#should have been super efficient today at work

[havesomeballs]

[wannaeatramyeon]

i'm dying, i'm deceased, your content is so satisfying, ramen! it's like having a good meal! also, with the amount of injuries the guys are getting, i imagine they're (hopefully) seeing a medic quite often. i wonder if in the process of being patched up by them, by being seen at their most vulnerable, after having the brain cells beat out of them, they would start feeling something for their medic? all gentle touches after a brutal fight~ i imagine gun and sammy would be seeing them the most, but feel free to add others. hope you've been doing well!! 🌺

Hi! Are you my flower anon? (Sorry new laptop - emojis look a bit different). I have been feeling... wild lately. Hope you are doing well too! Thanks for sending this in and AGAIN SO SORRY FOR THE SUPER LATE RESPONSE. My bio should really read day late and a dollar short.

Medic!Reader tending to Samuel Seo, Gun Park, Johan Seong

Word had gotten round that for the right price, you would tend to anyone.

Of course that's not the only reason you're the go-to medic for many of your seedier clients. You're quick and efficient, with some even describing you as a miracle worker. Along with your zipped lips and diligence for confidentiality-

Well. It's no wonder you've paid off your med school loans in record time.

"Again?" you sigh, arriving and taking in the scene before you.

.

.

Samuel Seo

If surveyed, nine out of ten people would describe Samuel as hot.

The last person would no doubt have a terrible sight impairment. Shame. How sad. A tragedy indeed.

So when you, time and time again, go to work on Samuel's body, cleaning his wounds, stitching him up, seeing his exposed skin and naked body with a blank face and purely professional manner.

Well. Samuel doesn't know what to do with that.

You intrigue him and he wants a reaction.

So he's the one that talks to you. Small snippets of his life, hoping to impress you. He notices you're not moved by his strength, the power he wields, the people he commands. Even his penthouse, furnished with the best money can buy and his designer clothes does nothing for you.

You usually remain neutral until today, Samuel gets what he wants. You laugh a little at his response-

"Something about my face must be punchable,"

His heart flutters when he hears your laughter ring out. He's not sure if you're laughing at him or with him, but surprisingly, his ego doesn't seem to mind.

.

.

Gun Park

Gun remembers the first time you attended to him, courtesy of Charles Choi and a benefit of his position.

You didn't flinch at his black eyes or the bleeding wound that sat between them. Instead, cleaning him up with a startling efficiency he couldn't help but admire.

Methodical and competent, Gun was deeply impressed as he watches your hands flying over him, dipping into your med bag for something now and then.

The speed should come with roughness but your touches are gentle. Grazing over his skin and leaving goosebumps in your wake.

When you lean in close, examining if there is anymore to be done or if it would leave a mark he would just have to deal with - you make a joke that it wouldn't matter anyway, the scar would add to his handsomeness; Gun's throat dries up at the intensity of your eyes staring at him.

Huh. And it's usually Gun that has that effect on people.

From then on, Gun likes to think it was by pure coincidence that his body began becoming more and more littered with scars. It absolutely had nothing to do with your words or how much he looked forward to seeing you.

At your exasperated 'again', he smiles.

.

.

Johan Seong

Manager Kim directs Johan over to you. You've seen this type of patient before.

Cagey and prickly, like it's a show of weakness to be tended to by someone and annoyed to not be left to lick their wounds in private.

You remain quiet and professional until you're on the receiving end of one too many agitated huffs and impatient leg bounces making your job of bandaging this brat up so much harder-

"Sit still!" you snap with force and authority. Johan does, and looks at you with wide eyes.

Something about your tone makes him gulp and he fights back the blood rushing to his cheeks.

He thinks about your voice, commanding and sharp, juxtaposing with your gentle hands checking on him. The proximity of your body is slammed into sharp focus and Johan feels a rebellious urge to make you reprimand him in that strict tone of yours again.

Ughhhh.

Why is his shirt collar so tight, why is his tie so constricting? And why the hell is he feeling so hot and bothered?

Shit, the penny drops. Have I got a thing for this?!

[darkpoisonouslove]

HotD S02E02

My thoughts are still all over the place. I wasn't able to watch the episode yesterday and seeing some very vague spoilers had me shaking with curiosity and the need to watch it. It was my first order of business for today and I did like this more than last episode! Of course, the writers will never not be on their Blacks agenda but that could never stop me from loving the Greens even more. And believe it or not, I wasn't super annoyed by the Blacks this episode. Except for Daemon, of course. More about it all under the cut:

The chaos in the beginning and that bloodied sheet did more than showing any actual gore would have imo. And later in the episode when they're taking apart the crib and you see a man carrying a white mattress and you know it will be bloody on the other side only for him to turn it around and the sight still gut-punching you despite that. Especially because the mattress is so small; it's clearly for a child. Ohhhhhhhhhhh.

Aegon smashing the Valyria Lego set was 10/10. Good for him! Unfortunately, I made the mistake of looking at people's opinions and the idea that that's a symbol of him destroying Viserys' legacy and being rash and unfit to be king to differ from his father is just… Lesson learned! Do NOT fucking engage with any HotD content that's out in the wild and hasn't come from my carefully curated tumblr circle.

That said, yes, this is Aegon destroying Viserys' work and thank god! Aegon is rightfully mad about what has been done to his child to differ from Viserys, who just stood by and did fuck all when his son was mutilated. I may not agree with the way Aegon proceeded to handle things but at least he fucking did something! Take notes, Viserys!

That Otto and Alicent scene! The way he (belatedly) tries to offer some kind of comfort and she pushed him away because she's drowning in guilt! She thinks this is all because of her and she doesn't want any comfort, especially since there won't be any for Helaena (and Aegon). I am SOBBING!

That Small Council meeting! I could never put all my emotions and thoughts about it in words but it was just… VERY GOOD! I love how Aegon brings up the fact that Rhaenyra's sons are bastards right before throwing a cup. Because what was he doing when the murder of his son was happening? He was drinking and mocking his nephews while trying to come up with titles for himself. He feels guilty but he cannot express that in any capacity just like he's not afforded enough space for his grief and anger. There's always the next thing that has to be done, the next performance to be acted out. Every move has to be calculated in order to benefit him and his family rather than harm them and he's just… not good at that. In general. But also, in this specific moment it's completely understandable that he's not good at that. He shouldn't have to be! Alicent herself lost her temper when her child was mutilated and she got burned too. Oh, this must be awful for her to watch and still have to guide Aegon away from his outbursts.

(If anyone wants to come after Criston for having sex with Alicent, you can fuck right off! The man cannot be expected to be guarding the family 24/7 and it was made clear that it wasn't his watch at that time. Even if it was, he guards Alicent's chambers so he still wouldn't have been able to do anything. The writers just decided to remove all the guards from the premises and would now love to throw the blame onto Criston. Same with that "why wasn't Helaena given a sworn protector?" line. Because then they would have actually needed to write something clever instead of employing the most brain dead conveniences, silly! Why else?)

Larys interrupting like "Hello! I have been efficient! :)"

Love when Aegon went "Hey, you know what? Maybe I should kill everyone!" I knew he'd do that!. He's such a volatile little shit and YET… cannot even compare with his grandfather.

Otto in this episode is hateable and yet so, so correct and necessary. I loved all of that. He is such an opportunist and that's why he's been in the game for so long! And his advice makes total sense on a strategic level. All they have to do is disregard all their emotions like he's guided and coerced them to do all their lives… Sir… SIR… *crying* this is all your fault (I mean the fact that they're all emotionally stunted, not the war (though to be fair, he's largely responsible for that too)). Sir, the monster that you are.

I especially adore the contrast between Aegon and Otto. In the face of such unmoved calculation, Aegon's pain is front and center of the scene. He doesn't want his son to be used as a prop to win the war. And he turns to Alicent for advice because he knows that she has empathy and understands his emotions, his agony, that she's not pure strategy like her father only for her to tell him that they have to be strategic at the moment and then end up forced into the performance herself. The way that she keeps enabling Otto's exploitation of their lowest moments because that's all they've ever done, because they're trapped in this song and dance now.

It becomes even more cutting in the scenes with Helaena, who just wants her pain to be private, doesn't want to be gawked at by people she doesn't know. Them sharing her pain doesn't bring any consolation because they're not sharing anything. To them she's a symbol and even if they understand the pain of losing a child, they cannot understand her pain of losing her child. Only Aegon can and not in the exact same capacity as her so in the end, they just stare at each other without words and then keep on walking past one another. But the way that she had a panic attack at so much freely given "sympathy" for her pain only to search for some from him and he can't really offer it because they don't speak the same language and he cannot let his guard down in that way and be vulnerable when he's already been weakened as king and no one takes him seriously, and he's grappling for any shred of power, hungering for any violence he can do to someone just to feel a little bit less helpless, and he knows that that's not what she needs and he can give her nothing, which just makes him feel even weaker… Nnnnnnnngh, I am howling in pain!!!!!

