#they're redoing a bunch of it and even other than that a lot of the animals seemed rly lethargic :/

[bumpscosity]

also while i was at the zoo i saw these weird Beasts called chacoan peccaries and apparently when they were first discovered in the 1930s they just found fossils and thought they were extinct until they finally found living ones in the 70s. they look like what a kids drawing of a wild hog would look like and i like them very much. they aren't even pigs.

[valnyte]

Morganatic Idol first impressions from the prologue (just a bunch of incoherent thoughts)

• mc in prologue says this is her Cinderella story, and you know what, from Jace's route that I'm on so far, I can see it

• at this point we are all tired of the 1 month time limit set for IkeSeries [this is a +ONE game but they follow the formula] but here we go again (IkeVamp, IkePri, IkeVil, now Morganatic Idol)

• mc, my girl, LEAVE THE AEGIS COMPANY OH MY GOD 😭 (tldr they treat her like complete and utter crap)

• one does not simply steal a presentation idea and get away with it (bombastic side eye at MC's boss)

• also, what the hell is sakura on thinking mc will be able to balance both company work and housekeeping at the same time (Jace, we stan our makeup king, was the first one to point out how difficult that would be but nooo sakura didn't listen)

• my girl gonna die from overwork holy shit

• we don't meet Gem Cuddle until towards the end parts, they'd make a good setup for Act 2 because MC didn't even know they existed

• I need whatever MC has to even get any sort of energy at all because holy crap I would cry several times a day if I were her

Onto the characters

• Eito Sakura, is your head ok bdhshsh props for letting MC have a redo of her presentation but straight up invite her to work as a housekeeper and live in the same penthouse in less than an hour that you knew her? my guy, WHAT

• now to Gem Cuddle's Hitaki: oh he's sus alright, I wouldn't trust him at all, but if it were between him and Miu, I'd trust Hitaki more, smooth talker but very much up to no good (reminds me of Alfons in Ikemen Villains and yes they do share a seiyuu)

• Miu is actually reminding me of Gilbert von Obsidian and scares me more than Hitaki - Miu is very very suspicious and lowkey terrifying when he smiles because you know damn well he's plotting something (ily Gilbert but you are scawy)

• Nagi is the only seemingly sane one in Gem Cuddle with Hitaki and Miu are just going ふふふふふふ all over the place, the ONLY green flag in the entire game so far

• to exe Creed, I will constantly bring this up: WHAT THE HELL ARE YALL C A S U A L OUTFITS THOSE ARE NOT I T

• whoever said Xeno is just modern day Chev personality without the murder (and the bunch of dramatic medieval politcs), I might have to agree with you, and given how he's the poster boy, much of the prologue gives him quite a spotlight with MC noting a lot about him

• someone please give Ivy a break, he's giving me extreme IkeSen Hideyoshi vibes because he's pretty much the mom of exe Creed (his profile describes him as the older brother type, but no I'd say he's more of an actual mom because he has to constantly keep looking after the others in his group) and gives MC info here and there

• Jace is surprisingly bordering on polite in the prologue, albeit still flirty and one of the first to take notice and pay mind to MC aside from Sakura (just in case you forgot, Jace is the token womanizer and MC is quick to remember all of that in his route) but what the actual fuck is his casual outfit I'm still crying at it

• Finn's biggest impact on me was his casual outfit because why, just why, man, WHY, the whiplash I had seeing him in that because it reminds me of the guys I used to know who dressed godawful 😭😭😭, he's fast to back up Jace though with the "bruh wym let her live and work here as a housekeeper when she also works in a company" at Sakura

• Hugh is just eepy, that's it, he's so eepy in the prologue either Ivy or Finn nudge him awake, he's cute though

All in all, its a standard Ikemen Series style prologue, but if I am to be honest, Gem Cuddle is the actual group who I find bustling with more personality (despite two members being very two-faced) and dynamics from the prologue alone and not exe Creed. From a story standpoint, it all makes sense. MC sees exe Creed as robotic without emotions, it's difficult to see what exe Creed has in store through her eyes aside from the fact that they're hot idols that seemingly lack human emotion.

[muffinrecord]

Updates! YouTube Stuff

Howdy folks! Just a few updates for the youtube channel

Videos Names

Short and quick-- I ended up changing the name of the sprite animation videos into battle animation videos. I was thinking of calling them "Sprite Animations, Magia, and Doppel" but that felt too long.

To be honest, the videos don't get a lot of views or engagement-- which is fine. I think that archiving them is worth it, and I don't think these are the kind of things people will watch over and over? But I do wonder if they're not viewed as much because people might think that they are only sprite attacks and not magia and doppels and stuff. I'm kind of hoping that "Battle Animations" will clear things up, because I don't wanna add the "Magia and Doppels" part to it.

If it doesn't, then I'll leave it as is. It's a little sad if they're lesser viewed but that's fine ultimately.

TO BE CLEAR THIS IS NOT ME BITCHING ABOUT VIEWS, I WOULD STILL DO THIS EVEN IF THEY GOT LIKE 5 VIEWS IN TOTAL. Just, more that I was thinking that maybe I'm not being very clear about what's in them? ANYWAYS

Recordings

So! I've been trying to finish up my animation project so that I can devote my time and energy to other things~

This is how much is left to record! Naturally a lot of the collab girls are kind of. Well it's going to be a bit.

Chisato and Haruka are giving me pause. When I started recording about two years ago (and then deleted all the files and started over and then deleted them all gain and started over again), I kinda assumed that Suzune would get a rerun, and I could nab those two and easily record their non max-ascended forms but uh. Not sure if that'll ever happen? I'm wondering if I should just record them regardless and release an updated version if we ever get a banner for them again. Lots to think about.

Meanwhile, the above is a short screenshot of how many I've completed. Yeah... 194..... This isn't including the girls who still need to be uncapped either. My computer has more space now, it's amazing to move them permanently to the backup now.

These are all the ones that have completed recordings that still need to be edited and uploaded:

Editing doesn't take too long, it's just that my computer slows down and it starts to take a long time when you have like tens of them to do. But I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! ...Still need to record a bunch, but I have lots of queue so things should be fine.

I kind of wish I had done some things differently, but oh well. When it comes to my channel, I feel like... well, you don't really get quality, but you do get quantity. Even if that's not technically as good, I think there is still value in it. idk.

Thumbnails

My stupid ass was looking at the channel and decided to redo a bunch of thumbs, and hey did you know that there is a 100 limit on how many thumbnails you can upload in a day? Sucks man.

Anyways, the transformation thumbnails are mostly updated and I just have about fifty left to upload now:

A while ago I started to make the characters' names a few pixels larger than the rest of the text, and it's been bothering me for a while that some vids had the bigger text and other vids didn't, so uhhh. Yeah. I also ended up changing a bunch of thumbs so that they show the end shot. Is that the better choice...? I'm not sure. I think it might make the thumbs more boring, but I think it's also more upfront about the fact that they're transformation videos.

More importantly, I also decided to redo the battle animations thumbs!

At first it was because I wanted to put "battle animations" in the thumb but I ended up deciding that plain old "animations" looks better. So why am I still changing all of them? Well...

I'm super honored that my stupid lil channel is getting used for the gallery section for the girls! See here on the fandom wiki. But then I was looking at it and man, that thumbnail sure does look fucking ugly when it's all blown up in your face like that. And if people are gonna use my stuff (🥺), I'd at least like it to look nice on their site...?

So I'm using the sprites from the magireco sprite viewer (rip), although unfortunately it's missing some/doesn't have new stuff/won't be updating anymore. But at least some of the new sprites will look better.

