#priddy good

[somethingaboutmint]

Once i finish starfield and find what i can turn into a comic bit its over for bethesda

[thornswoggled]

going back to s1 on crunchyroll to check something and im wondering what kind of ova we might get between now and s3 👁👁

[frabt]

I'm learning how to crochet. admire my stitches

[gulabigulag]

I just wanna cuddle my cat rn I miss him so much

[obey-moi]

I wanna imagine that the cards are a real thing in-universe. Like, the brothers, royals, Solomon and Thirteen all get put into a trading card game just because they’re all very popular individuals with their own fanbases Everyone’s card art is a little different from their actuall looks bc the actual people aren’t involved in the art production, so everone gets washboard abs and clear skin. It’d also be considered defamation of any of them are portrayed with a single blemish lol.

Of course Asmo collects ONLY his own cards and MC’s cards, even if some of them look off. “This one’s hair is too brunette but I love the SHINE they put in my lipgloss!” Or something silly like that. They go into a photo album binder where he gets other pieces of fanart.

Leviathan collects SO many card and knows the rules and decimates everyone at the games, but he absolutely refuses to collect his own cards. “Can you imagine if I played my own card as if I were actually cool? Like I had those powers, or l-looked as dashing a-as they portray me?? None of my cards would actually be good?? I’m JuSt An OtAkU??” Never plays the holographics of MC. Those get framed but never displayed. (MC finds them and they do the same to him since they both avoid their own cards. In fact they do a daily dropoff where if there’s an envelope under their door they can usually expect it to be the others’ cards.) He’s also a master of making different decks, like he has a deck for every sin, every person, etc. The Royals+Angels deck and the Envy deck are his favourite ones.

Mammon thrives on the Devildom TCG market. Rare cards go for a ton of Grimm! And also you wanna know why he keeps trying to sell pics of Lucifer, right? He knows one of the official card artists. “This was the outfit this card was based on, yeah? Here’s the followup of him rolling his sleeves and loosening his tie! And I bet you’re gonna love THIS one! Nobody can ever seem to get his angry smile just right until they see it in person, but this picture comes pretty close. Doesn’t it give you shivers? I can start at 1500 grimm. Also, could you tell whoever is making THESE cards to stop whitewashing the GREAT Mammon? Plzkthx :)”

Satan’s not much for card games unless a friend challenges him to a different, more classic game, like rummy or liar. But he does keep the trading cards he likes the most. Art is art, what can he say? They’re also perfect bookmarks. His fave is probably one of MC that captures them perfectly in his vision.

Lucifer thinks the whole TCG is just silly and doesn’t really participate in any of it........... But Priddy Boy’s gotta be ✨Perfect In Everything✨. The man has canonically been stated to be good a video games for the simple need to be good at everything, you think he wouldn’t study strategy and play like it’s chess or smth? That and in his Dad Wallet where he keeps pictures of his brothers (and MC), he keeps his favourite cards of them behind each respectful photo.

Beel doesn’t really collect or know how to play, but Beel has autographed many a card after fangol games, so he can at least understand it’s a collectible item. He tried learning from Leviathan how to play this one time, and it made sense to him for the most part. Card has Life Points, Attack Points, and Special Skills. Beat up opponents' cards and win. Not too different from most other card games. But there are complicated rules to it that he forgets or mixes up. He’d much rather use the cards like dolls and make them “talk” to each other.

Belphie also doesn’t play or collect, but he does enjoy getting his hands on the holographic cards. One day Levi was sent to look for Belphie to tell him it was dinner time. He found the youngest in the attic cutting up the cards into shapes and gluing them back-to-back, hanging them up like a mobile. Levi fainted backward down the stairs and refused to look at Belphie for two months straight.

Solomon really likes these cards! Like Satan he uses them as bookmarks, but specific Sin Colours and People get paired with certain books. Green Satan cards are used on cursed tomes or books about curses, blue Satan cards are used in art history books. Pink Asmo cards are left in Seduction Spell books, while yellow Asmo cards are for books about venoms from creatures. Etc. Makes categorization much easier!

Barbatos doesn’t collect, but he does know how to play. He referees for the Young Lord sometimes whenever Diavolo gets a chance to have fun.

Y’all know ya homeboy DIAVOLO is one of the biggest collectors! He and Levi are both DAUNTING on the “battlefield”, though Dia doesn’t take things so seriously like Levi does sometimes. He’s even commissioned actual paintings of himself and everyone so that those portraits can be made into cards. They’re the rarest ones, there only being one of each person out in the world. As much as Dia would have loved to keep those cards, he likes to watch the chaos of others scrambling desperately try to obtain an Ultra Rare Royal Painted Holographic. Besides, he still has the original paintings! (Also he likes to collect the DevilWendy’s kids meal toy versions of those “cards”, which are actually those plastic “gold” plated cards inside of “”””pokéballs””””. Adorable!)

Some Thirteen cards have special abilities based on real traps of hers. Some of Thirteen’s traps are based on some of the cards. She likes to tape some cards up like stickers to some of said traps as decorations. Or as part of the trap. She once tried to entice Solomon with a card, but Levi fell for it instead and nearly got impaled in a tiger trap she called “Super Duper Rare Double Dare #106”.