The way Blood was acting all tough and menacing last episode only to instantly spill everything just at the sight of Larys was peak performance! Shows how pathetic he is and how scary Larys is. He has worked for that reputation and people really should be afraid of him. But then Aegon steps onto the scene and just bashes that guy's head in. Any wonder Criston and Aegon have teamed up to head the Club of Bad Decisions?

I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the fight between Daemon and Rhaenyra. I like that she said she's never fully trusted him and that she was visibly afraid of him and expected him to try to choke her again. Only other thing that should have happened was her feeding Daemon to her dragon tbh (yes, we're back to the Daemon hate).

Initially, I found the scene between Rhaenyra and Baela touching but then I remembered that Rhaenyra didn't allow Jace to scout King's Landing, probably being afraid he'd be killed like Luke, but it's okay to send Baela, I guess. Who cares if she dies? I did want to take this as her trusting Baela but I just cannot gloss over the fact that she was so swift to forbid Jace from doing the exact thing that she's sending Baela to do.

Not Criston projecting like crazy onto Ser Arryk. I have to admit that that was amusing. Also, as someone said, that plan to assassinate Rhaenyra is "not the worst" that has ever been hatched around these parts.

I liked the scene with Jace and Baela for the fact that she knows about him being a bastard and they talk so openly about it. Both of them have gotten nothing so far and they are also trapped in performances (just like team Green) that this was interesting but also… I can't latch onto any character conflicts or development when we've barely seen anything from those characters.

Aemond, my man, you desperately need to be teleported to a therapist. Those mommy issues are running rampant! The fact that he was so angry at Alicent last episode only to then show that he completely understands why she was mad at him in this one and say all those things that he should have said to her to someone, who's clearly meant to represent Alicent. This would all be 10 000x more efficient if he just said all that to his mother but he just cannot because he cannot be vulnerable in front of her when she's disappointed with him since he's so used to being Mommy's Special Boy. Him and Aegon are such foils in that regard.

Am I the only one who got the impression that Rhaenys is ready to get into some Otto Hightower-type shit and "guide" Rhaenyra to where she wants her?

I'm getting tired of typing so let's wrap this up. Aegon's course of actions is not the smartest but I cannot blame him for it… too much. But seriously, showing the dog mourning Cheese was fucking awful. That dog should be trying to scale the wall and rip his corpse apart after he kicked it last episode. Get the fuck out of here with this!

I was very much cackling during that enire scene with Aegon and Otto. Otto may dislike it all he wants but the two of them are much more similar than he'd like to admit. The second they are hurt, they bring out all their cruelty to strike back. But also, Otto's "the apocalypse is upon us" faces were absolutely priceless! I do want him to stay simply for the fact that he always stirs so much shit but at this point the events don't need his help and Criston and Aegon are absolutely going to Fuck Shit Up TM so things are good anyway.

The Erryk and Arryk fight was crazy! There's zero way to tell who's who but the fact that another guard showed up and instead of leading Rhaenyra away to a safe place (and finding reinforcements) after she was almost sis kebabed twice… makes me think that all the guards are just stupid. There's just a force in Westeros that affects all guards and makes them absolute morons.

I did know spoilers about the book, though, so I was wondering how this will go down. Since obviously both of them had to die but that scene was having a clear winner. I did not expect him to take himself out but yeah, that makes sense. Really makes both the twins and their fate so tragic (would have been nice if we'd been led to care more about them while they were still alive, though).

Otto and Alicent having a touching moment and finally truly seeming on the same page and having a genuine understanding between them only for him to cut her off like that again… Ouch!

SURPRISE DAERON MENTION, AAAAAAAAAAAAH! Finally, a sneak attack from the writers that isn't meant to upset me!

Alicent wanting to comfort Aegon and then just… choosing not to as if she's passing down Otto's disapproval and tendency to punish her (whether she's done anything or not) through emotional distance. They are all so damaged! MY BABIES!!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

The scene with Criston… The kiss was hot but I wish they would actually give them a whole scene where they talk. I cannot believe we got Corlys x Rhaenys pillow talk but we are yet to get anything on Alicent and Criston, who are a newly established relationship. I want to know more about Criston's perspective on this! If he feels so much guilt (which he obviously does), why did he even start this? Let him be a dimensional character with his own agency, dammit! I don't like how they are making him look like Alicent's lost little puppy dog the way he just doesn't really display any kind of agency in their interactions. And the way that they've ended both episodes with them having sex even though Alicent said they wouldn't anymore/was angry at him makes it look like the narrative is passing judgment. Like "Oh, god, these two are fucking again when everyone else is having a really bad time. Can you believe the nerve? *eye roll*"

That's it for this week. I cannot wait to see how much messier the Greens will get next time. Somehow they keep winning with their characterization despite the writers' best efforts!

[awaitingfall]

07.12.24

134

Feeling good this morning! I lost 0.4 even though I didn’t stick to my fasting schedule yesterday because my wonderful bf bought me some cookies that I had once and thought were no longer being sold because they were limited edition and I haven’t seem them in the stores for a while, but he found them when he went to a different grocery store after work and surprised me with them 🥹 But I did really well the rest of the day, eating and movement-wise so I’m sure it balanced everything out.

- - -

I’m so happy and grateful I have Fridays off of work. It feels more natural to have a 4 day work week and have an extra day to spend time being with yourself and family and friends and taking care of chores. Today I’m working on some laundry and then I’m going over to my parents’ house to spend time with my mom and make meatballs together to bring to my bf’s parents’ place tomorrow for his grandma’s birthday dinner.

- - -

I ordered The Dhammapada with annotations on Amazon this morning and it should arrive tomorrow - I’m excited to start reading it!

- - -

I’ve been writing in a physical journal almost every morning since April and I find it’s helped me get things off my mind that have been bothering me and really focus on what’s important. Looking back to when I started journaling, I was writing down every little thing that annoyed me, i.e. This person at my job isn’t working efficiently and is dragging us down; this “friend” of ours is a terrible person for doing this; i can’t stand when he says this or does that; etc etc etc. And after about a month and a half, I started to think ‘is writing about something or someone else that I have no control over actually beneficial, or am I just wasting my time?’ And now I find myself only being able to write about myself and most of it is positive. Maybe I’ll write about a stomach pain I had the day before or if work was a little tiring from the heat, but everything else is super positive.

Some times I find myself trying to force myself to write more because my journal entries used to be 2-3 pages long, only because I was complaining about so many unimportant things. But now they’re less than 1 page. I realize now that I don’t need to write so much in order to feel the positive effects of journaling. And even these short entries are filling up my journal so quickly, I need to find a new one soon! I love stationary so I’m excited to go pick out a new one maybe next month 😍 Might look for a pretty warm toned journal since I’ll be starting it just before Fall.

[artpharos]

so i uh

haven't really talked about what's been up with me this year but UM

yeah this year did not go according to plan thus far LOL but I'm really grateful for everything I've learned from this journey

so in January I got retrenched because the animation studio I was working at was shut down by our parent company. I think it was due to the Streaming Bubble bursting. I am still somewhat bitter about this but y'know. life goes on. i kinda went on a manic resume throwing in the last two weeks even while trying to help the coworkers in my company get the materials they needed for their own portfolios. y e a h that was kinda weird.

by February I got a new job!! but then i kinda got bullied there for. not being like everyone else I guess??? it was really weird. and I thought I had to endure it and maybe it'd magically get better (it didn't) so I quit end April (my original ex-coworkers were cheering me on the whole time; if it weren't for them I'd think I was going insane. one of them also told me later that the company i was working at was blacklisted for being a shitty production house by the industry at large and cries i should have asked him about it first before taking the job)

then I started sending out resumes again, realized I was traumatized by what happened in that 'new' job, opened up commissions to try to tide myself over while I tried to sell myself as someone competent while struggling with the fear that I wasn't (to which I'm super grateful for my friends telling me I'm not), and also agreed to help out with the cresty zine and lmao that's shaping out so beautifully i'm somehow surprised myself

with unemployment i started hanging out with my ex-coworkers a lot. we went to watch a meteor shower at a pier from midnight to dawn. we met up for dinners, went for karaoke and conventions and it was nice. to really just live and enjoy being around the people you've grown to care about after all these years. i'm really really grateful to them, honestly.

and today I think. I might have 2 job offers. and I asked my ex-coworkers once again to help me out and be my references and they all willingly agreed and one of them showed me what he wrote about me which was super nice and he called me kind and smart and efficient and i'm just hhhhrgagahghghgh

it's kinda weird but I'm super nervous about the job offers and i don't really know what's going to happen but. i am super grateful to all my friends new and old who have been taking care of me all this while, and continue to take care of me through all the tiny little ways.

i'd like to hope that's enough :)

[theyellowroseofsodor]

Miscommunication

Summary: Gordon uses voice to text and it goes poorly. Based on a true story between a husband and wife.