I know how to get some stuff off of Rika.Ren for datamining-ish, but sprites aren't one of them, and tbh I'm kind of not interesting in learning new things atm. So stealing off the Puella Magi Wiki is the best we'll get. But still! Older videos will have better thumbs. And oh man, some of them were ugly as fuck.

...I still need to make uhhh 200 more of them ish but I'll work on that tonight.

Playlists

Much to my displeasure, the results for the poll I made pointed towards folks deciding that more videos in a playlist is better, so I'm redoing all the playlists I had foolishly trimmed (this is also how I noticed some thumbnail problems and then got obsessively focused on fixing them last night instead of the playlists).

A couple of playlists still need to be redone-- I basically deleted everything in them, 'cause it's easier to just start over instead of dragging things around (especially when you get past 100, as it'll stutter and boot you to a different place). But I'm slowly getting there, and they should all be back up by tonight? The Madoka one will take the longest I think; that was easily 150+ videos if I recall correctly.

I also put all the battle animation videos currently uploaded into the battle animation videos playlist.

Originally I was trying to upload the videos in order of release, to make it easier on myself when putting it into the playlist. But that was kind of frustrating, especially when I had already released some out of order and then you factor in holidays... So fuck it! They're all in there now, even if they're private.

This is what you see when you're not on my channel (and you select to see hidden videos). Woops. Oh well!

But this means I'm more willing to go out of order in the uploads :)

Conclusion

I really wanted to get this all wrapped up so I can start to move on to other things! Like, ya know, my webcomic project. And also liveblogs!

Oh speaking of which... wait maybe I should make it a separate update... hmmmm. Yeah I'll do that.

Anyways, yeah! It'll be nice once I no longer need to upload a video every day, but it's also not too bad. I'm just glad I have a huge amount of queue, which'll give me time to look for some of the older collab characters. I'm not entirely sure how I'll film their little poke animations... Maybe I'll have to ask around, or perhaps use the kyugay sprite site? I have no idea how to record my screen. Ah man.

But I think the channel is heading towards a decent place, and I'm excited to finish everything up :)

Hope y'all aren't too bothered by the spam of videos! It's gonna be a couple more months at least....

[tasteofdeathao3]

24/7 regressed Izzy when the crew find out, are desperate to make his job easier and are very aware that they have been 1 taking instructions from a four year old and 2 FAILING instructions from a four year old and 3 BULLYING the four year old, they don't wanna let on that they know but Izzy is somehow getting more stressed with things suddenly going right all the time

this is the funniest shit I've ever read the image of a bunch of pirates bullying a toddler is just.... my god

So yeah once it's apparent what's happening the crew is kind of itching to make things better.

Lucius, slightly terrified of Izzy stabbing him, decides to make some nice drawings for him - it works when he's younger, but the rest of the time it just makes Izzy angrier.

The majority of the crew, that actually knows what they're doing, feel not only embarrassed that they couldn't do work a literal four year old was doing (as Ed and Stede like to remind them occasionally), but also awful that all the work they weren't doing was just being done by Izzy, meaning on top of all the other work he probably shouldn't have been doing, he was managing more than twelve people's workloads all on his own.

Izzy's definitely a person who relies on their routine to stay somewhat consistent, so when he suddenly gets on deck and everyone is off doing work and not even bothering him for advice or begging him to let them off, it freaks him out a little.

It freaks him out a hell of a lot more when he goes and tries to adjust the ropes (The swede's job, who's far better at wearing rope and doing anything constructive with it) and finds them tied and knotted perfectly, or well enough that it would be an active waste of time to undo and redo them to his standards. He almost faints when he finds Lucius over the side of the ship, scraping the hull.

Even though it causes Izzy some stress, the lessening workload does him good, and the ship functions better for it, especially when he's dropped too young to be of any help. It takes a while, and a lot of coaxing from Stede, but he does eventually learn to relax in the lapses of time between his work and sleep (not really, but enough that he's not actively trying to escape the captains cabin. once Ed and Stede no longer have to barricade the door to get him to lay down, they consider it a success).

The bullying aspect.... is a little harder to work through.

Of course most people feel guilty (especially Lucius, who'd been drawing increasingly offensive drawings of Izzy and hiding them around the ship for him to find), and to combat that they decide to be extra extra nice to Izzy.

Izzy doesn't really bat an eye when Roach makes something he likes (a plain meal that he'd managed to survive on in his youth), though the second, third, and fourth time he made it, even though barely anyone really enjoyed it, he started to pick up on it.

The extra servings at meal times, the extra large helpings of dessert, the handmade dolls from Wee John and the hand made pellet drum from Frenchie and Black Pete, the new cravat, the fancy new cleaning rag for his ring, the sheen on his vest after someone had stolen it and rubbed wax and basalm into it, the jars of the cheap strawberry preserve he likes, the chickens Jim stole because they learnt he likes soft boiled eggs - it freaks him out way too much.

It all accumulates in a giant, very public, panic attack, where Izzy drops all the way down suddenly on deck under his constant fear of being buttered up for mutiny or a secret murder in the night where he's too calm and relaxed to get to Blackbeard in time, and cries and wails until Ed or Stede scoop him up and take him below deck.

I think eventually he'd get used to it, as much as he loves working himself to the bone, but the transition from being respected as an adult to being recognised as someone who, for a significant part of the time, is an toddler would take a long time for him to get used to.

I think he'd be quite upset, as someone who values respect and wants to be respected, to suddenly no longer be treated as the first mate and more like the boss' kid on bring your kid to work day, but eventually I think it would all balance out.

[asimplevampire]

there's a very good reason why Sims 4 has not implemented wheelchairs yet.

I keep seeing people on the internet say something along the lines of "If the Sims can implement dogs and horses, they can implement wheelchairs!" And... well, no. The issue is a lot more complicated than that.

For the record- I'm coming at this as an amateur Sims 2 modder who's tried to figure out how to do wheelchairs a couple of times and have not been able to figure out how to do it to my satisfaction. If I sound angry, it's not because I'm mad at you; it's because I'm mad at myself for not being able to do this.

So. Before we talk about wheelchairs, we first need to talk about what a Sims dog is, under the hood. In every version of the game, functionally? It's a Sim in a fursuit with a distorted skeleton. You can see that in some of the horrifying Sims 3 glitches where the dogs stand up on two legs and start looking like very distorted people.

Dogs are Sims that are locked into a particular set of animations, and locked out of a bunch of other animations. Dogs have to run on all fours; dogs cannot offer other sims a rose or hug them.

Remember this; it will be important later.

To make a wheelchair-using sim in Sims 4, you need three things: the wheelchair itself, code that tells the wheelchair and the sim in it how to act, and animations for the Sim to use while in the chair.

The chair itself is moderately easy-- you would just need a couple of really good 3D models, and a wheelchair isn't exactly rocket surgery. The code would be more difficult-- you could probably repurpose the bike code, but there'd likely be some major hiccups, especially with indoor pathfinding around small objects.

But the thing that absolutely kills wheelchairs dead, the thing that makes them a nightmare to implement every time, the single thing that means we're never getting wheelchairs in Sims 4, is the animations.

See, if all you wanted was a chair a Sim could sit in and move around in, that would be one thing. But most of the people who want wheelchairs don't want them to be a funny-looking bike. They want to be able to make a sim who uses a wheelchair in their day to day life.

This means you would need to remake every animation in the game to be doable sitting down.

Think about that for a second. How many new animations did you get for dogs or vampires or werewolves or mermaids? How many is that compared to how many animations are in the game, total, now?

How many animations require your Sim to stand up before doing them? How many look weird if you're doing them with Sims of wildly varying heights?

Added to this: you know how BIG and EXAGGERATED all the sims' movements are? That's deliberate- they're meant to be easy to read at a distance. You would have to rework them all so that the animations are easy to read, even if you're looking at the Sim from behind and like 90% of the sims' body is obscured by the chair.