Mephistopheles says he doesn’t care about such childish playthings. But once the Diavolo released those Ultra Rare Royal Painted Holographic, and ‘Phisto got highest bidder on the Diavolo card, SUDDENLY he’s become Maximillion Pegasus and his signature deck is the Diavolo deck.

Luke isn’t really one to play, but he does like the art of some of them! He’ll put some in a scrapbook! It’s also another bookmark technique, where certain people’s cards get bookmarked on their favourite recipes. He got the idea from Solomon’s method of bookmarking.

Simeon also doesn’t play but mainly collects. Got a little hooked on it before Raphael moved in and the room was being used for Levi’s spare collection stuff. He was even given many of the Common ones for free (what Simeon did with common cards, Levi didn’t nearly care as much, and trusted him more with cards than he could trust Belphie with holo’s...). He’s collected all the Seven Lords themed ones. It’s a nice, low-key hobby, like stamp collecting. He donates the ones he doesn’t need to MC or Levi.

Raphael neither plays, collects, or knows anything about them really. But he does still have an annoying familiarity with them, thanks to Michael wanting him to buy several packs, nay, BOXES of packs. Michael needs to be the number one Lucifer Card collector. Bro misses his bro... ;(

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Meghans deep shame of being lower class by u/EleFacCafele

Meghan’s deep shame of being lower class One of Meghan’s issues that is rarely discussed is her deep shame of being born in a lower class and her desperate attempt to erase any record of her being of a lower class. Her father, Thomas was a financially successful working-class man but he remained all his life a glorified blue collar. Dorito was socially underclass, with her lack of education, lack of work ethic, absence of any moral value, income generation by criminal activities (drug dealings, scams, using sex to get men, etc) and parasitic way of life by using and then discarding people.When the financially stable Thomas put Meghan in an good middle-class Catholic school, Meghan became of the social differences between her, daughter of a single blue collar and the middle-class, normal family girls. She attached herself to Ninaki Priddy, very middle-class. She felt deeply ashamed of the low social status of her parents and family and, to compensate, she became obsessed to become a Queen, a Princess, someone really at the top of the social hierarchy. All her obsession with Diana is the desire to become an upper class, billionaire, aristocratic princes because she was deeply ashamed of her very low status at birth.Having learned from her mother all the ways of the underclass (don’t give milk for free), she decided to apply her methods of acquiring status and wealth by any means (legit or not), while in parallel erasing her lower class status and inventing an upper-middle class upbringing. Getting a degree was the first step. Erasing her biracial origin and pretending she was a highly cultured Caucasian on CVs came next. Then the Tig blog where she made believe she was a high maintenance, upper middle-class actress with sophisticated luxury tastes. As some actress do, she allegedly used high end prostitution to survive (yachting, Soho house hostess, etc.) while hunting for a rich man. Started to behave as a mean Diva, ruthless, demanding, impossible to satisfy person, as that was her was vision about rich powerful people. She covered all with her curated image of a refined higher-class woman, chasing well-off men (Trevor, Cory then Hapless) in her desperate drive to climb socially and erase her past and background. She then discarded everyone who was of no use, or had stories about her past.When she finally arrived, marrying a blood prince from the most prestigious Royal Family, she desperately tried to hid her low-class mixed race background and shady past. She manipulated her father to stop giving her away, uninvited her entire family (bar her underclass mama to play the Rcard) at the wedding, invited famous people she never knew personally. etc. Later she enlisted her husband and others in "slaying dragons", aka erasing all information that does not fit the image she wants to project aka of an upper class woman (Duchess) with impeccable past, doing philanthropy and being successful financially and socially.Then she run away, as she could not adapt to the World she wanted so desperately to belong. The façade started to crumble, real upper class people saw her imposture, and the Royal Family gave her the boot when her malignant Diva behaviours became unbearable. Her descent from royalty into the world of wannabe celebrity was really fast, just of few years.Her entire pathologically narcissistic behaviour originates from the deep shame of being a lower-class mixed-race woman. Just an explanation, not an excuse. post link: https://ift.tt/hH29ayv author: EleFacCafele submitted: December 26, 2023 at 10:07AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[meghantheduchyofpitstains]

If you never read this article on the Daily Mail, it is a must read.

Meghan’s childhood best friend Ninaki - she dumped Markle as a friend - gives some insights on Meghan completely changing when she finally got acting work on Suits.

I think this article helps to understand just how desperately Meghan wanted to be famous, not a good actress - but famous. When she got a taste of fame how her delusions and fantasies started taking over in her life.

[tokusaatsus]

WHAT KIND OF DATE SHE WOULD TAKE YOU ON

ft. narukami arashi

© tokusaatsus 2022

warnings: none

Shopping date!

Arashi’s first idea for a date would be something like an impromptu shopping spree.

At first, it’s only for the necessities–things she’s running out of like makeup creams and mascara–but, Arashi being Arashi, she quickly gets distracted with all the cute and chic outfits she sees on sale.