The Vicarstown station was all abuzz this particular day and Gordon was doing his best not to grow irritable with it. He was used to the loud stations but today was exceptionally loud and full of school age children. Many excitedly had disembarked from his brother’s mainland coaches and filed into his. Today was an exceptionally special day for the children.

Scot chuckled at his brother, watching the children jump up and down excitedly from the breakroom, “Why so glum Gordon? I thought you liked pulling important coaches.”

Gordon grumbled, leaning back against a wall, a cup of coffee in hand, “Field Trips aren’t my idea of important coaches. Thomas or James could’ve easily picked these children up.”

“Ahh, but these children are from some high dollar preparatory schools, Gordon. They’re the children of the wealthy and famous. A few of them are the children of the museum's finest patrons and the owners themselves. And you were asked for specifically: Sodor’s famous Gresley express engine. You should be honored.”

Gordon sighed, “I would normally, yes, but I don’t do well with children, especially the preteen ones.”

Scot chuckled again, “Yes, I will admit they’re the harder of the age groups. But think on the positive, dear brother, you’ll be going to the animal park and your beloved works there.”

Gordon smiled a little, “There’s that, yes.”

Scot grinned, “You two have been awfully cozy recently. So when will she graduate from my brother’s girlfriend to my sister-in-law?”

Gordon felt his heart beat harder and quicker at his words, “I haven’t… we just aren’t.. I’m not-“

“I tease, little brother, but you seem awfully sensitive about it. Thoughts of your own wedding coming into view since Edward and James’?”

Gordon stood up as he listened to the overhead speaker announce his train and straightened his tie, “Whether I am or not is none of your business.”

Scotsman rolled his eyes and laughed, “I’ll remember that when you start coming to me with proposal ideas.”

“Hmph!” Was all Gordon said as he opened the door, “Good day, Scotsman.”

As the door shut, Scot continued to laugh and watched as Gordon walked to his platform, “Good day to you too, little brother.”

——

As Gordon approached the platform he was unexpectedly swarmed by the school children. Although at first he was irritated, he quickly basked in the popularity as the kids asked for photos with him and even a few autographs. His driver and fireman chuckled as they watched him easily switch into celebrity mode. It’d been a while since he’d been like that. But due to Sodor becoming more and more of a popular destination and his relationship with Camille, he was quickly becoming a very popular engine to see.

“Just how fast can you really go?” A young man asked after taking a selfie with the tall engine.

“Well, I’ve been close to going 100 at one point and a few remodels later I’m sure I could manage.” Gordon responded proudly.

“That’s pretty fast for a steam engine.” Another commented. It took Gordon a bit of restraint from responding poorly to the scathing remark.

“Can you do it today?” An energetic youth asked, practically bouncing.

“Yeah! Yeah!”

“Go super fast!”

“Let’s fly down the rails!”

Gordon cleared his throat, “As exciting as it would be, Sir Topham Hatt has strict rules for his railway and I’m afraid the speed is much lower than 100.”

“Awwww…” the school children pouted.

“I read your girlfriend works at the animal park we’re going to.” A girl said, swinging back and forth on her heels. That got a few “oooo’s” from the other children.

Gordon smirked proudly, “The Yellow Rose works proudly and efficiently at the Animal Park. She’s a wonderful companion. She’s one of the most useful engines on the island.”

“Do you love her?” Another girl asked, clearly interested. In fact, many of the female children were coming closer at the change of topic.

Gordon smiled at the thought of Camille, “Yes, I do. Very much.”

“Awww!!”

“That’s so cute!”

“Do you guys kiss?” Asked another.

Gordon was a bit shocked at the straightforward question, “I don’t believe that’s any of your-“

“Do you guys have sex?” A male student asked with a bit of a smug and rude tone.

“Now, just a minute-!” Gordon thundered at the question.

“Ummm they’re trains, I don’t think they can have sex.” Another pondered out loud.

“But he’s got a human form!” The other retaliated.

“My dad works on the mainland railway and he says engines can have intercourse even in their engine forms.”

“Enough!!” One of the teachers appeared after seeing the flustered and irritated Gordon and then upon hearing the students' conversation, “You owe him an apology! Maybe you should stay behind at the station and write a paper about how asking such intimate questions is both rude and inappropriate.” Some of the students groaned and rolled their eyes. The teacher glared, “And your parents have to read and sign it.”

That got their attention quickly and they offered apologies, though Gordon felt there was no true remorse. He simply snorted and began to turn away, eager to text Camille and give her warning of just what’s coming her way.

“Oh, Mr. Engine, I do have an appropriate question though.” A meek voice called out.

Gordon glanced at the smaller child who spoke out. They shrank at his size and demeanor. Gordon sighed and faced them, remembering Camille’s words about approaching shy children. He knelt down to their eye level and tried his best to not look intimidating.

“Yes?”

The child swallowed and looked bashfully at the ground, “Maybe The Yellow Rose will know this better but ummm I was curious about the new wolves. The new ones born at the park.” Gordon nodded, signaling them to continue, “D-do you know when they were born? I’m hoping to see them but if they’re too little they won’t be out in the enclosure.”

Gordon looked down in thought. He did remember Camille excitedly telling him about the new baby animals, but he wasn’t sure when exactly she mentioned it.

“I’m afraid I don’t know. Cam- er… The Yellow Rose is more up to speed on that sort of information.” He stood and smiled.

The child nodded and smiled back, just happy with the interaction, “O-ok. Thank you, Mr. Express Engine, Sir.”

He nodded as the child turned back to their teacher and all the children began flooding into the coaches. Gordon began to walk to the front of the coaches but, before shifting, reached for his phone to send a message to Camille.

Upon finding their recent conversation, he pressed his thumb to the mic icon and asked: “When were the wolves born?” and quickly put it away after sending it to Camille, shifting onto the rails and getting himself coupled up.

——

Camille stared at her phone in utter confusion and concern. She had read the text over and over again and there was no figuring out exactly what Gordon had meant.

As she waited at the front gate for his arrival, she was asked to be part of the greeting committee for these children, she kept reading the text repeatedly. When she heard the familiar sound of Gordon’s whistle she looked up and straightened her uniform, putting her phone away.

The nearby zookeeper smiled at her teasingly, “Are you excited because you’ve been asked personally to help with this tour group or is it because your boyfriend is here?”

“A little of both actually.” Camille admitted with a smile, “It’s nice to see each other besides coming home some days exhausted. There are days when things run into the late hours that we only see each other for a brief moment before we fall asleep.”

“Must be nice.” The zookeeper sighed, “I just go home alone and eat ramen.”

“You can’t possibly be that bad off.” Camille looked at her with a shocked expression.

“No, no, I’m not. However, I’m a horrible cook.” She laughed, “Ramen’s easy.”

“I’m going to bring you some easy recipes tomorrow.” Camille chuckled, “There’s no way you’re that bad.”

“Try me.” She responded with a grin.

Gordon came to a halt in front of the Sodor Animal Park station and let off an exceptional amount of steam. He could hear some of the middle schooler’s cheer at him and a proud smirk crossed his features. As they began to disembark and the zookeeper spoke with the teachers and Camille made her way over to her great engine.

“Heya, handsome.” She smiled, walking up to his buffer, “What brings a fancy thing like you all the way down to these parts?”

Gordon smirked at her, but played along, “Oh, you know, I couldn’t help my curiosity when I heard from the grapevine that there was actually a famous engine around, as you say, ‘these parts’. I thought they must be wrong as I’m the only famous engine on this island.”

Camille crossed her arms, the grin on her face bright, but challenging. She ran her tongue over her teeth in thought, “Well, I hate to burst your bubble but you are, in fact, wrong. There is another famous engine here.”

Gordon feigned shock, “Oh really now?”

She nodded her head, “Yes sir.”

“Well, they must not be that famous. I would’ve heard about them otherwise.” He replied snootily looking away, but he couldn’t help stealing a glance back at her.

She huffed, “Well, maybe you haven’t heard of them because they had no desire for you to hear about her.”