....Animation is the most expensive part of game dev. Like, hands-down, bar none, the most work and effort. It's the place where a lot of indie games go to die. And reworking every goddamn animation in the game to be legible and look good, even if one of the sims is in a wheelchair? That'd be an incredibly expensive undertaking.

And this is before talking about the social concerns that come up every time you're portraying a marginalized group! It'd probably be easiest for the devs to portray ambulatory wheelchair users- but is that the only group of people who get to be portrayed in game? Or are you going to take the time- and the assistance- to code in transfers and wheelchair-pushing?

It'd be easier for the devs to make "wheelchair user" a lifestate that can't hybridize, so they don't have to redo all the vampire/werewolf/witch animations-- but this means you've locked an entire group of people out of all of the fun of occult simmies. Is that a tradeoff worth making if it means you get wheelchair users in the game, or is it unfairly discriminatory?

And this is before factoring in the fact that people will- rightly or wrongly- judge disability content way more harshly than they'd judge, say, dogs. You'd basically have to give it away for free, or you'd be accused of being a cash-grab designed to exploit the disability community, even if it's the best implementation of a wheelchair ever seen in a video game. Any inaccuracy, no matter how small, becomes "proof the devs hate wheelchair users".

....And might I remind you, this would be one of the largest and most expensive animation projects that the TS4 team have ever done. You cannot expect people to do that for free.

So yeah, it's an incredibly big, complex project with absolutely no ROI. You cannot expect the TS4 devs to be able to accomplish this. You would basically need to work wheelchair users into the game from the ground up.

What they can add, and should, are canes and crutches. But that's another story.

[ewzzy]

Alright so I got a bunch of notes on a panel of Gwen and MJ. Me being me I gotta go back through the Masterworks collections and see what their relationship actually was from ASM #25 when MJ debuts to Gwen's death in ASM #121.

Here's their first meeting. Romita is drawing, but Ditko's queen bitch characterization of Gwen is still there.

It doesn't take long for Romita to change up Gwen. Also note MJ saying "Have a happy!" because her main character trait is phrasing that you just have to assume were normal at the time.

Now that we've established the girls it's time to put them in direct competition. Can you tell Romita drew romance comics before he took over Spider-Man?

But hey it's not all competition! Next time we see them they're hanging out without Pete at all!

They're surprisingly friendly at this point.

Gwen starts dating Pete more consistently, but MJ points out "I only loaned him to you, lady!"

MJ's habit of sniping at Gwen starts to kick in.

Even when Pete goes missing...

When MJ get's a job as a go-go dancer she's still thinking about Pete even if Gwen doesn't seem worried.

The timeline here gets a little funky because this story got published in magazine format first and then shoved later into ASM Annual 9. MJ and Gwen act like they're meeting each other for the first time.

Then afterward all walk off into the sunset (and fodder for those of you shipping a trio)

Then there's a whole lot of nothing where Gwen & MJ never interact outside of 2 panels in Marvel Super-Heroes #14 drawn by future ASM regular Ross Andru. Chances are this was drawn way earlier because Gwen is based on her design from Ditko's era.

So the reason for the lack of MJ was she went with her aunt to Florida. Now that they're back it's time for sparks to fly.

And fly they do! Though maybe that's more Flash Thompson's fault.

But don't worry we're shipping him off to 'Nam with some kisses.

Next up is what started all this for me with those notes at the top. Pete loses his powers because of a flu, confesses his secret identity and has to walk the whole thing back. This scares Gwen something fierce and MJ spends the whole time tossing out one-liners.

As I said in the old post, this is all hilarious with the retcon that MJ always knew Pete was Spider-Man. After that we go more than a year without MJ and Gwen on panel together, including the death of Gwen's father. It really looks like MJ is a non-factor at this point. Gil Kane takes over art duties and has a big reunion when Harry gets out of the hospital and Flash is back from war.

Then the next time we see them is a hundred pages worth of comics later in ASM #116 and that's a redo of the magazine again so the relationships get reset by about 50 issues.

See? Isn't that exactly like the magazine / Annual 9 from above?

Anyway, they spend that issue campaigning for for a mayoral candidate and getting along great. Gwen has a big kiss with Pete and MJ is super supportive even if her Harry is annoyed.

And whoops we're running out of time because we're racing toward Gwen's untimely demise. We get one final bit with Gwen and MJ on panel together worried about Harry's relapse right before the Green Goblin gets to work.

And that's that! Every on panel interaction of Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson in one tumblr post. Looking back, they're put in competition by Lee and then Conway writing it, but Gwen is so clearly who they've picked that MJ falls to the wayside.

What do you see in their interactions? I'd love to hear what others think about their relationship.

[pellaaearien]

oh! for the commentary thing. scene that i'm obsessed with: the 1589 redo dream in another word for ache

Ah yes! The divergence! Dream actually eating! Or is it?

Because remember, in the comics, when Dream gets out of the fishbowl (much sooner than he does in the show!) he immediately goes into some random guy's dream, buck-ass naked, and makes off with KFC.

As an additional note, the genesis of AWFA was this stellar post from @softest-punk, which specified that Dream went to Hob's dream of 1589 because he remembered there being food there. So I put the two together.

For context: Dream has had a lot of time alone with his thoughts in the fishbowl, in a way he hasn't had pretty much ever, because he's never been cut off from the Dreaming like that. He's had a lot of time to think about the 1889 meeting with Hob, and to sit with missing the 1989 meeting, going over all the variations in his head: did Hob show up? Did he wait for Dream? If Dream had been able to attend, would they have reconciled? From there, it's a straight shot to considering their other meetings; how they'd gone, what he regrets, what he wishes he'd done.

And then, in that headspace, with that new perspective, he feels Hob dreaming of him. Can he really be expected to resist?

If we're being completely honest, however, the divergence starts a chapter earlier, where Lucienne forces Dream to take a break, and he lets her. And that sets the tone for the entire progression of the fic.

So, under the weight of all that, he enters Hob's dream of 1589. Not only is it one where food was prominent, it's also one of the ones Dream regrets most. Not Shakespeare, necessarily; but the fact that he had time with Hob that he willingly relinquished. And seeing that it's somewhat of a nightmare for Hob, watching him walk away, clinches that for him.

Remember, he's literally just gotten out of the fishbowl. He's touching the Dreaming for the first time in over a century. He's in a dream, which is supposed to be his native element, but instead he's out of touch. The Dreaming itself is falling apart. He's weak without his tools. But also, he's touching the Dreaming, finally! And Hob Gadling's sleeping mind is offering him sustenance.

So he eats. I put a lot of thought into how dreamstuff sustains Dream, since it feels counterintuitive to me given they're one and the same. Taste isn't a common sense that exists in dreams, so I tried to think of ways to describe eating that would use it minimally. (In fact, I also imagine that's one of the reasons he eats so little in the Waking, because it's basically a bunch of sensations he has no use for.)

All in all, this fic is the story of Dream being, essentially, backed into taking care of himself. And it all starts here, when his ability to deny himself is at its absolute lowest ebb, because, again, he has just escaped a century long imprisonment! Even Dream of the Endless can get worn down after 100 years of total composure and zero stimulus.

The "problem" with that, however, is that indulgence is a slippery slope :) And thus we have this fic.

BONUS EASTER EGG because I can't resist. This specific line:

In this century, Hob had wanted to flaunt his wealth, and had consequently picked the largest table in the centre of the room. Dream shifts his chair and settles with his back against a nearby pillar.