Normally, she’d conscript Mika to be her minion for the day, curious to hear his opinions on her style choices when she’s taking you out on a date or vice versa and she doesn’t know what exactly to wear. She likes to think she has good fashion sense (she does!) but she always hesitates when it comes to you, wanting to only show you the best side of herself. It makes it hard to decide whether she should wear the white sundress or the pink skirt and blouse combo.

However, as of now she has you right here, and she plans to take full advantage of the fact.

Picking out the clothes that caught her eye, she begins modelling them for you. You, of course, are content to just relax and watch your beautiful girlfriend doll herself up for your benefit. You’re glad to spend time with her and, knowing how she feels about makeup and fashion, you’re glad she can share her interests with you. As time passes, you begin to give your opinions on this dress or those shoes or these bracelets, much to her pleasure.

She enjoys hearing you compliment her style choices–it makes her feel like the prettiest girl around! Arashi can pull off anything, and you tell her as much, which causes her to playfully bat at your arms and tell you, “Such a charmer, Y/N-chan…” with a small blush.

Despite never getting bored of your endless commentary, Arashi decides that you’re no longer a spectator. She needs to praise you too, otherwise she might explode keeping in all her comments about your cuteness. With your likes and dislikes in mind, she picks out clothes she thinks will suit you best from the racks (though, in her humble opinion, she thinks you’d look beautiful in anything!) and gives them for you to try on.

No matter how awkward you feel, she’s your one-woman hype squad. She always has a compliment ready for you, whether it be things like how your hair looks “absolutely lovely styled that way” or how that shade “compliments your eyes beautifully”. You two end up having a little fashion competition, where you model outfits and rank them out of 10.

At the end of the day, you two stumble out of the shop hand-in-hand, plans derailed but significantly happier, giggling to yourselves.

notes!

WC: 440 words

reze txt i like. girls. women. ladies...priddy.... hi this is for miau @hasumilvr​ in spirit sry i couldn’t write keito maybe i’ll do it next time

[tsarisfanfiction]

#4 (Sing A Song of Seven)

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rating: Gen Genre: Family, Hurt/Comfort Characters: Michael Yew, Baird McNeilly (OC), Lee Fletcher, Ceri Priddy (OC) A series of Cabin Seven oneshots.  This time: A burnt leg. This idea would not leave me alone today, so have some more Michael content, and also some of my Apollo cabin OCs finally make an appearance! This is set significantly pre-canon - Michael is ten, Lee is eleven. Warning for a burn description, and shout out to my sister for providing the Gaelic! Reminder that there’s now a discord server for all my fics, including this one!  If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi! <<#3

“I’ve got him,” Michael heard, the voice familiar through the darkness.  “Go give Ceri a heads’ up, and see if you can find Lee, too.”

Muffled words, further away from him and too hard to make out, replied.  Michael frowned, trying to peel his eyes open – why the fuck where they closed?  What the fuck was happening?  He’d been on the climbing wall.  That wasn’t black.  The lava made sure of it.

Arms slid underneath him and then he was floating and oh no they fucking weren’t.  Suddenly no longer glued shut, his eyes snapped open as he squirmed.

“Put me the fuck down!” he demanded, not even looking at the fucker that had picked him up as he writhed, pushing to get away.

His leg moved and he screamed.

“Hey, hey!” the fucker – Michael recognised that accent but his leg hurt and he couldn’t think – protested.  “Relax, Michael.  You’ll hurt yourself more if you keep moving.”  The arms holding him tightened, pinning him against a much larger body.  He tried to wriggle his torso free without moving his leg, which fucking burned, but everything went white and he screamed again.

“Naw, I’ve got this,” he heard the older demigod say as the white faded away.  “Don’t crowd him, guys.  Shoo, shoo.”

Michael cracked an eye open and glowered up at the other son of Apollo.  “Put.  Me.  Down,” he growled, tilting his head back to glare past the demigod’s long dark ginger hair where it spilled over his shoulder and at his half-brother directly.

Fucking half-siblings.  He’d run away from the fucking things; there weren’t supposed to be more where he ended up!

Even if these ones didn’t treat him like shit.

Baird shook his head.  He was one of the oldest of Michael’s newly-discovered half-siblings, seventeen and broad-shouldered, as well as a fucking good archer – Michael had spent a lot of the time at the range with him, learning about shit like technique.

He was also proudly Scottish, with a soft accent that was distinctly not-American but also not how Michael had thought Scots sounded – not that he’d asked Baird about that.  He wasn’t that interested.

He had, however, told him that he had better be wearing fucking boxers under the kilt he frequently wore.  Several times.  Baird just grinned at him and told him not to look every time, which wasn’t a fucking answer.

“No can do, a ghille,” his half-brother told him, a small smile on his face.  Michael had been promised it was a term of endearment and not an insult.  He didn’t know if he believed it, but he wasn’t the only one Baird called that, so he let it slide.  “That lava chewed your leg up pretty good.  You’re not going to be walking on that.”

The fucking lava had what.

Michael twisted, putting his escape attempt on hold for the moment in favour of trying to see his leg.  Now he was aware of it, the pain was impossible to ignore, and Michael had a horrible feeling it was making him cry.  His eyes were itching.