“Oh, it’s a her engine, is she?” Gordon replied.

“As a matter of fact, yes. She’s the prettiest engine around these parts. No engine would dare compete against her.”

“So she’s famous for her beauty.”

Camille turned and pointed a finger at him, “Not just that! She’s got an award winning personality, she loves animals, and she’s mighty fine at romancing great big tender engines.”

“Hmmm.” Gordon said, looking in thought, “I might have to see this famous engine then. She sounds… intriguing.”

She climbed aboard his buffer and sat down, swinging her legs, “She’s a lot more than that, buddy.”

“Beautiful, smart, great personality, sounds like she has it all.”

“Well, she is missing something. One fatal flaw I’m afraid to her perfect record.”

“Oh?”

She looked up at him, a hint of romanticism and sorrow in her eyes, “She has no one to call her own.”

“Oh, that is sad.” Gordon responded with a soft smile.

“If only she had someone big and strong to hold her on sleepless nights.” She stood looking at him.

“Must be terrible.” He said with a small nod.

“It is. It’s very cold.” She inched towards him.

“I could keep her warm.” He said with a low growl, his firebox heating up.

“I bet you could.” She smiled and kissed his cheek softly.

“Awwwwwwwww!!!” Came a chorus from behind the two.

Camille pulled back with a blush and a smile, while Gordon did his best to regain his composure, his rather proud personality and appearance taking over once more. The teacher moved the children along with the zookeeper, who looked at Camille wide-eyed at her boldness.

Camille cleared her throat and looked at Gordon, “Looks like I’ve got to go.” She smiled at him, tracing a finger on his cheek.

“Don’t get yourself in trouble on my account.” Gordon huffed.

“I know you’re doing it for show.” She smirked and kissed his cheek one last time, lowering his defenses once more though he tried to hide it, “Love you, big guy.”

She hopped down from his buffer and was unable to see the clear blush on his cheeks and across his nose at her words. He fumbled a bit, clearing his throat, “Love you too, darling.”

As she went to join the others, she remembered his text and turned to look at him a bit curiously, “Let’s talk about your text later tonight after work, OK, Gordon?”

Gordon raised an eyebrow at her, but whistled and nodded in response. He watched her walk back and eagerly took questions from the preteenagers and was very animated with them, which caused much laughter and excitement. He whistled twice signaling his departure and went to a side rail to take a much needed nap. However, he couldn’t get her words out of her head.

Why on earth would she need to discuss wolf pups?

——

When Gordon and Camille were able to reunite, it was late into the night. Camille had worked exceptionally hard at the animal park that day, tour after tour and question after question and had gotten quite dirty. She refused to come home in such a state and had herself washed down and her firebox cleaned out to be prepared for the following day. She yawned loudly and stretched her back, leaning far back with her hands out and interlocked, when she joined her beloved on the bed. He had the news on, which was boring but whatever, and was patiently waiting for her. She quickly changed into a tank top and pajamas and curled in next to him. She sighed contentedly in the heat.

“You sure know how to make a girl feel welcomed and comfortable.” She said, snuggling into him.

He chuckled and looked at her, “Anything for my famous engine.”

She grinned and chuckled, “You know it!”

The two sat in silence, Camille occasionally yawning and stretching, changing positions to get more comfortable against him.

“So, about that text.” She said with a hint of humor.

He didn’t take the hint, flipping channels, “What of it?”

She sat up, “What do you mean ‘what of it’? That was such a weird and out of character text!”

Gordon looked at her with a cocked eyebrow, “Is it wrong to take an interest in the animals?”

“Interest?!” She said with a shocked expression.

He turned to her, ignoring the TV, genuinely confused, “I don’t understand why you’re so shocked. It’s your job and I didn’t know the answer. A student asked me about it and I figured it would be better to ask you.”

Camille’s face held genuine horror and amazement, “A student asked you that?! And you asked me?! You considered that?!”

“Why are you getting loud?? What’s the big deal?” He asked, getting irritable.

“Wait, are we talking about the same text?” Camille asked, squinting in confusion, “I don’t think we’re talking about the same text.”

“I haven’t sent you another text and you never answered me. I texted you through my watch and then shifted to get the children to their destination. I just figured you were busy. Why is this riling you up so badly??” He asked exasperated.

Silence.

Camille seemed to be in thought and then asked cautiously, “You used Siri, yeah?”

Gordon sighed, “Yes, as I’ve done before when I’m in a hurry.”

Silence.

Then laughter.

Gordon looked at Camille like she had grown a third eye as she began laughing hysterically.

“What has gotten into you?”

She picked up his phone and tried to stop laughing, “You need to read your last text to me.” She handed it to him.

Gordon raised an eyebrow at her but indulged her nonetheless. As he opened up his texts and went to his and Camille’s conversation he was prepared to show her exactly what he had texted. However, to his utter embarrassment the text did not, in fact, ask ‘when were the wolves born?’. He covered his eyes in horror and dropped the phone. Camille burst out laughing again.

“Ohhhh, the indignity…”

“Read it out loud.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Do you see why I was so genuinely concerned and confused?”

“I absolutely do.”

“Are you going to look at me?”

“No. Never again.”

Camille continued to laugh curling onto his lap and trying to pry his hands from his face. He wouldn’t budge. She tried moving a finger just to look at his eyes. Nope, that wasn’t working. She laughed as he slowly sank down into his pillow and turned the TV off. He rolled over, effectively removing her from him, and curled into the bed, pulling the covers over his head.

“Goodnight, Camille.”

She continued to giggle, “Goodnight, Gordon. You silly.”

“I’m not silly.” He said with offense.

“Well, you’re something then.” She said, spidering her fingers up and down his back in a massage-like manner.

“We speak of this to no one.” He said, a bit snippy about it.

“No one dear.”

She looked at her phone again and the laughter started right up again. There in the English letters read Gordon’s text:

“Where’s the wolf porn?”

[blazehedgehog]

Is it possible to make a game like Sonic 3 today within the deadlines it had back then? Pixel art, physics and all.

Why wouldn't it be?

It was the third game in the series. They already had a very strong idea of what they were trying to do with the character, they already had proven technology under them that they could easily extend and upgrade. They had been doing this on Sonic for three years already, and some of the people had been working for Sega even longer than that.

These were talented, experienced people. Professionals. Having the prior knowledge to be able to say, "if we do X, then we get Y" allowed them to work quickly and efficiently.

So I would compare it to, say, what I did with OverBite. OverBite was a game I made for a Clickteam Fusion Game Jam in 2016. We had from like, September 30th or even the 29th up to October 31st to make an entire game. It came out to something like 33 days.

So I made this game where you play as Dracula. I wrote all the code, designed all the mechanics, made all of the sprites, and built all of the levels. Alone. By myself. A single person. The only other person to help me with anything was my old friend Malcolm Brown, who handed me some music.

I had JUST bought Clickteam Fusion 2.5 on Steam, which means it had 0 hours of usage registered. I used it to make OverBite, which means I could track exactly how many hours I spent working on the game, and though I don't remember the exact total, I remember after doing the math it ended up shaking out to between 9 to 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 33 days. It was more than 300 hours total.

Again. For one person. I'm not saying it's the greatest game ever made. The level design in particular was extremely last second -- literally, I was down to the last day, only really had finished the gameplay engine, so I cobbled together four levels in a few hours and put it up seconds before the deadline at midnight. But the point is that I had worked in Clickteam Fusion for a decade and a half and could execute on my needs very well. I knew the software and the process like the back of my hand.

Now imagine having two people like that. Or five. Or ten. "300 hours of work in one month" suddenly turns into 3000 hours in one month. Using tech they already have, and proven gameplay concepts they have a lot of familiarity with.

It still wasn't easy, mind you. But the concepts that made it work back then not only still work today, they probably work even better because you aren't fighting to squeeze things down into such limited hardware. Like, the entire reason a game jam can even exist as a concept at all is because at a certain level of development, things are just easier now.

A game jam in 1994 is an impossible concept to think of because the tools had to be so super specialized to an incredibly narrow kind of work environment. You had to be a genius computer scientist to get something like Sonic the Hedgehog to function, never mind how much money it would cost to get something like a development kit.

Today, literally anyone can pick up a copy of Godot or Unreal 5, watch a few Youtube tutorials, and make a game from their bedroom with consumer tools. And those tools are faster, easier, and more intuitive to work with than anything that came before. It cannot be understated what a huge concept that is, and how that used to be totally impossible 15-20 years ago.

(And before some British dude rolls up like "yeah well you could always do that with the amiga" -- that's true, but it's also still different, and the fact that you can just give Microsoft $20 to unlock "Developer Mode" on an Xbox and start pushing Unity and Unreal games you develop on your PC to a console is still mindblowing in context.)