This is not where he sits in the show! Not exactly. Dream has, let's say a disinclination to have his back exposed, now. Especially when they're on display like they were in 1589! So he protects himself. It's not something he's consciously aware of, so I couldn't draw attention to it in the moment. But it's important to me that even in this "safe" location, Dream still has very real, very fresh trauma that manifests in ways like making sure no one can sneak up on him, even in the Dreaming.

In any case, I'm sure that's enough rambling. Thank you so much for asking! There's a whole lot of thought that goes into my chapters and I don't often get the opportunity to talk about it!

[sherrifdoggo]

Future plans for the Chicago Map

big talky one with only a couple pictures coming up

if i had to give a percentage of how done the map is it wouldn't even be in the double digits due to all i have planned for it.

here's that overview again after i john maddened it to break down how things are gonna flow in the next couple months.

the map's gonna be divided into these districts, there will probably be more once i'm deeper into development but i also have to keep in mind the small amount of map space i have available due to the source engine being the source engine

each district will have a unique identity to help players memorize the city and to make the map feel bigger than it'll end up being (which will probably not be that large because, source). each district will also have one or more rackets that players can rp controlling alongside some places for player houses and regular businesses.

District number one (and the most developed one) is the Prairie District (a.k.a. Little Italy). this is a more lower class area and will be likewise very full of grime and crime. it's home to the Unnamed Speakeasy, the last racket of the once mighty prairie district mafia. it's a lot less classy than the other two planned speakeasies for the map and is struggling to stay afloat. and since talk is that the city's gonna stop being dry if roosevelt touches office it's going to get worse for it if the last few prairie district mobsters don't find a way to diversify quick.

besides that, it also has two whole appartment blocks, one of them containing the speakeasy. though i plan on redoing the whole first floor of that appartment building to have a store on the first floor instead of a ground level appartment.

District number two is chinatown, home of the many chinese inmigrants of chicago, the place is a little nicer than the prairie district thanks to the amount of commerce that happens there and has a shining landmark in the middle, The Chinatown Hotel. the (soon to be) tallest building in the southern segment of the city. The Chinatown Hotel is the place to get all your carnal desires fufilled, yes even those ones.

besides that, it'll also be the hq of the new kids on the block, the triads. they're a gang formed more-so as a company that commits crimes who's looking to legitimize itself by associating with maybe... the prairie district mafia?

District number 3 (and the first one that has nothing but plans made for it) is Eastside, it's the economic powerhouse of the city, where all the industry is located. As you head north it does become a little more commercial as downtown kind of encroaches on it over there.

in eastside you'll find the abandoned distillery, which perhaps criminals could use as a hq if they so wished, or as a meeting ground for deals. you'll also find the construction site of next year's world's fair. it'll take up a big chunk of the district as it's a whole man-made island with a bunch of construction equipment strewn about the place.

Finally, District number 4'll be Downtown (and/or River North). This'll be the nice part of the city, with museums, vaudeville, burlesques and other such places that "i still have to much money to care about the great depression" types would hang around. here you'll find a couple assorted landmarks that i have planned, including the Chicago Theater (the place where you'll probably meet Jessie) and The River North Speakeasy, which'll be the fanciest underground speakeasy you'll ever see.

besides all that shit, i also want to do some outskirts for the city with some lightly wooded hills that people can do crime in, as well as a big waterfront towards the east coast of the city so you can have a nice dip in lake michigan, or even make people sleep with the fishes!

also, here's some news for those who only do it for her (like me)

here's some of the planned content for Jessie. once you find her, you can bring her to her room backstage at the chicago theater to select an outfit for her each outfit will share the same taunts minus one which'll be outfit specific. some of the outfits will even be locked until you complete a little map sidequest to get them.

speaking of which, you'll also have to do a real complicated sidequest if you want to turn her into a werewolf. if you can't handle her at her humaniest, you can't have her at her furriest.

also no i did not make Jessie up she is from... something.

i put her in the map because i like her, she's neat and she fits the setting.

[bugtransport]

Tatami Galaxy (novel) finished 2/28/23

yes i am late on this one. okay. if it is not obvious i'm already a really big fan of this series so this is going to be fully biased. sorry! i got this book as a gift; i was originally gonna wait for the paperback version to be released because honestly i typically like paperbacks better than hardcovers... they're cheaper and easier to hold and i like the way that they age and show the love you poured into them over the years (my h2g2 paperback omnibus that i carried around for like 2 years in my backpack and is held together with 3 different kinds of tape and a dream being the prime example of this) but what was i gonna do. say no? it's the tatami fuckin galaxy, baby. what the hell. it's wild to me that i've actually read this now.

first off i just wanna say how cool it was getting to read the translator's note at the end of the book and hearing how passionate they were about this author's work in particular and how they got into translating with the goal of being able to translate his work. it's fun knowing that something was made by people who actually care a lot about it. i think that shows throughout.

for those who don't know what the fuck the tatami galaxy is even about: cringefail pathetic guy college student realizes that he's pissed away the last two years of his life and wishes that he could redo it all over again to stop himself from getting wrapped up in a bunch of bullshit and we (the audience) get to see him fulfill that wish through time loop shenanigans that he (the main character) is only somewhat aware of but actually every choice he makes that could have possibly had him do something different leads him back to the same place he was before: depressed alone in his shitty little 4.5 tatami mat room. important side characters include ozu (best friend/worst enemy, connected by the black string of fate) and akashi (love interest kinda/ruthlessly autistic, girl of all time) among other recurring characters who i'm not going to talk about because time constraints and i think they're better experienced naturally so, there you go. if you're curious as to what the fuck i've been talking about you have a reason to get into it.

one of the things i really loved being able to read the novel after seeing the anime adaptation is being able to contrast the ways that they were able to bring in the time loop aspect which... really is not all that present for as much as i talk about it; it's core to the series but it's not really a mystery that needs to be uncovered, it's just the vehicle for which we can explore the main character's wish fulfillment fantasy and come to realize that actually, all the problems are with him and his pathetic little life, the spineless little worm. however i do love a good time loop and will continue to sell it as such. the repetition of passages in the book, the fact that the main character and ozu have very similar conversations in different places, the deja vu, the way each section ends the same, it all builds a really solid but not ridiculously over the top loop. like i said, it's just a vehicle. in the first 3 parts of the book at least.

as the novel is written in first person we're really able to dive into that unreliable narration more than we were in the anime which, while being narrated by the mc, really has to be third person and therefore gives a little more credence to the reality of what's being shown. the anime gets really out there with its visual interpretations and combined with the mc's narration like, it's obvious that everything you see is biased from his perspective, but... to pull an example out of my ass (and this is not a direct quote because i can't be bothered, don't come for me) there's one point where he's trying to describe himself and he's going off like: picture a guy in your head. a nice looking, smart guy, with a beautiful black haired woman by his side. he's going off about his studies. he seems like the kind of guy who has friends and is natural in social situations. now, that guy's not me, but please picture me like that.

you get what i mean? he's that kinda guy. i love a good kinda cringey main character but i get that that kind of main character isn't for everyone. however it is for me. it's fun watching him fail through life and kind of accidentally learn things along the way and then to have the big culmination of the book (the 4th part, where the aforementioned vehicle crashes and) where he ends up stuck in a literal loop with no way out of his apartment but through all the different tatami rooms that belong to the different versions of himself that he could have been and realizing that whatever path he takes he'll still end up the same but that there are small joys to be felt in life still, that he has the connections he's made in all of these worlds and realizes fuck, i've been dreaming about this rose colored campus life for far too long and i didn't even realize what i had.

and the symbolism with akashi being afraid of moths?? it's just too good. had to throw that in there because every time i think about it i get all hehehe it itches my brain in the right way. i think she got a bit more fleshed out in the anime but i do still love what there was for her in the book.

i love the tatami galaxy! really fun time for me, felt like coming home. genuinely might try and pick up another by the same author. apparently he has a thing for these sopping little wet idiot protagonists and i just love reading about them.

do i recommend it? ^ read it if the above applies to you too lol

p.s. kamen rider V3 is mentioned! THAT'S MY FRIEND KAZAMI SHIRO HIIIIII KAZAMIIIII

[moonsrune]

🏹 , ⚔️, 🗡️, 💋, ❤️, 🤔 for tyler

🏹 BOW AND ARROW — if there's something from your past that you'd give anything to go back in time and redo, what is it?