Baird held still as he moved, although his grip was tight enough that Michael couldn’t really move much.  Still, he managed to tilt his head enough to catch sight of pale, waxy skin blotched with red and pink and looking entirely too wrong, never mind the fact his pants had singed away to the knee.

“Fuck.”  The word came out like a sob.  His eyes prickled more and his cheeks stung.  Baird seemed to take that as a cue to start walking and Michael glared at him.  “Put me down.”

“You need the infirmary, Michael,” Baird told him, raising one shoulder in half a shrug.  “I can call for a stretcher instead if you really want, but this is faster.”

Michael was no more impressed with the idea of a fucking stretcher than he was about being carried.  “I heal fast,” he protested, scowling as salty water trickled into the corner of his mouth and rubbing at his eyes furiously.  Why the fuck was he crying?  It was only a bit of fucking pain.

“And you’ll heal even faster when Ceri gets a look at that leg of yours,” his half-brother countered immediately.  “So is this okay, or do I need to get someone to bring a stretcher instead?”

Neither option was fucking okay, but Michael shoved his face into Baird’s chest, using the bright orange t-shirt to soak up the fucking tears.  Being carried like a kid was fucking embarrassing but a stretcher would be even worse.  “Hurry the fuck up,” he mumbled.

“Okay, okay.  Hurrying up.”  True to his word, Michael felt Baird speed up, taking bigger steps and holding him a little tighter.  If anyone was looking – they had better not be, Michael would shoot anyone that ever fucking mentioned it – no-one said anything and Baird didn’t acknowledge anyone, either.  Michael kept his face pressed against his half-brother’s t-shirt until the noise of Baird’s steps changed.

“Michael!”  Lee’s voice had him raising his head.  His blond half-brother was looking at him with wide eyes from inside the infirmary.  Next to him, long red hair shoved back in a messy bun, Ceri was pulling on gloves, barely looking at them.

Lee’s presence made Michael feel a little better, not that he’d ever admit it.  Baird wasn’t terrible – his archery coaching did put him in Michael’s okay books despite his refusal to admit if he wore boxers under the kilt or not – but Lee was Lee.

Michael would never fucking admit it, but Lee felt a lot like how he thought safety should.

Baird sat him down on one of the beds, and Michael couldn’t stop the whine of pain as his burnt leg straightened.  Immediately, Lee and Ceri were there, shooing Baird out of the way and taking his place.

A moment later, the bed behind him dipped, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Baird smiling at him reassuringly.  Michael hadn’t expected him to stay.

“Here, drink this.”  Lee caught his attention again, dragging it away from Baird and focusing it on the cup of golden liquid Michael knew was nectar.  It tasted good, like cherry candies, but best of all it stopped his leg from hurting.

Ceri knelt on the floor in front of his leg and gently dabbed at it with water while Lee grabbed his attention and started asking exactly what had happened, as though he thought Michael could fucking remember.  All he remembered was climbing the fucking lava wall, then Baird’s voice as his half-brother fucking picked him up without even fucking asking.

“Michael missed a foot-hold,” Baird filled in after Michael replied to Lee’s worried questions with a non-answering shrug.  “He got caught by the lava when he fell.  Fainted for about half a minute, Ceri.”

“Noted,” Michael’s older half-sister said, setting the cloth aside and softly laying her palm over where the burn was the worst.  Like Baird, her accent was decidedly non-American.  Michael hadn’t asked where she was from but she and Baird both liked to mock Geoff from cabin eleven for being English.  All three of them were about the same age, although he was pretty sure Ceri was at least younger than Baird.

It wasn’t like he actually cared about that shit, though.

“Hold still, Michael,” Ceri told him.  “Lee-”

“I’ve got him,” Lee interrupted, a bright smile crossing his worried face.  He sat on the bed next to Michael, completely ignoring Baird behind them.  “Ceri’s going to fix you up, okay?” he said.  “It’ll feel weird, but a good-weird.”

Before Michael could ask what the fuck that meant, she started to chant softly.  The words weren’t in English, but Michael understood them perfectly in the strange mindfuck way that Ancient Greek had.

He’d seen Ceri and Lee both healing others over the summer, as well as some of the other half-siblings whose names he didn’t remember because they’d fucked off at the end of August and there were too fucking many of them to remember, anyway.  He knew they sang to Apollo, to the guy that used to pop into his dreams almost every night and now only showed once a week, and that that was somehow enough to heal injuries.  Sometimes it was even faster than Michael’s natural regeneration.

This was the first time he’d been hurt badly enough that the cherry-candy flavoured nectar and his own fast healing couldn’t heal him since arriving at camp.

It tickled.

Michael squirmed at the golden light brushing over his leg, then glared at Lee when he put his hand on his upper leg to hold him still.

“Stay still,” his brother told him firmly.  Baird pressed a hand against his back.

“You’re doing good, a ghille,” he said.  “The less you squirm, the more healing Ceri can do.”

Michael sent him a dark look but tried to stop moving.  It fucking tickled, though.  Lee’s hand on his leg helped keep it still, but did nothing for the tickling as Ceri’s healing chant continued, a faint golden glow around her hand and his leg.