And it trickles down, too. If you know the conversion process, you can use these nice amazing modern tools to make proper retro games that run on real retro hardware.

All of this is to say that just because it's easier doesn't mean it should be done. OverBite absolutely slaughtered me. 11 hours of game development a day, 7 days a week, for almost five solid weeks was deeply unhealthy, physically and mentally. I haven't come close to finishing any game project, ever, since OverBite. It fried me.

And on Sonic Team's side, Sonic 3 was so massively stressful for them that they quit making Sonic games for almost half a decade. Crunch time development like that hurts in many ways, both visible and (mostly) invisible.

But yes, it could still absolutely be done.

[paldean-ranger-brandy]

Finally paid a visit to the crater base today. They've been bugging me to come by ever since I was cleared to come in for paperwork again. Been avoiding it because it's super open and chaotic there, I'd never be able to get any paperwork done. Plus I like my base better. Cooler rangers there n all.

But they just kinda called a taxi to me today and said they wanted to talk in person about the paradox mission and all the data we're collecting n stuff. So I didn't really have a choice. Which is a bit of an asshole move, but i have been avoiding them so like. Fair I guess.

Anyway. While I was there they brought in an iron valiant that had been poached and shipped to Johto (of course). The crater crew handled it really well, they were super vigilant and efficient with all their checks and data collection. But the entire time I just. Couldn't look directly at it. I just kept thinking how it would take this thing like. 2 seconds and zero effort to take me out of the field permanently. And I was just really fucking unreasonably pissed the entire rest of the time I was there. I ended up leaving sooner than I should have because it was only a matter of time before I got really snarly with all of them.

I don't like this. I don't like what my reaction to these paradox mons has become. This isn't me. I'm not someone who becomes bitter and disdainful of pokemon just because they act the way they are supposed to act. That's the thing I find the most fascinating. I should be fascinated by these guys, I should adore them. But I don't. I'm pissed when they're around. I'm pissed that I've been taken out of the field because of one. I'm pissed that they have been taking up every single waking moment of my life for the past however long this fuckass mission has been.

Idk. I'm just tryna work through stuff I guess. I know it's not them I should be angry at. I know they're probably just as confused and angry that they keep ending up so far from home. I should be angry at whoever is making this happen, really. That would be the logical way to go about this. I just wish I could convince my fight or flight instincts that.

[audio-luddite]

Solid Stuff.

Lets talk about transistors. There are many types and methods and there have been many products made with them. It is rather silly to lump them all into one bin and complain.

Transistors are actually quantum devices. They use fields and potentials and extra electrons or holes in the orbitals of solid materials. They make possible all those things we all associate with modern life. Your smart phone uses millions of transistors. Even the screen is an array of transistors controlling what you see. Such stuff would be physically impossible with vacuum tubes.

They go back pretty far you probably didn't know. Basically as old as vacuum tubes in theory. The Field effect transistor was first described in 1925 conceptually. The common Bipolar Junction type was demonstrated in 1947 and commercialized in the 1950s. The 6550 vacuum tube was also developed in the 1950s. The MOSFET was invented in 1959 and had many advantages especially in energy efficiency. All that real work was done at BELL Labs a private research lab owned by Bell Telephone.

In Audio the challenge was finding ways to control ever more power. Up until the late 1960s a powerful home amplifier was about 60 Watts. That was the best you could do with using either Tubes or Transistors. Very clever designers worked both ways. Harman Kardon and Dynaco both sold factory made and Kits of audio stuff as the interest was mostly in hobbyists. Both companies used tube and transistor methods and moved from one to the other as soon as they could. But they sold both tubes and Transistor equipment for some time.

Why did they change? They found transistors better. They liked the performance and manufacturing advantages. A stereo tube amplifier uses three big transformers. A transistor type needs one. Tube amplifiers use lethal voltages and are fragile. Transistors don't and aren't. And in the late 60s to early 70s transistors sounded better. Such was the opinion of the Original golden ear J Gordon Holt.

Tubes were "fuzzy" and obscured detail. Tubes had weak or muddy Bass. Transistors had clarity and speed and Power. One of the best amplifiers of that age was the Harman Kardon Citation 12. 60 Watts dual mono with quasi-complementary output transistors. Some people still say quasi is better than actual full complementary as you can properly match the transistors. That HK still sounds really good. Better than a newer Carver amp I have.

The age of the super amp was all transistor. SAE, Dynaco, Phase Linear all just added more transistors to the output and got 100, 200, 250, and then 350 Watts per channel. That followed the development of better transistors that could push more current and volts. People liked what they could do.

As in everything they were not perfect. Nothing is perfect. And today there is an avalanche of marketing and nonsense. This is best, that is best. Companies come and go. Old ways are rediscovered and called new.

Hey it is not over. People spend crazy money on the latest thing. It has a lot in common with joining a Cult. I refuse to drink the Kool Aid.

It took me a while to realize that it is not about best, or even better, just different. There are different things to hear. My lovely 1990s era tube amp has wonderful textures, but obscures tiny details I know are there. I miss them, but will forgive it for now.

I think I should just start calling it my winter amp. Toasty warm like a nice fire in the fireplace. It will rest in the summer, and I will get my tiny details back. Not about better.

There are obsolete technologies revived like tiny Single End Triode "Class A" amplifiers and big horn speakers. People can forgive flaws and limitations if they really want to. Hey I do. Old designs from the 1950s are recreated and people really like them. You can buy a brand new recreation of the Harman Kardon Citation I and II classic tube preamp and amp set. Just like the original only new parts. Old "Classic" equipment is lovingly restored to as new, but this returning to the roots still sounds like the 1950s. It wasn't that good people.

I have LPs that are pure analogue. Performance to professional tape to disc. They sound really good. I have LPs that were recorded digitally and they sound great too. I have really good CDs. So the newer technology is not automatically worse. Some is, but that is the production chain and often commercial pressures to "sound good on AM radio" like that Carly Simon LP I got.

You can build a justifiably high end system with transistors. It will sound great and be reliable. You do not have to apologize, and yes you can still socialize with the tube people.

[glassautomaton]

Hi there Glass! Me again, yes, the pest in your askbox..

Today, I come bearing questions (and concepts) about this specific line in your sandbox!

I am very interested in the Thorn and was wondering if you could explain how your Thorn works? That and how it would effect Iris?

Also!

I've been thinking about this for some days now, and yesterday I mocked up some Thorn infected Iris drawings for fun! You were the one who gave me the idea, so I'll share the drawings with you! :]

Small explanation for these: I'm just going to explain how everything works in my design. Feel free to add on or critique me or whatever you wish.

In the early stages of Iris being assimilated with the Thorn, her veins start running black, it's not super obvious at first, it just gathers around scars, and her hands, but it isn't a lot.

As time goes on, it grows, veins become darker, then some discoloration on her scars as they begin to rapidly change to black as well.

Then, the thorns push up from her skin. They accumulate with stress, but there are specific ones that can't just be picked out of her skin. (Like the ones lining her spine, the ones on her shoulders, the ones slowly coming out of her forehead, and I am guessing there is maybe a center one, the specific piece of the thorn that assimulated with Iris in the first place, but I don't think that would push up from her skin for atleast a while.)

(Also, yes, I know horns are a little out there, but one, it's fun. Two, I think it ties in nicely with all the religious imagery that seems to follow Iris as a character. Three, it looks badass.)

Anyway! Yeah, feel free to spill your thoughts on that, as for how all of this is happening? I'm not very good with anomalous biology, so I'm not sure I have a specific explanation. Feel free to add on to the design or try and make an anomalous system for it. At the end of the day, this is for fun!

Thanks for reading one of my various rambles! Enjoy the rest of your day, my friend! :]

I’ll start off with saying that while, as I’ve said, I don’t really have an issue with anyone poking around my sandbox, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. The outline you’re taking that from was made mostly to help me get my thoughts in order, and I don’t update it with everything I consider changing. A lot of what’s on there is just stuff I’ll possibly include or things I’ve thought about but not decided on. All of which is to say everything there is subject to change and I wouldn’t take it as the end-all-be-all Devil’s Advocate Bible. If you want to snoop around to take a look at the brainstorming process or cut content (Voices Carry was originally going to be very different and probably much worse), then go ahead.

As for your actual questions, I’ll put them under a cut because they’re spoilers and also possibly subject to change as I said above.

Now, for the Bloom, I’m afraid this answer might disappoint, but I don’t want to say anything definitive in my series. Some of the remaining authors for Resurrection are still planning on bringing the mainline canon back, and I don’t want to step on their toes when it comes to what seems like the main mystery of the series.