There's a lot of moments I wish I could go back to and stop from happening, but the one that bothers me the most is the way I reacted to Brooke running off with Jake. Instead of letting myself process what I was feeling, I did a bunch of drugs to cover up the pain and acted out in ways I regret.

⚔️ CROSSED SWORDS — do you have any skills that you are absolutely grateful you have and that mean a lot to you? how do you usually use these skills? would they come in handy if someone you cared about was in trouble?

The best thing about growing up without any stability was getting into things no one could take away from me. I spent a lot of time on a computer, reading, and boxing. These skills have helped me push onward in life without help from others. I've used my tech savvy skills to make some hustle money and to learn things about myself and the world around me. Boxing helped me defend myself, but I would be lying if I said I didn't also use it to intimidate people into getting what I want. And yes, these skills have come in handy to help my friends, family, and now others. Because I've recently started up my own security contracting company.

🗡️ DAGGER — what is something or someone you know you can't afford to lose? how far are you willing to go to make sure you don't lose it/them?

The only people that matter to my existence and sanity is my wife and daughter. I have lost things and people my entire life. I learned to never hold onto anything with both hands because no matter how hard your grip is, nothing stays with a person. I grew up thinking that until I met Brooke. Then she became my sun and my moon. Now with the birth of my baby girl, she's my sky. She holds all the stars and the vast possibilities of life and what it means to be alive. I would sacrifice the world for them.

💋 KISS MARK — if you had to share a romantic kiss with a loved one, where would you share that kiss and why? are you thinking about giving this romantic kiss somewhere other than the other person's lips?

I would kiss my wife Brooke. Preferably at night, under a blanket of stars and the moonlight, atop my Chevrolet Chevelle. Possibly on a romantic cliff overlooking city lights. Soft music would be playing inside the car and my hands would be running over her barely clothed body as I moan between her trembling thighs. Because that's where I would choose to kiss her. In the spot that makes her pull on my hair and breathe my name like its the only thing that'll save her life.

❤️ RED HEART — what is/are your love language(s)? how do you use it/them to communicate your feelings about others?

Touch, physical intimacy. I'm not very good at explaining myself even though I pride myself on being more intelligent than most idiots. I shut down and my confessions get caught in my throat. However, the truth sits in my eyes and travels though my fingertips. Other than romantic love, I think its when I take time out to teach someone something. If I stop to share my skills or my knowledge with a person, it means I care enough about them to want to protect them with the things I've learned. They're not all good things, some can get a person in trouble, but if I teach that person well enough, they'll have no problem getting out of said trouble.

🤔 THINKING FACE — what three emotions tend to dominate your mindset? do you know why they do?

Distant, apprehensive, moody. They became my shield. Growing up without a real home or a real family made me distant from others. Even when I did make friends or learn to accept a place as my world, I would eventually be removed from it. I never knew where I would end up from one week to the next. So I learned to be self-sufficient and uninviting, but that turned me into a bit of an asshole. At a certain point though, I didn't care what other people thought of me. I wanted them to stay away. Then I learned my walls only kept out fake people. If someone really wants to get to know me, they'll make it past my shield.

[the-firebird69]

They can help power the goals that goes to the house and they can say that the panel's electrified but like our sun said it says closed and people know what that means and FEMA recognizes that as having no power that's one thing going on right now but most people even if it doesn't say it they try and turn it on and it closes and they realize if the power doesn't work you can't stay there so you tell them is shorting out it's messed up and it might have to be ripped out and we can't stay there it shuts off after just a few minutes or less seconds most of it turns on and turns off it does not mean you have power it means it has power to the panel but no power to the house and so your power is not working and you have a power outage at your house and they're not getting it people don't get it this is what it means.

--but getting damn tired of people humoring about it but it's important for him to know and someone's telling him and they're telling her and Shelly. And they're not doing it on purpose but she's frustrated so a lot of people will understand this is what it is.

--some other things are happening there's a bunch of people who are screwing around with him saying that he's my man and stuff are messing with his food and it's not really acceptable she was there helping and it was a nightmare everyone it's a lot of food and requires a lot of it because it's like a baby and doesn't absorb all of it and she's going oh oh and the system is slowed down and she's starting to get something it's wrong and they keep saying it's just a nightmare but yes do you miscellaneous Mac morlock have vacated most of the cities and their numbers up to 31% roughly have left that's a lot and it's happening still they are leaving they're going to be cut off pretty soon and they know it there's too few of them and the others are getting ready it is the fourth twenty percent however they went ready and they're going to be ready the 5% are up from the last 20%. That's how it goes and and they will begin shortly.

--some people say they have to take the walls apart and open it all up and redo all the electrical it's not truly been doing this for centuries here they let it dry out and the electrical dries out and is usually nothing there to short it and there's no materials and they blow the sockets out that's what he was doing make sure there's nothing stuck on it and the standard procedure here but boy people have some funny training

--they're getting out and they're moving it and she was told that she should not go there because she's having emotional problems when she went there anyways so she's here crying because her family is suffering badly and she thought people would help but it's not a place of help and he's in trouble and she can be useful by telling people it's a real situation this is no joke and they're not moving him around and he's in trouble that's a it's a job

--so we're going to have other things going on like this a tough time and it's a lot tougher than it looks these people are old and I've seen it all but things are changing but they have cities too and they have hope. It won't be that way forever and it will end quickly for those who can't handle it or stay behind and our son can stay behind he's used to a normal life

--a couple more things in a moment

Thor Freya

Olympus

[8bitsupervillain]

8bit Reviews: Pathfinder Kingmaker

The first five or six hours I was having a grand time with it. Just loving it from top to bottom, sure the combat was a bit clunky, but aside from that I was having fun. Then I unlocked the kingdom management section of the game and my opinion dropped sharply. The lie that you can set kingdom management to auto-resolve itself is a massive lie because if you leave this bastard alone for too long you will get slapped with an inevitable failure message and have to redo potential HOURS of stuff just to get back to before you doomed yourself. Nevertheless I stuck with it, maybe it'll get better, I thought as I was very thoroughly not having a good time. Twenty hours passed, then thirty, at forty I decided enough's enough I'm done with Pathfinder. So it went for a couple of months I played other better games I became mesmerized and spellbound by other stories that respected my time.

But eventually the bastard thought wormed its way into my head to give it another shot why not? You had time away, surely now's the time it'll be fun! You tried and bounced off some other CRPGs, so who knows, maybe Kingmaker has that secret something to get you back in. Fifty hours passed, sixty, and once again I vowed I would never return to Kingmaker, I uninstalled it from my laptop and desktop. I even went so far as to delete the saves off of my laptop (where I'd been primarily playing Pathfinder). September rolls around, I fall deeply, madly in love with Baldur's Gate III, but eventually I have to go back to work, and my laptop isn't quite the youth it used to be, and storage space is at a premium. Back to Kingmaker, I guess. Reinstalling it I find that because I never deleted my saves off of my desktop the cloud storage for GOG Galaxy kept my saves up to date.