After an eternity of what felt like fucking tickle-torture, Ceri stopped chanting and pulled her hand back.

“Third degree,” she rasped, voice hoarse.  Baird leaned past Michael to give her a bottle of water, which she threw back without hesitating.  “But it’ll be fine.  Your healing is something else, Michael.  I don’t think it’ll even scar once it’s done.”  She waved a hand loosely at Lee, who slipped off of the bed to kneel in front of him, next to Ceri.  Michael leaned forwards, surprised to see his leg had already lost the weird pale look and was a shiny pink.  It disappeared under the bandages Lee started to wind around his leg.  “Take it easy; stay in here until dinner time.”

Michael frowned.  “You just said it was gonna be fucking fine.”

Ceri sighed.  “You still have to give it time to heal, Michael.  Baird, go grab him some fresh trousers from the store.  I’ll see if Marian can salvage these, or the harpies if she can’t.”

“Sure.”  The bed shifted as Baird stood up, and Michael glanced back at him.  The Scot grinned at him.  “Listen to Ceri, a ghille.  She knows what she’s talking about.”  A large hand rested on his shoulder and he twisted around to glare properly at him.  “And be a bit more careful on that wall in future, yeah?  I’m not a fan of charbroiled kid brothers.”

Michael’s stomach did a little twist, the same way the fucking thing did when his half-siblings – these half-siblings, the ones that shared his dad – called him their brother, like it was natural and he was one of them.

“Whatever,” he muttered.  Baird squeezed his shoulder slightly and grinned at him.

“Back in a bit,” he promised as he walked away, “with trousers.”  He paused in the doorway and a smirk spread across his face.  “Unless you’d rather a kilt?”

Lee laughed and Ceri sighed as Michael swore viciously at the now-empty doorway.

#5>>

[my-chaos-radio]

Release: September 22, 2020

Lyrics:

Had a great seven year, white knuckle ride

Killing time, flying high

As I held on tight to you, to you

Did I blow my mind on the wild side?

Singing, "Hallelujah" to 'em every night

With you, with you

And I'm not gonna lie

Say I've been alright

'Cause it feels like I've been living upside down

What can I say? I'm survivin'

Crawling out these sheets to see another day

What can I say? I'm survivin'

And I'm gonna be fine

I'm gonna be fine

I think I'll be fine

Ooh, yeah

Ba, da, da, da, da, da

Ba, da, da, da, da, da, na, na

Ooh, yeah

Ba, da, da, da, da, da

Ba, da, da, da, da, da

Like a thunder cloud in November rain

Is the black dog out running wild again

For you, for you?

Tryna stream my way to a better life

But I daydream crash like Vanilla Sky, do you?

Do you?

'Cause I'm not gonna lie

And say I've been alright

'Cause it feels like I've been living upside down

What can I say? I'm survivin'

Crawling out these sheets to see another day

What can I say? I'm survivin'

And I'm gonna be fine

I'm gonna be fine

I think I'll be fine

Ooh, yeah

Ba, da, da, da, da, da

Ba, da, da, da, da, da

Ooh, yeah

Ba, da, da, da, da, da

Ba, da, da, da, da, da

Songwriter:

So what can I say? I'm survivin'

Just crawling out these sheets to see another day

Oh what can I say? I'm survivin'

And I'm gonna be fine

I'm gonna be fine

I think I'll be fine

Daniel Campbell Smith / Daniel Robin Priddy / Mark Blair Crew / Philip John Plested

SongFacts:

"Survivin'" is a song by English indie pop band Bastille. It was released on September 22, 2020 as the second single from their EP Goosebumps. The song was written by Dan Priddy, Dan Smith, Mark Crew and Phil Plested.

Of the song, Smith said: "There were times when I felt like I was in a washing machine and on an assembly line at the same time, but when people asked me how I was doing the answer was always: the British cliché: " Yeah, all good, good." At the start of lockdown I was very unsure about having written a song that felt relevant even though it wasn't supposed to be, but I also think 2020 is the year we all have it stopped pretending everything was fine.

A music video for the song was released on October 6, 2020 with a total length of three minutes and two seconds. The video was directed by Reza Dolatabadi. Talking about the video, Dolatabadi said, "Overall, I wanted to give the video a grand feel, almost like it belonged on the big screen, and for that we had to build a city in 3D, fix all the camera angles and movements, and then animate it." our characters via the 3D layouts. Animation is a team effort. I have to say I was very lucky to get to work on this project with an incredible team of artists from all over the world. Without their commitment and attention to detail I would not have been able to complete this ambitious piece.

[cali]

in retrospect it was priddy good January | February | March | April | May | July | August | September 1 / 2 | October | November | December 1 / 2

[literaticat]

what makes a great board book?

From whose perspective? Like, what makes a great book for the intended audience, aka, babies? Probably "edibility", "texture", "mouthfeel" would be up there. For the parents who have to read them? I guess "re-readability", "non-UGH-ness" and "makes babies pass out" would all be high on the list. :-)

From MY perspective, a great board book is cute, feels good in my hands, it's fun to read aloud, it's not too wordy, and babies WANT to hear it over and over.

