has very little clearance with the track

There is no coal tender or attached coal bunker (where is the fuel?!)

There's some sort of pipe sticking out of the cab (what is it for? is it a radio antenna?)

What's that box at the front? Is that where the side rods are meant to connect to the pistons? Because they aren't, so it could be a transformer box or a cabinet for all I know.

It's a steam train pulling modern hopper cars (the passenger cars do fit with steam trains though), and in a setting which has the internet, robots, buses, electricity (very anachronistic, especially since it doesn't seem to be a heritage railroad)

It's a steam train that travels through some rather long tunnels. How long? We don't know, but since the railroad doesn't appear anywhere else on the map they've gotta be long (if you don't know why this is a problem, you try breathing in smoke inside a tunnel for several minutes)

And more! Why don't you try to find something else that's wrong with the locomotive so I don't go insane?

One thing that annoys me specifically is that it's a steam train, rather than electric. This would normally be forgivable since steam trains are very iconic and good-looking, but this rather ugly locomotive looks like someone with a limited knowledge of trains attempting to draw a steam train entirely from memory. I would not advise attempting this even if you do know a thing or two about trains, since steam trains are rather complicated creatures. If you don't have a reference of some sort, you should stick to drawing electrics and diesels; since those have far fewer complicated external mechanisms to be messed up in such a spectacular fashion. Of course, since the internet exists, finding a reference should be easy. Should be.

Indeed, the complete shambles that is the entire Stardew Valley Railroad seems to be summed up by the locomotive: a railroad drawn apparently from memory by someone who isn't familiar enough with trains to pull it off convincingly. Of course, this is from the guy who brought us the famous Grandpa's Bed, so I'm not that surprised.

Anyway, this concludes my rant about the train in Stardew Valley. Fortunately, the train is fairly out of the way, and not that important in gameplay, so you don't regularly encounter it while playing the game. If the train actually looked good and made sense, I'd probably complain about how rarely you get to see it, but in its current state, it's fine that it doesn't show up that often.

[leona-florianova]

"They are together in every universe." Is ok and all but have you thought about "In every universe they split like same pole magnets, but still yearn for each others company, that they cant have, because neither of them can turn their back on their respective roles, ethics and socio-political ideals"? Might be tastier, just saying. Because of the yearning.... Adds more flavour.

[umblrspectrum]

Can we get more of the murder drone x rain world au?

ok

[harbingersecho]

A tenth, a tenth of myself Despite everything else it's undeniably me A tenth, a tenth of myself If I want to believe that life will begin again and again

[cyber-corp]

While I’m not entirely versed in the lore of June Egbert, I don’t think it takes a lot to realise that she holds quite a lot of importance in terms of how she relates to Homestuck’s overarching themes.

Homestuck from the start was always about freedom, right? It’s called Homestuck, they escape from their respective homes through SBURB, and later on become unbound from the narrative entirely. John also happens to be the first one to defy the narrative through his retcon powers.

In Beyond Canon (specifically the Candy timeline) there are no threats or villains in the narrative, ergo nothing to escape from, and no one feels this sentiment quite like “John” Egbert, who thinks he’s desperately trying to become relevant to the plot again. Such to the point that he wants to start another game of SBURB, which ironically is what placed him in an eternal fixed position as a protagonist.

When in actuality, I think she needs a break from all that. From all the set-in-stone narrative bullshit a certain someone is trying to set up. Some freedom, even.

[veryaren]

reaction image for when short fur affinity kleptomaniac won't put your cravat down

[alexjcrowley]

Why do they sound like they're bitching and gossiping? Why do I mentally read this is Valley Girl accent? Why do I want to say "Oh my God, Mandorff, you can't just ask how many Catholics are in Afghanistan". What the fuck is this movie (affectionate)

[logicpng]

dealer at this point is just one of those blorbos i lovingly play with like a doll. this feels absurd but i do love him goddammit

note on that last one: i noticed it's actually very easy for me to see him equally as a man and as a woman without any changes to the design. she's kind of both and neither to me. no gender only shotgun