What fun, now I won't have to redo a whole bunch of stuff or start from the beginning. Has the combat always been this aggravating? Be fair, you might just be unfairly comparing it to Baldur's Gate III, the Pathfinder guys did this at least five years ago, and had a fraction of the budget. Comparing the combat to Pillars of Eternity or Tyranny was similarly disastrous because I recall feeling the combat in those was a lot smoother than Kingmaker. Then, disaster strikes, sixty-nine hours into my save file the game declares that I've lost, and I cannot continue the game. Sixty-nine fucking hours down the tubes, nearly three actual days. Literal months of time wasted for this? FOR THIS?! No, NO! Fuck that! Fuck this! I'm done! I'M ABSOLUTELY DONE. FUCK PATHFINDER KINGMAKER, FUCK OWLCAT, FUCK EVERYONE WHO SAYS THIS GAME WAS WORTH PLAYING! And so I uninstall it, again.

Bullshit game, I hate it. The combat, trash. The characters, generally unlikable garbage! At least in other games when there are villains they're well-written villains, you might not like them, but at least they provoke a feeling other than vague irritation. Fucking game, absolute waste of my time. Why did I try to respect the game for so long as I had? What did I gain from it? Our antagonistic relationship was clearly one-sided, Pathfinder was never going to try to meet me halfway and be something decent.

Time passes, it's October and I'm looking at nexus mods. You should see if there's mods for Kingmaker, sure none of them will magically make the game good, but you know, just for a lark. Sure enough, there they are, the whole spectrum. What's this? Cheat mod, well with this I could theoretically reach an ending in Pathfinder. Wouldn't that be something? Get revenge on the game that pissed you off so? I could, theoretically, do that. But why? Why should I shove my hand back in the bear trap? Hadn't I suffered enough? Shouldn't I just leave well enough alone and move on and put Kingmaker (and Wrath of the Righteous) firmly in the rearview of memory?

So, once again, for the last time let's reinstall Pathfinder. This time I'm done pretending to care about beating the game honestly. I want it to be over with. Weight limits? Gone. Barony rolls? Win them instantly. Sure "I'm robbing myself of the experience" of finishing the game "legit," but I am so far beyond caring at this point. You know what the hell of it is? The thing that makes this all so very much unbearable? It wasn't worth it. Eighty-nine hours and seventeen minutes later I finished the game, I got my unsatisfying conclusion, and… that's it.

Back when it first came out I got very very annoyed with Bloodborne. I could not for the life of me get past Vicar Amelia, it got to the point where I stopped playing the game for months because just the sight of it pissed me off. But eventually I powered my way through it, and I now regard Bloodborne as one of the finest games I have ever played.

The sense of satisfaction I got from triumphing over it was exhilarating. Pathfinder Kingmaker gave me no such feeling. Yes I'd finished the game, but there's nothing there. Just another game to add to the list of games I've beaten. For all the self-inflicted agony I've put myself through I got roughly the same satisfaction as when I beat something completely forgettable that I played for roughly a week. I feel more satisfaction finishing Little Nightmares 2 than I do Kingmaker, and I didn't particularly care about Little Nightmares 2.

I guess what I got out of Pathfinder Kingmaker is I really need to get over my absurd feelings that I'm somehow letting the developers down if I don't play a game I hate to completion. Blackguards is probably a better game than this, and I don't particularly like Blackguards.

[biboywizard]

I think love is about learning how to love someone. Love is about accepting and rebuilding and on some days I find this very frustrating and tiresome. I want to love and be loved easily and I have to learn it.

On some days it is also the most romantic thing ever:

Love is me sitting cuddeling with my brother gushing about Eldenring graphics and hearing him tell me abt weapons and lore till I can see his fascination. When he tells me what he does and doesn't lack in the relationship with his friends after I rant to him about the emotional impact that yoonmin fic left on me, bc it reminds me of a past relationship.

It's asking my parents about their lives as young adults untill the tell me about their own parents with love and relief and withheld pain and stuck up frustration. The love of learning where someone's coming from and therefore how they will feel in different situations. I read a lot of books on communication and looked for the clues that means a person wants to share with you like this for so long. Hearing how they experienced life as a child and being absolutely awed soo so much development happened between this and how they raise us. The joy of being trusted by a parent as you are trusted by a friend.

Oh manye it's just a bunch of situations that happend after you loved someone for so long and try to like and understand them

Meeting with my best friend from school and talking for hours. Sometimes effortless, sometimes working through the fact our lives are very different and getting on the same wavelength again.

Texting one of my best friends who won't text me by himself or arrange a meeting but will cuddle with me for hours and swap stories about parental trauma. Who will remember I like the glutenfree pizza his mom makes on thursdays and always bring me a piece to uni on friday.

It's fixing. It's fixing a relationship after fighting when you knew each other for ten years prior and never fought. It's starting the conversation with "I don't really understand why we don't talk, like we used to, but I love you (there's a softer word in my language)and please let us stay best friends" after you dated your best friend and broke up and work through that. It's validating your siblings for their struggle with their own friends treating them poorly until they feel well, later on bringing up they used to do a similar thing to you years ago and asking and getting: )) the apology and acknowledgement of your hurt you forgot you wanted. It's talking to your parents and telling them your not sure how much they support you being a boy since they are very sceptical of all things following that and getting assurance you are loved even though they are critical of your schedule.

It's working with yourself. It's looking at a boody that is physically uncomfortable and deciding to love it as yours. It's looking at your relationship with yourself and redo it after every change so you still love yourself. It's realizing you are still so hung up on feminity because you rarely know how to love different or be loved as something that is not a daughter or a sister and loving this fear yet also reworking it into something that allows change. It's taking small breaks evertime you start or end something"Do I love myself right now?""Why do I feel unsatisfied"?"

Love is emotional labour

It is also physical one I might add. Love is me sending you a mental health tiktok and maybe one abt history and a funny one. It's me leaning into different embroidery techniques because I loved this fanfic so much and this 30cm embroidery (I designed with the symbolism of it and sappy scenes I like) is the way I can pour my love and admiration for the author, with whom I won't ever interact more than my comment into something. It's liking selfmade gnocchi because your friends taught you how to make them and it's significant to them bc they're from italy and their grandma taught them. Putting away the bottles the people in my dorm left partying last night. Wearing earrings I like to fidget with. Trying to be careful with myself even though I feel like academically I am not doing as well as I used to. Socially too. Keeping yourself from buying another dress bc they are giving you dysphoria but you also feel so pretty. Saving my dad a slice of lemon cake to try.

[realtalk-tj]

How hard is linear? Is it a huge commitment?

Response from Penelope:

The start of linear is not too bad; I'd say up until March you've probably seen most of the things they cover before (like in Math 4). Even for some concepts that they didn't cover back then, since they're all related, it's still relatively easy to pick up.

The last couple of chapters are definitely harder, but I thought I spent probably like half of the time I did first semester in Multi doing homework and studying but did way better on the tests. For some people it's really easy to make the connections between all of the seemingly unrelated concepts in linear, but for others it's harder. In any case, you're definitely not doing a lot of crazy difficult computation like in Multi, but it can be very tedious work.

I think the biggest time suck of linear is by far when you are row reducing a matrix and inevitably do arithmetic wrong, and you end up with a horrible bunch of fractions. Trying to find where you went wrong is sometimes more time consuming than redoing the whole problem LOL

[13eyond13]

So I just watched the first episode, and I actually didn't hate it or anything! I thought the actors were doing a good job playing their respective parts, and some of the changes were actually pretty interesting to me...