The question you DIDN'T ask (but now everyone is thinking) -- why aren't agents looking for original board books?

Welp, it's not easy to sell original board books and here's why. They are quite expensive to publish! (even more so now that there are paper shortages, etc). And they have a low price point. (Parents simply will NOT pay more than x-amount for them, despite inflation and everything else).

That means they have very thin margins, royalties are generally lower than they would be for picture books, and the publisher needs to save money (or maximize profit) wherever they can, and they prefer to publish "sure things". Therefore, most board books you see in stores fall into the following buckets:

--Smallened version of already successful picture book -- In other words, it's not an original board book, it's just a reformatted picture book. ALL THE WORLD, THE HONEYBEE, EVERYWHERE BABIES, etc. These are already proven successful - and more importantly, they already own the rights to publish the book, so while the creators DO get a (low) royalty, the publisher doesn't have to pay for the book again.

--Baby version of already popular character/world-- So like, everyone loves DRAGONS LOVE TACOS -- now you can get DRAGON'S FIRST TACO. The VAMOS books are popular, now there are spinoff board books with simple English/Spanish words and phrases and little characters from those bigger books. Pete the Cat's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - "text" already exists. You get the picture. These are already proven successful characters/worlds, have name/visual recognition for customers, and are relatively easy to create (short text, simple art, etc.) The creators do get a (low) advance and (low) royalty but it's just basically an "add on" to an already existing world.

--Simple concept books created in-house by the publisher-- Many MANY concept books you see in stores fall into this bucket -- like Priddy books, DK baby books, etc. If people already on payroll are writing the (minimal) text and designing the book, they don't have to pay creators at all. Or, maybe they write the text and then hire an illustrator on a flat fee.

This is not to say that we CAN'T sell original board books - I have sold a small handful of them over the years, and one of my colleagues reps a couple of folks who create original novelty books. (Novelty books being like board books but with "extra" -- like flaps, textures, whirly bits, etc). But they tend to be art-forward, created by an illustrator-who-also-writes, rather than a writer + illustrator pairing like many Picture Books. And again, they often have a cute novelty aspect. Like the MAIL DUCK books, which have a lift-the-flap element. (But the same $$$ problem arises with novelty for sure! Expensive to print, low price point = publishers being gun-shy.)

[dustofthedailylife]

DUST!!

have you seen ayato’s tcg card animation yet?? he looks so priddy :>

SDKFJDKS. My goodness!! I have not seen it yet! He is so fine, lord have mercy. I am on my hands and knees 😫😭💕

I actually saved one of these golden ticket things from TCG in case he ever got a card and I will immediately use it and build a deck for him. BET! I will main him both as a character and as a TCG card!

Also, the fact I'll be able to invite him for a round of TCG whenever I want to next patch and talk to him is just sjdhsjk 🥰 I am so down bad oh my god...

[dxsole]

NPC | The Prescott Ghosts

Character Relation: These ghosts haunt The Prescott Hotel, owned and maintained by Nadia. They all know her and are generally friendly...but some are corrupting her.

Wilhelmina Prescott | Died at age 18 in 1858

As is true of most ghost stories, it begins with an unspeakable crime. Wilhelmina Prescott, the lovely heir to her father’s bountiful fortune is swept away by a mysterious nobleman who turns out to be nothing more than a common swindler and conman, in the dead of night killing his young bride and burying her body in The Prescott’s foundation. The hotel is built up, no one knowing about the curse that has now befallen the grounds. Unlike the other spirits that regularly haunt the premises and make themselves known to staff and guest alike, Wilhelmina prefers her privacy in the barren underbelly of the Prescott. 

Every 18 years she, with the help of the current owner and her fellow specters, adds to the family, damning another soul to an everlasting stay at the hotel. 

Clancy “Cash” Lowell | Died at age 34 in 1876

The first known dead soul in the history of The Prescott, lost only a few years into its conception. Everything was new, vibrant. The soul of the hotel was warmer and this was it’s first run in with something far more cold-blooded. Good Ol’ Cash Lowell— nothing was good about him, his name best know through the numerous wanted posters that littered the West. Cattle rustler, blackmailer, adulterer, bandit, murderer; in the end there were so many crimes and vile acts listed beneath his name that they simply settled on calling him an outlaw. And eventually, every outlaw is caught; his death was brought upon by local bounty killers. His soul has remained with The Prescott ever since, still marked by evil and causing a majority of the problems that occur within it’s walls. 

He’s one of the bolder ghosts, freely showing himself to guests like he was simply another eccentric guest himself; Clancy is also the ringleader of the gang of ghosts, only tipping his hat to Nadia or Wilhelmina.

Kassandra Priddy | Died at 57 in 1894

Probably the worst maid in the history of The Prescott, or any other hotel for that matter. Sure, the rooms have never been cleaner but her sticky fingers and nosy ways made her generally disliked among the other staff as well as the guests. In her time as a maid, she amassed a large collection of trinkets and prized possessions from wealthy guests— all that thievery wasn’t the cause of her death, however. Clancy had actually come into her quarters in the middle of the night and quite literally scared her to death. She has yet to forgive him but her obligation to the hotel, both her home and place of work, runs deep. To this day she is always cleaning, dusting away as she wanders through the rooms. And to this day, guest still report missing items; much to Nadia’s dismay. 

