#things bigger than my computer and has such a nice screen

[the-paisley]

Working on setting stuff up to stream drawing and games in the future wish me luck 💪

[lvlyghost]

The Things I Never Said: Part 3

Pairings: Simon 'Ghost' Riley

Summary: You're required for one last mission.

Word Count: 2.5k

Tw: aaaaaangst, hurt with a lot of comfort. injuries, mentions of blood, kissing and slightly suggestive but nothing too explicit. price has to make a hard choice:(poor grammar, bad english ofc💅🏻 foreshadowing to my price fic 'salvation' if you squint.

A/N: i'm not gonna lie, when i wrote the first part of this fic i was bored and never in a million years did it cross my mind y'all would like it this much. sorry if this isn't as good, this is the final part of it, although i plan to write little drabbles every now and then. this was such a nice ride 🩷✨ thx for the support; remember english isn't my first language, corrections are welcome 🤍🐸

Masterlist✨ Part 2

Desk rotation wasn't fun, but it seemed to be the only suitable work for you considering your pregnancy, besides, it would allow Simon to keep an eye on you. At least he's sure you'd be safer in the military base than alone in your home.

Your only companion as you sit in the tech room is nothing more than a computer with two screens and Jimmy, the other tech guy who sits in the far corner across from you.

True to his word, Price had saved you and Simon a horrible martial court plus being discharged. Technically you're no longer a part of the 141 task force which is already upsetting to all of your team; instead working strictly under Price's command and assisting the different branches of the military. Meaning you're no longer subdued to Lieutenant Riley, therefore you're not his subordinate, at least not directly.

You respond to Price and only Price.

Nearing the end of your first trimester your swollen belly has started to show, the same you try to dissimulate by wearing bigger shirts than you would usually wear, but enough for Simon to notice when he'd place a big calloused hand on your stomach.

'It's... tiny.' He had stated, to which you laughed softly.

'Of course it is, your hand is massive!'

You shake your head, with a small smile on your lips as you remember that scene.

"Everything good?" You ask your companion.

"Mhm. You know you're the best for creating the security system right? Not a single breach or flaw. Couldn't ask for a better partner."

"Is that a chai?" Completely ignoring what he just said you point the white disposable cup next to him. He looks between you and his drink.

"Yeah? Didn't know you liked it, here... have it. I can get another." He assures you when you hesitate.

You thank him with glowing eyes and excitement. Cravings... you're embarrassed of the amount of food you've asked from Simon in the middle of the night. Sushi, pizza and even peaches just for the sake of the baby.

He's being the gentlest man on earth. Caring and supportive. Your phone buzzes as you're about to start to work. The screen lights up with a message from your Captain. Huffing you stand up, letting Jimmy know you'll be back in a few minutes, or so you thought.

You're not prepared for the hell unfolding inside John's office.

You're able to hear male voices from the other side of the hallway. You don't know why but your heart begins to race, knocking twice once you've reached the brown wooden door.

"Come in!" Price shouts from inside.

You open the door, greeted by John's hardened eyes and Simon's back as he hunches over the Captain's desk. Confused and much to your dismay there's a gigantic folder between the two men, your eyes fall on Ghost's trembling frame.

He is enraged.

Body buzzing in anger as the soft click of the door interrupts the silence that's fallen suddenly inside.

"You wanted to see me Sir?"

Price slowly stands, Simon doing the same, turning his head ever so slightly to watch you from over his shoulder.

"I need to talk to you, sweetheart." Price begins.

A deep breath exits Simon's chest.

"What is it?" You take a step closer to them, until you're standing next to him, crossing his arms over his chest he remains silent.

"We need you. For a mission." He states. "It's important, sergeant. I don't think anyone else would be able to pull this off." Your eyes dart back to your boyfriend. Staring daggers at his superior. "I'd never ask for this if I had to."

"Bloody hell Price, she's not fucking going!" He is seething.

The gut-wrenching feeling sets in your belly, tossing and turning with anxiety. Simon isn't taking this well and you don't want to see him like this, it breaks your heart.

"How important, Sir?" You ask.

Ghost snaps his head towards you. Jaw tightening, and calls your name ever so softly.