I can tell you how I was thinking of making it function in broad strokes, though. It’s basically a conflux like we see in Voices Carry with perfect efficiency, and processes reality through itself, making sure anything it processes is close enough to how it should be that reality itself doesn’t collapse in on itself. Like a very coarse brush moving through the threads of reality, it makes sure they’re at least somewhat straight. Not perfectly, it doesn’t have to and that would be much more difficult, but good enough to where it doesn’t knot up and become a horrific mess.

It got corrupted in Incident Zero, like a compute you don’t shut off for too long. Too many small things adding up until a straw breaks the camel’s back, and the comb itself becomes knotted up, except the comb was also inextricably linked to the hair as well. After it was destroyed, its splinters retained its capability but lacked and force or programming telling them what to do, leaving them mostly inert.

I know this might stray from other stuff with the Bloom, but as I said, I might tweak this in the future as I brainstorm. I also didn’t touch on who/what created it and how, as I don’t want to tread on any toes.

As for the second half of your ask, this is probably where the “I only wrote this for myself and maybe people I would be able to immediately clear things up to” comes in, as the term “assimilation” isn’t really clear at all. I’ll say that I do like the design though, always a fan of that type of gradual corruption. However, when it comes to Iris, my thinking is that if she comes off as scary it should be for what she does rather than how she looks.

So, as for what assimilation actually means I’m this context, I was planning on having an example of that earlier on in the storyline, very shortly after Lily is introduced. Infovores process, assimilate, and spit out all kinds of information, and this extends to more than just memories of images. I was going to have Iris and Lily kill something called a Hymn Weaver, which is a follower of something close to a god who uses song and dance, or at least things that look and sound similar to it, to maintain reality from the spaces in between universes. The need arms to do this, and lots of them, so they sort of graft various arms onto themselves, but the arms aren’t physical. They Weavers assimilate the information that makes them up, like a psychic footprint, and call them up when they need to. So, assimilation is more along the lines of an Inforvore processing all the information that makes something up and being able to use it in other ways. Lily’s extremely proficient at information processing and assimilation, but can’t actually force changes on reality like Iris can.

Fun fact, the Hymn Weavers’ god, the High Weaver, is a mass of so many limbs from all manner of things that whatever it used to be beneath all of them has been long forgotten. It’s part of the “Triumvirate” mentioned in 6907. I actually have a lot more lore of what was mentioned in there, but a) that’s not the point of this ask, though I’d be more than happy to talk about it and b) I don’t think my SCPs have nearly as much of a following as my tales.

Hopefully that gets everything. And this is all sort of a peek pegging the curtain here, and things aren’t final or explained as well as they would be otherwise in an actual article. If you’ve got any questions, as always, let me know.

[cdevroe]

Making Tuff improvements

My approach to building Tuff, my static site generator that I began working on last November, was to jump in as quickly as possible by publishing my personal website publicly very early in the development process. Doing so forced me to make rapid improvements and to focus on the most important features.

By spending 5am to 7am most weekday mornings I was able to publish my entire website publicly within 14 days of starting to code and I wrote a short blurb on how Tuff works within 30. Considering that my personal site has a portfolio, podcast, and thousands of blog posts I was surprised by that timeline.

As a quick aside, this 5am to 7am time slot for coding personal projects did not appear on my typical day post from January 2021 because I wasn't doing it then. As I get older I find myself waking earlier and earlier. Rather than blow all of that time on YouTube (I love my YouTube) I decided, just a few weeks after that post, to begin working on personal projects instead. I've done a lot of programming, photography, and side hustle business during these early morning sessions over the last two years and I hope to continue. Waking early and being productive feels like a super power.

Development on Tuff has not stopped. I've been chipping away at improvements to this website, the efficiency of the build process, and adding the capability to build multiple websites. As you can see in the changelog, each release brings a few small improvements but they begin to add up over time.

One feature that I've missed the most since switching to Tuff for my personal website has been search, which I finished a first version of yesterday.

In very early January, just a month or so into development, I added a local command line search command to Tuff to help me find posts in my archive. It works pretty well and I continue to use this to help me find older posts. But I knew I needed to add on site search so that visitors to my site could do some basic searching. I wasn't sure how I was going to go about it statically. Should I build a client side search forcing the visitor of the site to download some large index? Should I use a third party tool? Should I do what many have done and push people to a search engine?

I thought, don't be dogmatic about building static. Most modern content management systems are full of bloat, load too much unnecessary junk on the page, and have far more features than most people need for a personal site. It is why I decided to build Tuff to begin with. But that doesn't mean I have to get all self righteous about server-side code and only publish HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I can sprinkle in some server-side code where it makes sense.

That is why I'm now calling Tuff a Static+ Site Generator. S+SG. Is this a thing? I don't know. Don't forget, in my original building Tuff post I mentioned that I never looked at other static site generators. And I still haven't. I'm oblivious to best practices.

As of today, I use Tuff to build three sites; this site you're reading now, a private local network website that showcases over 100,000 of our family photos by date, and a new static site for The Watercolor Gallery that I hope to finish before the end of the year. In addition to that I'd like to begin working on publishing Stripe Transfer, Stupid, and at least three other websites that I've yet to debut with it.

Tuff is now a tool I plan to use for the rest of my computing life (see also). I love it.

[pollen]

AHH ok i'm tipsy. i'm venting about work

so sometimes we get something big from the client, and big meaning 25+ pages of dense text. and we got something like that recently, a 76 page provider manual that outlines all of the processes a provider working with my client (the medical network) would need to know. and because it's 76 pages (75 plus a cover) it's a beast. and mostly text because it's a manual. so for a proofer, it's really daunting. and because i got promoted to an executive position, i'm not supposed to be proofing. however, because i manage the account, i have to check the work of our proofers, which actually creates more work for me because they're not as good as this as i am, which might be evident given i started as a content specialist and am now an account executive. anyway

so this 76 page manual went through one of our proofers. let's call her anna. i assigned anna to this on, well let me check. april 7th. and i asked her to proof it. and she reached out to me and was like "what's the reading level i should be proofing for?" which 1. not a concern of proofing, that's a copyediting concern. 2. i have no idea because it's b2b and i know b2c needs to be a 4th grade reading level. she assumed 9th grade and i was like "that's fine, i'll look into it, but please proof for general punctuation/accuracy in the meantime" and she did not do that. so a week later, when i finally had time to look at this, i assigned it back to her and she did proof it. and once that was done, i passed it off to design to implement, because that's how this works. someone proofs something, you pass it to design, you QA it.

and then i was busy and couldn't get back to this until like, today. so i began to QA it today. and it was a fucking disaster. i mean, absolutely ridiculous. there's a lot of mentions of CMS because my client is medicare, and the very first mention said "Center for Medicare Services" and anna didn't catch that. it should be Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. so it's like, super glaring, the issues.

so i pulled my supervisor and our brand strategist in on it during a debrief we had today and i was like. listen. this is bad. and my supervisor said she'd escalate it to the vp of accounts. and she also took everything off my plate today so i could do an entire proof of this thing on my own because i'm the only good proofer in this agency and i'm an executive, not a proofer. and i spent 3.5 hours proofing this thing, going through and reviewing anna's proofs. and on the working document, i'd mark up changes for the designer (who i really like and trust a lot, and thankfully she caught some of the missed proofs and fixed them on her own), and on the document i was QAing against, i'd mark up what was missed/wrong and why.

and all that time i spent on it, acrobat decided it wasn't going to cooperate. "bad parameter" it said. both files disappeared from my computer, despite literally knowing i'd saved at least the working document because i put my initials in the file name as per convention to track who touched a document. it had my initials in the file name. and i did not move it to my trash, but it wasn't on my computer anywhere. and 255 comments later, i was left with nothing. i want to scream

i'm just so unbelievably frustrated because i spent like half my day working on this for nothing. and it would not have required that much work from me if anna would've proofed correctly to begin with. and she's the only proofer readily available now that i got promoted twice. but i'm truly the only one who actually cares enough to do the work the way it needs to be done.

it would've been so much cheaper for the client and so much more time-efficient if i'd just proofed it myself from the jump. and the director of ops is supposed to be looking for another proofer, but that got put on the back burner because internally we have bigger fish to fry

but i'm not supposed to proof! and i wish i could! because it would save me so much time and effort! and the client would get work turned around so much faster! and the quality of work would be better! i truly do not understand why this is so difficult to do. i gave her the brand guide. i told her i'd be here to help if she needed it. she's not qualified for this and i want her out, but unfortunately she's the easier one of our two proofers to work with. we have anna, who's only there from 7–11am, and another proofer who's only there for 4 hours on thursdays. and the thursday proofer is rude as shit and is worse than anna. so i prefer working with anna

but it all falls on me. it's still my job to make sure the work is done correctly, that we're not overbilling the client or delivering subpar work. but this is so unreasonable and unfair. and i'm so exhausted. and the awful thing is this really isn't even the most stressful thing in my life right now. work isn't all that bad. i want to lie face down in a ditch and rot!!!!! no i don't but i just want a break. or to be able to trust anyone i work with. y'know.