Valentina Novak | Died at 23 in 1912

She can’t remember when she died nor the circumstances around it. She vaguely remembers the tub, being submerged, feeling sleepy— but every time she thinks too hard on it, she feels herself being pulled under once more. She was just trying to start a new life, forget her past sins and past mistakes; it seemed her punishment still caught up with her. Always soggy, always shivering, she haunts the bathrooms, sinks, and tubs within The Prescott. She’s also one the more calm and considerate entities within it’s walls, as well as the most careful about who she reveals herself to and when. Val is also incredibly wary of Clancy, she couldn’t tell you why, but she makes it a point to avoid him at all times.

Urie Renard | Died at 47 in 1930

Sommeliers are a dying breed. He always said it. Refinement was lost on today’s generation and he held a hint of anger in his soul over it. He died bitter. He died in vain. He died of…of what? Tetanus? Due to a single rusty nail. The Prescott took in his soul in exchange for his anger. It gave him a new life in order to continue its own unholy existence. Urie haunts and works within The Prescott’s wine cellar, only coming out to spit his two cents in every so often. And of course, assist his dear Nadia in completing her debt to the hotel as well. Much like Clancy, Urie is not about to let a little thing like death keep him from working and performing his duties, so he’s also a common sight around the hotel, strolling about the kitchen and wine room at his leisure.

Sid Priestley | Died at 27 in 1948

Perhaps he’s not as black-hearted as Clancy was, but Sid was still no stranger to sin. It’s what killed him, actually; Sid always had a problem with the drink and even more so with women. Despite having a wife at home, he snuck around a lot, meeting various women and taking them back to his hotel room. He told his wife many, many times he was working but his paycheck wasn’t showing all those moments of supposed overtime. He met his end when his wife, sick of his lies and his discrepancies, decided to take matters into her own hands. Unstable and hurt, she came bursting through his room, just so she could confirm what she knew in her heart to be true. Sid took two bullets to the chest and still feels a strange pang in his chest whenever he moves. He doesn’t care if people see him or not, seemingly more content with sitting at the bar, praying for a drink that will never come. 

Sister Diyar | Died at 36 in 1966

Perhaps the only holy one within these walls, forced to stay put within the grounds of The Prescott instead of being allowed to return to her Maker. Diyar’s passion was ministry and spreading the Gospel, a most noble task that ended at The Prescott; it was a culinary disaster, somehow her plate becoming tainted with pine nuts (to which she was deadly allergic to). To this day no one knows how it happened, seeing as pine nuts were not even available in the kitchen. In the end, Sister Diyar still thinks it was simply a freak accident, a part of the curse brought upon the foundation of The Prescott. She doesn’t speak often but can be found wandering the halls, the Word of God still on the tip of her tongue— also, don’t disregard the Bible in your room’s desk drawer, she rather enjoys flipping them open, leaving a verse underlined for the guests.

Rosalinda “Roz” Bautista | Died at 19 in 1984

Only one ghost has full reign of The Prescott’s ballroom; Roz died as she lived; having a good ol’ time! She refuses to have any regrets about how much coke she did that night or how many chairs she broke because she kept throwing them around or, you know, the fact that her heart gave out because of all the drugs and adrenaline— It was a party gone mad, the socialite hosts losing control as the masses poured in. The liquor flowed and everyone was under the influence of one drug or another. Roz was a hardcore party girl, and technically still is. She makes the dusty disco ball installed in the ballroom’s ceiling open up randomly, and people’s phones go on the fritz and start playing Cyndi Lauper; she’s insufferable but no one can deny she’s the real life of the party.

Yvonne Bergfalk | Died at 67 in 2002

Everyone expected Yvonne to live forever; she had so much money and survived at least four husbands before her, it seemed inevitable that in her cold bitterness, she would live until the end of time. Granted, the only reason she maybe didn’t look as old as she was, was due to the fact since she turned 35 she’s been injected, pulled, and prodded by a number of plastic surgeons. It was all to please her various ex-husbands but also because Yvonne had a firm belief that people would write you off the second they saw a wrinkle. But alas, death comes for us all and instead of dying in her sleep, one of Yvonne’s aged implants finally called it quits. Silicone filled her chest cavity and eventually stopped her heart during her bi-yearly trip to The Prescott. It, of course, was the talk of the town and had every tabloid coming into the hotel; she still likes to gloat about all the media attention she got over the whole thing. Now, she likes to pop up in the guest mirrors, mainly to give a bit of fashion advice.