-Daniel as a cantankerous old man journalist redoing his interview with Louis in the 2020s pandemic was an interesting choice to me, and I feel like that was almost my favourite part of the first episode for some reason, haha. Granted, I don't remember a lot about Daniel's character in the later part of the series anymore, it's been way too long since I've read the later books in the series now, so I wasn't that attached to anything about him from the books in the first place. But I think it's kinda a fun and interesting choice to update the interview to be taking place in the present day, which I assume might end up leading to some fresh new contemporary things taking place with the characters later on in the show. I liked how gruff he was and how he wasn't just sitting there mostly mute and sweaty and afraid of Louis or to ask any actual questions as well, haha. The references to him taking a bunch of drugs in the 70s and calling Louis "man" on the tapes and whatnot were pretty funny touches to me, too... It's a bit amusing to me that Louis is just telling him this story all over again as if he's never told it to him before, because GOOD GOD I am sure that it was plenty long enough to sit through it the first time around, but overall I'm not unhappy with this choice.

-I enjoyed that they're clearly drawing from the entire series with how they're writing all the characters and lore. Lots of nods to things from the series that show the writers have done their homework on the books (eg. the reference to the Mayfair sisters and the details about the monastery education during Lestat's outburst at dinner with the Pointe du Lacs). It's a good sign to me that they will be writing it with the whole thing in mind and a good grasp on the characters from the start and have a pretty clear direction for the story when they make their creative decisions.

-Louis was a lot of fun to me in the first episode! I think he had a lot of personality here, maybe even more so than he does in the books. I think there's quite a bit of interesting stuff to explore with a black Louis, and I liked that it's talked about as well and that he gets to directly address all of that stuff. I thought most things about his personality were kept the same, like his dutiful family ties and his troubled religious brother and his polite yet rebellious and standoffish nature and conflicted guilty depressive moments. And the stuff that wasn't they updated in a logical way (making him a pimp instead of a slave-driving plantation owner - I like that they're not trying to make him seem like a hero of any sort during his human life here either - even if he does have it harder and different than book Louis in some ways due to being black they're still giving him another sort of exploitive and oppressive means of maintaining his family's wealth). Maybe the one thing that I still have reservations about there is that they changed the time period of this storyline to the early 1900s, even though I get that they'd have to do that to make his updated backstory make more sense. But I dunno, it's just not nearly as cool having a guy come up to you and tell you he became a vampire in the 1910s as a guy coming up to you and telling you that he was born in the 1770s or whatever. 1910 is barely 100 years ago now, and if their first interview took place in the 1970s then it makes it even less of an unusual claim, haha. Like Daniel could probably meet plenty of other people that age still living in his youth if he just walked into any nursing home, which sort of takes away a little of the oomph of it all to me. But I suppose I can overlook that if it also makes for other interesting changes that add good things to the story as well.

The guy playing Lestat did a fine job to me as well overall! He's definitely giving second book Lestat vibes to me (as he's basically like an entirely different character after the first book once he takes over as the main narrator, imo). I was taken aback by his French accent at first (not that it doesn't make sense, he IS from France - I just didn't expect it after Louis sounded so American I suppose, haha). HOWEVER I have to admit I kinda hate his coloured contacts, I think they look soooo bad and so distracting half the time hahaha ugh - in that scene where he's supposed to be hypnotizing Louis and like seducing him or whatever I couldn't take it seriously at all because of how goofy and glazed over and Halloween costume-ish his eyes were looking. These are the kinds of things that never measure up for me aesthetically when it comes to live action adaptations and such, sighhhhh....

-I'm a bit on the fence about the way they're just setting Lestat and Louis up explicitly as lovers right from the start! Not sure if I approve of this decision or not - not because their relationship isn't homoerotic and suggestive in canon right from the start or anything, but because I think a lot of the intrigue and appeal of the IWTV book for me came from how ambiguous and tense their relationship was half the time. How you could never really know for sure what Lestat actually thought about Louis or how much he really liked him, and how much he wanted to keep him bound to him purely for selfish/exploitive/shallow reasons or maybe something else. And some of the appeal of the bonds between the vampire characters is lost for me a bit when they make their relationships with each other explicitly one thing or another instead of multiple possible things at once, if you know what I mean? But I guess it's nice that they're not trying to downplay the gayness or just turn it into condescending queerbait instead too, and maybe it will open up interesting story possibilities in other ways that I'm just not thinking of right now.

-Another thing I'm a bit iffy about is the superpowers that Lestat is showing right from the start to Louis, too... like mindspeaking to him and making him levitate and freezing time and so on. I actually kinda liked how mundane and regular and unimpressive Lestat is most of the time in the first book, and how Louis never knows if he actually knows anything about his maker or actually has superior powers beyond the ones that Louis himself has... I think it made stuff like Louis's desire to escape Lestat make more sense as well, since he was never really sure if Lestat was actually his superior or a holder of any special sort of knowledge or abilities or not. HOWEVER at the same time I DO understand that they probably had to find a way to make all that stuff actually make sense with all the other conflicting stuff that comes later about Lestat's backstory and abilities and so on later on in the series, and clearly they've decided to adapt it as an entire book series instead of just the one-off novel on its own. I'm still not really sure Louis would have chosen to become a vampire if Lestat did all the awful shit he did to the priests right in front of him though, like punching his hand right through somebody's head lol. Louis was already a plenty guilty and reluctant and self-loathing enough vampire without ever seeing Lestat do anything like that in front of him before he was turned, haha... And I am also not that big a fan of Lestat being able to mindspeak to Louis and so on, tbh. I guess I can forgive him doing that while Louis was still a human mortal anyways, but I do hope that they keep to the book rules about the vampire sires not being able to read their fledglings' minds. Because that was a limitation to their powers that I found interesting and that I quite liked.

(will continue my rant in another reblog, sorry this is getting so long)

gotta say i tried watching the iwtv series but the tone just seems off somehow. there are good things about it sure, and i do love sam reid (?) as lestat, but the tone issue is similar to why i think vampire diaries is so off-putting for me. like, it focuses on sex and blood so strongly in a way, and sort of misses the elements that made the books so interesting to me. i wish i could explain this vibe better, lol.

that being said, i would be interested in your opinion on the show if you ever watch it! often when i happen to know the piece of media you're talking about you voice things about it that i haven't been able to put into words myself but strongly agree with, haha.

I'll try watching it today since the books are still fresh in my mind and see what I think! Curious to know instead of just judge mostly based on clips and gifs...

[specialability]

Extremely long life update:

tl;dr I bought myself a 2020 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 from BestBuy and it was an awful experience but it's in the mail, also I really like mastodon a lot actually, and my cat got worms :| if you read or scroll to the end you get cat photos as a reward.

A couple weeks ago I decided to buy myself a new laptop as Black Friday sales were starting (even though I live in Canada where Thanksgiving happened a month ago) and my current MacBook Pro is from 2015 and showing its age. The battery menu just says "Service Recommended" on it now. I basically can't stream sports video without closing everything else that's open. That sort of thing. I got a bunch of money in Sept due to being approved for disability support so I can afford something low-medium nice so I start searching for "budget gaming laptops" and doing a probably excessive amount of research. Most review sites decide to consider things "budget" if they're less than $1000 but they're going by USD and let's just say a $900 USD laptop goes for more like $1400 CAD if it's even stocked. So finding something that's actually under CAD$1000 involves a lot of manually checking multiple sites because of all the different possible configurations. I am repeatedly reminded of why I previously bought only Macs.

My criteria ended up being: under CAD$1000, AMD processor (because they play better with Linux), discrete graphics card, removable/upgradable RAM, upgradable SSD, not hideous, not extremely heavy or large, in stock.

I settle on two main options: Lenovo Ideapad 3 Gaming or Asus TUF A15, both of which were going for about $999 and were relatively well-reviewed but emphasis was made on the fact that they were heavy and battery wasn't great. Also the TUF is hideous. I'm not a student any more so I don't really need to worry about all-day battery life, but I also don't want something that basically needs to sit on a desk all the time plugged in to be used. Because I don't have a desk and there isn't room for a desk in my apartment. Which is why I'm buying a laptop instead of a desktop in the first place.