[lazar-codes]

14/04/2023 || Day 1

Spent all day wrapping up a class project in which we're creating a local library website system. Our code should've been done yesterday, but that's the beauty of setting early internal due dates; if we're not finished, there's still time to fix things.

A good chunk of today's work has gone into making sure that there are appropriate error messages being displayed to the user under certain conditions (i.e. is the user logged in? If not, there should be a message urging them to if they want to place a book on hold, etc...). Unfortunately the way we went about this wasn't very efficient, so cut to me spending hours copying and pasting various lines of code between 6 files and praying I'm pasting it in the right section. If I were to recreate this whole system, at least now I know how to make things more efficient :D

But...I did manage to figure out one important thing. Within our system, we wanted to allow the user to sign up for events, as well as sign up for X amount of seats in said event.

We have one page where we display all of our events using a foreach loop, allowing us to make the code generic and easy to edit when we're dealing with multiple items. However, to register for an event, we used a modal that will display the maximum amount of seats for that event. However, today I learned that the modal will only contain the information of the last item in the loop (i.e. when the loop is done iterating). We couldn't figure out how to pass the specific item's data into the modal instead of only the latest item's data, and were about to scrap the idea of registering for multiple seats altogether. But...I managed to solve it in a janky way: when you click on the button that will open the modal, instead of calling the modal.Open() function, we call another function that will assign a temporary item the properties of our specific item, and from there we can open the modal and pass our temporary item's data into it. This ultimately allows us to have a modal be specific to that item, and not only the latest item from our loop. Thank god.

Here's our simple result:

Here's the code for the modal. When pressing the "register" button, we first call the RegisterForEvent() function that will let us assign our current item in the foreach loop to a variable, then we open the modal. After hitting the modal's "register" button, the Register() function gets called and passes the variable that we had just assigned. This allows us to get variables from that specific item to display on the modal.

And here's our logic in the functions being called.

This was super long and rambly but hey, that was my day and attempt to deal with this problem, and it worked!

[jokertrap-ran]

[スタオケ] La Corda d'Oro Starlight Orchestra Main Story Chapter 3-5 Translation

*Starlight Orchestra Masterlist *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *Main story tag will be #Main Starlight

Sakuya: *Sigh* I’m beat… Who knew that we’d be getting such a huge influx of people who want to join us all in one go…

Sakuya: Just how many hours did we end up spending creating our roster and confirming which section everyone was in…?

⊳ Choice: Thanks for the help

Sakuya: No need to thank me. You wouldn’t be able to finish even after the sun sets if I’d left you to handle it alone. Sakuya: It may be a lot of work, but at least the process was simple enough. Plus, it would have been more efficient to split the work.

⊳ Choice: Looks like things are gonna be harder from here on out

Sakuya: How can you afford to be so laid-back about this? Sakuya: I think you already know this, but you’re going to have to be the string that pulls all the girls together

⊳ Choice: The power of bishies…

Sakuya: What a selfish motive they have to be joining the Orchestra…

Sakuya: Even so, there’s no denying how skilled the students from music ed are. I guess we’ll just have to close an eye to fulfill the conditions of our upcoming performance.

Sakuya: …Come on, let’s hurry back before the dinner that the Dorm Mom made turns cold.

☆ ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♬◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ☆

Sakuya: …What’s wrong? Is there something in the mail?

Sakuya: There’s an unknown brown envelope. But… it’s addressed to you, isn’t it? Why not open it?

Sakuya: I meant once you’re inside, not here.

This is…!

Sakuya: You won a prize from a magazine prize competition? People actually win these competitions? Wow, that’s amazing.

Sakuya: I don’t know what you won, but congratulations. Wait, why are you grabbing onto my arm?

I won a pair of tickets to the concert next weekend! And the special guest is none other than Tsukishiro Kei!

⊳ Choice: Let’s go together!

Sakuya: Huh? Why me!?

Sakuya: Wasn’t that concert the one that sold out almost immediately after ticket sales went up? Winning the prize competition aside, you’ve actually won something super premium…

Sakuya: But I don’t really want to go either. Can’t you go by yourself?

⊳ Choice: I want to go with you

Sakuya: …! Why, me, specifically…?

⊳ Choice: I don’t want to waste a seat…

Sakuya: That makes sense. It’s a premium ticket, so it would be bad if it went to waste… Sakuya: But, still…

☆ ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♬◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ☆

Sakuya: Well, it’s not like I can bear to turn you down since you asked…

Sakuya: And I won’t turn back and leave now that I’m already here, so I’ve pretty much resigned myself to my fate…

Guy: I can’t wait! I wonder what kind of performance we’ll see today? 

Girl: Haa… What should I do? I’m going to be seeing Tsukishiro-kun in the flesh soon! I’m so excited that my hands are shaking!

Sakuya: I heard that the tickets were sold out, but look at the crowd… Not to mention all the press.

Sakuya: Let’s hurry and go find our seats. It’ll be even harder to get inside if the crowd gets bigger.

☆ ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♬◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ☆

Guy 1: Brahms' Violin Concerto… It sounds more beautiful than I thought…

Guy 2: It’s perfectly played with no mistakes at all. He makes it seem as if it’s merely a simple song… Astounding!

Girl 1: Ahh… What a magnificent Brahm melody…

☆ ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♬◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ☆

Sakuya: …Watch out for the steps over there. You’ve been out of it since the concert ended, and you look like you’re about to fall over anytime now.

⊳ Choice: It was an amazing performance…

Sakuya: …It was.

⊳ Choice: I’m glad I went to the concert

Sakuya: …Yeah.

Sakuya: But it’s also not like you just learned about how great Tsukishiro Kei is today.

Sakuya: And you are going to be competing against him in the future. That’s the music you’re going to be going up against.

Sakuya: All in all, who would’ve thought that he’d play a Brahm piece today of all things?

Sakuya: It’s the same piece that we’re going to be performing at the concert. I can still hear it reverberating in my ears…

☆ ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♬◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ☆

I wonder if we can even perform music that surpasses Tsukishiro Kei’s…

☆ ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♬Main Starlight♬◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ☆

Previous Part: (Chapter 3-4) Next Part: (Chapter 3-6)

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iPhone 16: The Complete Guide for Indian Buyers – Unirav

Apple iPhones have always been a symbol of premium technology and innovation. The much-anticipated iPhone 16 is no exception, promising incredible features and enhanced performance that Indian buyers are eager to explore. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about the iPhone 16, including its features, pricing, availability, and why Unirav is the best place to purchase your device.

What’s New in iPhone 16?

The iPhone 16 is designed to push boundaries and deliver a superior experience to its users. Here are some key features:

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The iPhone 16 comes with the latest A17 Bionic chip, making it faster and more efficient than ever before. Whether you’re multitasking, gaming, or using demanding applications, this chip ensures smooth performance.

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The iPhone 16 boasts a 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion technology. This makes scrolling and viewing incredibly smooth. Its ceramic shield front cover adds an extra layer of durability.

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Apple has made significant improvements to the camera system in the iPhone 16. It includes a 48MP primary sensor with enhanced night mode and 8K video recording capabilities. Whether you’re a photography enthusiast or a casual user, the iPhone 16 ensures stunning photo and video quality.

4. Battery Life

The iPhone 16 promises up to 30 hours of battery life, which is a major improvement over its predecessors. Coupled with the fast-charging feature, your phone will always be ready when you need it.

5. 5G Connectivity

With expanded 5G capabilities, the iPhone 16 allows for faster download and streaming speeds, making it ideal for Indian users in metro cities where 5G networks are expanding rapidly.

 Why Should Indian Buyers Consider the iPhone 16?

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The iPhone 16 is perfect for users who demand seamless performance for gaming, work, or content creation. Its A17 chip and iOS 17 make it one of the most powerful smartphones available today.

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Whether you are a social media influencer or love capturing memories, the advanced camera system makes the iPhone 16 stand out. Indian festivals and family events can now be captured in stunning detail.

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iPhones are known for their longevity, and the iPhone 16 is built with durable materials like Ceramic Shield glass, ensuring your device stays functional and pristine for years.