[1800duckhotline]

Connieeee for ask game 🥺

💯💤 ❤️

Hope ur doing well!

details about ocs meme

hey!!! im doing priddy fine today thank you... we hang on... thank u for sending the ask eheh

💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.

connie is like one of the few ocs i dont talk about much publicly so it's gonna be easy peasy

she has a little brother called Thomas, who's about 19 years old, she became his legal guardian when their parents divorced years before. in court connie managed to convince the judge to have both her mother and father to pay a certain fee each month to help raise her little brother right (who was about 7 at the time while she was 25 or so)

before the divorce she was studying to become an airline pilot. as you can guess she couldn't finish her studies due to that whole mishap because the trial and divorce bureaucracy costed so much money that her parents had to use the cash they were using to help pay for her tuition to cover their own asses (this is something she is sad about but ultimately she has come to terms with it)

unsurprisingly, in high school she used to play football (or rugby as i call it) and was a quarterback. she doesn't play anymore obviously but she always managed to stay in shape, also because aviation school sort of expects that kind of exercise regimen

💤 SLEEPING SIGN — is your oc a light sleeper or a heavy sleeper? how are their sleeping habits?

i imagine connie is an heavy as fuck sleeper. like, when she sleeps, she sleeps. it's hard to wake her up before her appointed time. due to her job as a taxi driver her sleeping schedule is a bit fucked up (she mostly drives around from afternoon till late at night, i might have to fact check this for accuracy lol) but she always makes sure to wake up the same time as her little brother to make sure he has breakfast and can go to school just fine, or if he needs a ride.

if she's really really tired she will take a nap in the morning to prepare herself for her shift, but connie typically does manage to get at least 6 hours of sleep each night. she doesn't snooze off that often, she actually can fight the urge to nap in spots that aren't her apartment quite well.

it's not unusual for her to be found snoozing on the couch taking up all the space on it also.

❤️ RED HEART — what are three of your oc's positive traits?

connie is very straight-forward, she's a no-nonsense kind of gal. if she has something to say she will, and if what she has to say is mean she will try to be nice about it but she won't sugarcoat it

she's just very chill to be around and it's very hard to get on her nerves, she's seen enough shit to know when it's worth to get upset about something

despite what one might assume from her relaxed vibes and easygoing attitude, connie is a very self-disciplined person with a very good sense of organization and cleanliness. like, she schedules out every single important thing she needs to do in a day, even stuff like "take shower" and "organize closet" for her are notable and deserve to be written down. this is why she never misses meetings and is always perfectly on time, or at least she tries to be!

[theharpermovieblog]

#HARPERSMOVIECOLLECTION

2023

I re-watched The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984)

This was a movie I regularly watched as a kid. It taught me that some movies are so bad they're good, and that others are so ridiculous they're inexplicably awesome.

A half American half Japanese rockstar neuroscientist surgeon, and his band of amazing dudes, take on aliens and a mad scientist after experiencing the 8th dimension while passing through solid matter. Phew.

From the opening scroll of information about who Buckaroo Banzai is, till the end credits which is just a scene of the band walking to the main theme, Buckaroo Banzai never stops being one of the weirdest and most entertaining movies to come out of the 1980's.

The movie, like it's lead hero, is just a bunch of cool shit smashed together to create some fort of amazing sci Fi comic book story.

The amount of up and coming stars is pretty amazing as well. Peter Weller, Jeff Goldblum, Clancy Brown, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd, Ellen Barkin, etc... All of them signing on to this strange nonsense movie for whatever reason.

The plot is overcomplicated in the best way. What other movie gives you other dimensions, two kinds of aliens (some of them named after butts), a rock and roll show, a mad scientist, assassination attempts, a romance with a girl named Penny Priddy who happens to be the twin sister of Buckaroo's dead wife, etc...etc...

Obviously, due to is general weirdness and difficult to follow plot, the movie was a financial and critical flop. It's a messy and weird mish mash of stuff happening. But, it just so happens that all that stuff is pretty fucking fun to follow along with.

The jokes and dialogue make sense, I guess. But, everything is so strange feeling that it's like living through a fever dream of sorts. It makes sense, I promise you it does, but it might feel like you missed something along the way.

Buckaroo Banzai is an attempt at world building that takes very little time to ingratiate you to the world it's building. The movie comes from the universe where Buckaroo Banzai is super famous, and this is just one of his many many adventures against a world of wild villains.

This other dimension out there, where this movie spawned endless sequels and merchandise and became one of the great franchises, is part of the fun of the movie. It's even a little bit part of the story and lore of Buckaroo Banzai that everyone, including you, knows who he is. Even if you don't.

There is something so honest and earnest here that it feels like someone asked a kid to make a movie. Yes there are some things you could see as problematic, but the intention was so innocent, you can't explain exactly how it bothers you.

The movie shouldn't work, and in many many many ways it doesn't work. It could be considered terrible on its face and that wouldn't be a wrong assessment. But it's not terrible. In fact, it's fantastic on a level. Whenever you think it's too bad, it just doubles down by throwing more strange and ridiculous shit at you.

The special effects are cheap and rubbery and silly. And I mean very very cheap lol. The costumes stretch from cool 80's suits to full cowboy outfits and silver alien future wear right out of 1950's sci Fi. The bad guys are goofy, yet a tad bit creepy and gross. John Lithgow is absolutely over the top as Dr. lizardo.

Overall, it's just an incredibly cheesy adventure that somehow got made, despite the fact that no one involved seems to have known what was happening while making it.

Plus, Ellen Barkin is at prime hotness. That's just a personal plus for me.