Anyway, I kept going back and forth because I wasn't really happy enough with either of them to justify the price, the configuration of the Ideapad that I wanted went out of stock so only a more expensive version was available, I had a bit of a meltdown on twitter where I started totally second-guessing myself and maybe I should just buy a shitty $300 refurb laptop?? Like what am I doing I don't need to game on a laptop, I've spent all these years not being able to play PC games and I still don't own any consoles other than the switch. Am I being too greedy??

And then it was like 4am and I was on the BestBuy site and they must have updated their sales at midnight because the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 showed up. (insert holy choir singing hallelujah) It actually matches all my criteria aside from being 14", which is a bit small but I can live with it. It has excellent reviews, better than the other two. It's actually small and light enough to be portable and and has a much bigger battery than the other two somehow?? AND it's on sale for $899 so great, I put in the order.

Nothing happens. No shipping notification or anything. Until two days later I wake up to the order being cancelled. No email even to tell me why. So I open up the chat and they say it's a security issue, the billing address you put in wasn't matched by the bank so the charge was refused. This makes no sense because I paid with paypal which has had all my info in it for ages and has always worked before. I google and there are people complaining about this on reddit so sure, fine, I'll redo the order and make double sure the address is correct. I pay directly without paypal. Next day, wake up, order is cancelled again. This time I call them. They can't override the system, but what the person says is I can physically go into the store and ask them to put in the order through their system and then I just pay at the store and therefore it won't be checked in the same way by the system. This is because I want the open box price that is $100 lower. If I was willing to pay the extra $100 for the non-open box version I could have just physically gone to the store in the first place, a week ago when I started all this. But fine. FINE. I want to buy this stupid laptop. It better be absolutely flawless when I get it because seriously. The only other place that has it in stock it is $350 more and is a newer version so I can't even just say fuck BB and go somewhere else and ask for a price match.

So after navigating the local transit situation which is totally off its normal route due to construction and then walking enough to give myself a blister I make it to the stupid BB store. First of all it's nearly impossible to find a sales person. Then she tries to pressure-sell me into getting the $999 version and then keeps insisting that I also need to buy the extended warranty. I almost buckle because I am into negative spoons but am saved by the fact that my credit card is, again, declined.

So I walk off and call my stupid bank, thinking they've cut me off for fraud because I've tried to buy this laptop so many times. Nope, says the person on the phone, you just hit your credit limit because the previous purchases are still sitting there pending and haven't cancelled yet. Once again I want to strangle whoever is in charge of BB's checkout system. I actually have a totally different credit card, but it's at home. Am I going to go all the way home and back again? Am I going to go home and try to order it online with the other credit card and run into the same problem?? Absolutely not. But the bank phone person actually ups my limit while I'm on the line with them, which is amazing, and gives me just enough space to buy the stupid laptop. I am seriously at the point where I'm doubting all my life choices and do I even want a new laptop my old one still functions what am I doing wasting money like this etc.

So I go back to the desk and the previous sales person is gone, thank god, so I explain what happened to the person who's there and they're, shockingly, like "sure we can def do that". So they log into their shit and we go through putting in my info and making sure they order the exact right one and then I pay for it (with no pressure sell of the warranty this time) and it goes through! I would be more excited if I wasn't so exhausted.

aside: it is so unseasonably cold out I can't believe it. it is never this cold around here, I never have to get my full winter coat out in November let alone there being snow and ice on the ground. climate change!! what are you doing!! we can't have incredibly hot summers and incredibly cold winters!!

aside2: the reason why I didn't want the warranty is that aside from it being like $25/month, more than my actual renters insurance, is based on my reading of it there is no coverage of accidental water damage. which is the no.1 reason why I might need repair. Anything else that's going to fail will either fail in the first year and be covered by the manufacturer or I'll deal with it myself. I'm not a pro repair person I don't even own a soldering iron but I can follow ifixit instructions. In my impatience for this laptop to arrive I have actually already looked up the instructions for upgrading/repairing various parts to make sure it's possible, because most cheaper laptops these days solder the RAM to the motherboard and therefore aren't upgradable in the future.

back to the main story: Being a depressed cynical person I am not jumping with excitement yet. The next day I wake up and... there's a shipping notice!!! They have printed the shipping label!! I have never actually achieved this stage of the purchase process before!!!!!!

It is now the weekend so the only progress that gets made is that the package is scanned in at the nearest warehouse. So the laptop exists. Or a box that a laptop should be in exists. It might arrive Mon or maybe Tues. I will believe it when I receive it intact and turn it on and it works. The only plus side of the trip to the BB is that I got to look at it and try out the keyboard and touchpad. The screen is indeed a bit small but now that I (my roommate) owns a TV that is less of a real issue. I am going to wipe and reinstall Windows 11 to start with and then dual boot it with Pop OS.

I am, at this point, both looking forward to and dreading getting used to using a non-Mac computer for the first time in ages. I've used WinPCs for work in the past, but never as my main daily use machine and after 10+ years of using various MacOSes I have such a deeply-ingrained workflow that it's going to take some getting used to. I learned to program in Unix! I know all the ways in which MacOS tends to break! I have already researched different desktop environments that might be more similar to Mac and made sure that my most often-used software has either a Linux version or an equivalent I can migrate to.

And of course the twitter meltdown is happening so I checked out all the different social media offerings that people were talking about and since a few of my techie / librarian friends moved to mastodon I put a little more effort into learning it than the other ones. In terms of their philosophy of decentralization and consent I am behind the software 100% but if of course depends on how it's implemented.

So I'm invested in finding one or more mastodon servers to live on in the future as a replacement or adjunct to twitter but already I prefer the interface and functions to twitter by a lot. For one thing, twitter hamstrung 3rd party clients a long time ago so the one I've been using for like 5 years is very clunky and laggy, but the tusky mastodon client looks pretty much the same and is incredibly snappy. I find myself much more motivated to use it and let it crosspost to twitter than use twitter and crosspost in the other direction. Even if I still mess up on most of the tweets I send and have to go back and fix the permissions or CW.

I have already moved one of my accounts to a different server from the first one I signed up to and have a second account going on a newbie fandom server. I haven't found my ideal server yet but I am looking at the more anarchist-oriented ones.

another aside, do I qualify for an ADHD diagnosis yet?: I understand the ass-covering required by saying 'no illegal stuff' but lol I am not a totally law-abiding person and am not going to totally censor myself on that, the DMCA can go fuck itself, scihub and libgen are great, and yes I occasionally shoplift from the pharmacy.

If I had the money I would probably just start my own, it sounds easier to install than Arch Linux and, if nothing else, I have a lot of free time. I wrote a really long screed on why I think mastodon (and the fediverse more widely) is better for fandom than twitter ever was but then deleted it because my knowledge changed just within the 24hrs since I wrote it. Anyway, I like it a lot, it has a nice vibe so far, I suspect that a lot of people will quit after this initial rush but that's fine. It's much less frantic than discord but allows for more frequent smaller posts unlike tumblr, so it's good for my kind of diary-style posting. Basically the main reason why I'm writing this post is because I haven't been able to write it out in bits and pieces properly because of all the twitter/mastodon migration.

With all this going on, I also had my cat show signs of being infested with tapeworms (ew) so I had to suddenly get him to the vet. The vet agreed with me and gave me some meds for him so hopefully that is dealt with. I haven't bought pokemon yet because I don't even want to play it, I just want to deal with one thing at a time... or preferably zero things for a while... It is hard to keep up with fandom when I am not even showering every day because I am so tired.

cat photo time: the fat one is the one with worms, but it's not the reason why he's fat (probably) the other one is my roommate's and he's a real gremlin