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Apple products have a high resale value in India. So, investing in an iPhone 16 is not just a purchase, but a long-term investment.

iPhone 16 Price in India

The iPhone 16 is expected to start at ₹1,19,999 for the base variant, making it a premium option. However, you can also explore easy financing options and offers when purchasing from trusted affiliates like Unirav.

How to Buy the iPhone 16 from Unirav

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Unirav’s excellent customer service ensures a smooth purchasing experience, from browsing to delivery.

How to Choose the Right iPhone 16 Model

The iPhone 16 will be available in various models, including the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. Here’s a quick guide to help you decide which one suits your needs:

1. iPhone 16 Pro

– 6.1-inch display – Triple-camera system – Ideal for professional creators and photographers – Available in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB variants

2. iPhone 16 Pro Max

– 6.7-inch display – Long-lasting battery – Perfect for those who want the best of everything – Available in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB variants

iPhone 16 for Business Users

If you are a business professional in India, the iPhone 16 offers robust tools for work. Its integration with Apple’s suite of apps and services such as iCloud, iWork, and FaceTime makes it a perfect companion for meetings, presentations, and collaborations on the go. The iPhone 16 ensures that your work productivity remains uninterrupted, regardless of where you are.

Conclusion

The iPhone 16 is a game-changer in the smartphone industry, offering a mix of cutting-edge technology, style, and longevity. For Indian buyers, it’s a perfect blend of performance, aesthetics, and value. Buying from a trusted affiliate like Unirav ensures that you receive genuine products along with exclusive offers and flexible payment options.

So, why wait? Head over to Unirav and purchase your iPhone 16 now to experience the future of smartphones today!

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10 Great Jazz Saxophone (Alto Sax) Players

10 Great Jazz Saxophone (Alto Sax) Players

Charlie Parker A.K.A “The Bird” Let’s get the obvious out of the way first since this list could not be possible without him. I’m talking about Charlie Parker, of course. As far as the saxophone goes and lots of other instruments for that matter, the Bird is the father of bebop. The innovator, the creator, the instigator. He is without a doubt one of the great musical geniuses of the 20th century so far ahead of his time if he were alive today his playing would still sound contemporary. It’s ironic that many musicians that came after him were accused of being Charlie Parker clones, when in reality, Bird’s playing is still unmatched. As far as I know, this is the only existing live performance video of Bird playing. They are playing the Tad Dameron composition “Hot House” which is a contrafact, a bebop melody over the chord changes to the Cole Porter tune “What is this Thing Called Love.”

The technique is ridiculous. Check out the efficiency of finger movement and how rounded his fingers are. When he plays the palm keys none of the other fingers move. He’s playing on his King Super 20 alto which is now on display at that the Smithsonian Museum of Black American Culture. Notice he plays the middle D with the Eb palm key there to get a particular sound. This might make certain passages easier for those of you playing Charlie Parker transcriptions from the omnibook. So for me that is a short yet perfect solo. I just wish we had more video of him playing live since there is so much to be learned from watching the masters. Sonny Stitt From 1956-1966, I count 68 albums released by Stitt mostly as a leader. There are dozens of others outside that 10 year period. It’s just a phenomenal amount of recordings and they are all killer. For me if I put on a Sonny Stitt track, it leads down a rabbit hole of binge listening that can last for weeks So while Sonny Stitt had been criticized for mimicking bird I think that is unwarranted. First of all he clearly developed his own unique sound and style albeit inspired by Bird. But as the great Bob Mover once said to me, “if you don’t have a little bit of Bird in your playing you’re doing it wrong.” Check out this live recording of Loverman from I think 1965. Again notice the impeccable finger technique, and how much mouthpiece he takes in. That’s one of his classic diminished scale licks. Looks like he’s playing on a Selmer Mark VI with an otto link super tone master mouthpiece. Julian Cannonball Adderley Cannonball is off in a different direction. There is still the link to Charlie Parker’s bebop language but he’s got a very distinctive sound with a lot of edge in it. He played on a NY Meyer and a King Super 20 alto saxophone. Notice the heavy swing feel with his eighth notes and the very soulful style, which would eventually develop into what would be called soul jazz. Still very firmly rooted in bebop. Check out his embouchure. That’s why of love these videos. you can see he’s got his bottom lip rolled in quite a bit. Also he doesn���t take as much mouthpiece in his mouth. One of the all time great saxophone players in any style. I could listen to Cannonball all day long. You should check out his work with Miles Davis and his solo albums Johnny Hodges Known for his singing expressive tone, large bends, and wide vibrato – Johnny Hodges played lead alto with the Duke Ellington orchestra for almost his entire career from 1928 until 1970 (Except for a few years when he went solo). Ellington wrote many compositions and arrangements that featured Hodges unique alto sound as a soloist. Like this version of “I’ve Got it Bad.” He get’s that long bend, by slowly opening the E palm key. He’s playing on his Buescher Top Hat and Cane model alto here and what looks like a Berg Larson mouthpiece to me. I love watching these videos. Benny Carter Benny Carter was a contemporary of Johnny Hodges and while there were some similarities in their playing style, I can broadly generalize by saying Carter was more of a technical improvisor, where Hodges was more of an emotional one. Benny Carter was a prolific composer and arranger who also played the trumpet. Here he’s playing over the standard Indiana which are key changes for Charlie Parker’s Contrafact “Donna Lee.” Jackie McClean Jackie McClean is one of the most important alto saxophone players in the history of jazz. His career spanned 5 decades of prolific recording and performing as not only a leader, but also as a sideman on some of the most iconic jazz records with many of the giants of the art form. He is considered an early pioneer of what is called hard-bop. Bebop evolved into 2 distinct directions in the mid 50’s – hard bop and cool jazz. While cool jazz had more of a western classical music influence, hard-bop was very much black American music. Unfortunately I couldn’t find an older video of Jackie performing live, but here is one from 1988 with is son on tenor. While Jackie Mclean was very firmly rooted in the bebop tradition, he later developed his playing into a more avant garde style. In this solo he is playing a lot of tensions like whole tone scale patterns and then masterfully resolving them to typical blues language. Lee Konitz Lee Konitz is another highly influential and prolific saxophonist who’s career spanned seven decades. He’s one of the few to have developed a truly unique improvisational style. Here he is playing another contrafact called “Half Nelson” which is based on the chord changes to “Lady Bird.” Konitz was best known for his cool jazz recordings, he was on the iconic Birth of the Cool album that featured Miles Davis in 1949. While many jazz improvisors have their own vocabulary that gets reused a lot, when you listen to Konitz it always sounds like something new and truly improvised. Paul Desmond Best known for his composition “Take 5,” recorded with the Dave Brubek quartet, Paul Desmond’s alto sound is characteristic of the Cool school of west coast jazz in the 60’s. His sound is on the darker end of the spectrum and his articulation is very light and breathy. His playing is very thoughtful and melodic. The word delicate comes to mind for me. Clearly influenced by Lee Konitz, Desmond’s solos are studies in thematic development. Listen to how he takes an idea and plays it several ways before moving onto another melodic idea and repeating the process. Phil Woods Night in Tunisia. This comes from a recording in Paris from 1960. Phil Woods carried on the bebop tradition of Charlie Parker. You can hear a lot of that influence in the sound and phrasing. Again you can see impeccable finger technique and hear the swing feel. He’s always a very creative improvisor He actually married Charlie Parker’s widow and outside of the jazz world he is best known for his solo on Billy Joel’s Just the way You Are where he blows some killer bebop lines on a pop tune with a samba groove. That’s the 1970s for ya. Listen to him sneak a flat 5 in on that solo so smoothly. Love it. Ornette Coleman Ornette Coleman is the champion of individuality and doing your own thing regardless of what other people think or say. So whether or not avant garde music speaks to you, his commitment to innovation should serve as inspiration to anyone who’s ever had an original idea. His music has been deeply controversial from the beginning, but by removing the elements of form and strict harmony from his compositions, he managed to create a more truly improvised music than traditional jazz is. So there’s that. He was known for playing a white plastic Grafton saxophone but in this clip he’s playing a white lacquer Selmer Mark Vi with a low a key.

TOP 10 ALTO SAXOPHONE Players of all Time (Classic Jazz)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMrKsI0dn6s&t=11s Jay Metcalf reviews his list of top 10 of the greatest, most influential and must know alto sax players of all time. Players mentioned (not in any order): Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt, Cannonball Adderley, Johnny Hodges, Benny Carter, Jackie Mclean, Phil Woods, Lee Konitz, Paul Desmond, Ornette Coleman Read the full article