"Don't." He barks. "Don't fucking play the hero, kid." He warns you.

"I'm not trying to play the hero, Simon." You talk back. "I'm trying to figure out how to get this done. I might have someone else that could go in my place." Price sighs. "Can I do it from the base? Maybe I don't have to leave the compound."

"Reports say the files are heavily encrypted. It's the Russians, sergeant. We're not dealing with amateurs." He turns to Ghost emphasizing the last word. "You more than anyone should understand, Lieutenant."

"Not when you're bloody sending her to a suicide mission!"

"These are not my orders Simon! General Shepherd wants her! I tried to talk him out of it. I can't do much more, son." You swallow when Simon starts pacing around like a rabid dog, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Is there any way I can do it? She can guide me through it the whole time..." he's back, leaning closer to his Captain. "I know I...-"

"Unless you know how to code and decrypt systems to perfection it can't be, Ghost. I'm sorry."

"It would only slow down the mission, get you caught. And in danger..." you reasoned, mumbling and staring down to your feet. There's no one else. Not even Jimmy. The one you had in mind.

Simon's mouth snapped shut.

His eyes are helpless when he connects them with yours. The realization of what's about to happen sinking in his core, he tried. He really did.

One long stride and he's embracing you, so tightly you think you'll suffocate; you hug him back, head resting right over where his heart beats frantically against his ribcage.

"I'm coming with her." He snarls. "Not Kyle, not Johnny. And certainly not someone from fucking KorTac." He turns to glare at Price with a death stare. "It'll be me, no one else."

-

"John's devastated." You tell him. Your back pressing against his hard chest. The water in the bathtub is warm, and smells like lavender and sandalwood. After the catastrophic meeting a few hours ago, Simon was too outraged to remain at the base so he drove both of you back to the safety of his apartment. You rest your head on his left shoulder, enjoying the delicate touch of his hands on your lower belly. He hums, almost absentmindedly. He didn't want to think about Price, or the mission for all that matters. All he can think of is you. He sighs, closing his eyes he presses a kiss on your hair.

"Bloody fucking bald cunt." He spits. You snort at his comment. Shepherd was a complicated man, and hardly one you could negotiate with once he had his mind set on something or someone.

"When do we have to...-"

"Tomorrow." Your lips are pressed into a thin line. "I'll be there no matter what, right next to you, love." He reassures you. You were never one to hesitate during missions but now... releasing a shaky breath you turn your head to look at Simon.

"I'm scared..." Simon's body goes rigid. The hand on your stomach halting. "It's not even for me, you know?" Swallowing your free hand reaches down to find his own, lacing your fingers with him. A muscle becoming prominent in his jaw as he grits his teeth.

"Nothing will happen to you. Bloody count on it, yeah? First shite I deem dangerous I'm pulling us out of there, understand?" You nod.

"Promise me you won't get hurt." There's a moment of silence that becomes unbearable the longer it extends. "Simon..." his eyes are fixated on yours, shining with what you can only describe as worship. The faintest of smiles spreads across his features.

"Don't you worry about me, sweetheart. Not for one second." Breathing deeply you pull him down for a kiss. It's slow and tender; makes you forget about all the difficulties you face. Biting down his lip, Simon takes it as a sign to further deepen the kiss. Tongues finding each other in a fight for dominance. "Don't wanna think about what tomorrow holds. I have you here right now. That's all I need."

-

Your mind goes back to the moments you and Simon shared last night. It was so simple, so real.

That's how things were supposed to be.

Easy.

Not heart wrenching, not stifling down a cry as you watch him get shot. A bullet that was aimed at you .Breaking in had been easy. Way too easy for your liking. But you thought that for once maybe a mission wouldn't be a pain in the ass. The hardest part was getting inside their systems; John was right. It was hellish even for you. It took more time than what you had anticipated. No one would've been able to pull it off.

"Whoever is behind this, they're good." You acknowledged as you type down the codes that will eventually get you in.

"Bloody brilliant you are, kid." Simon watches from the other side of the room, eyes scanning the hallway every now and then looking for any possible hostiles. You send him a coy smile.

"Keep looking at me like that and I'll get no work done."

"How am I supposed to look at you then?" He asks

You don't answer because the screen in front of you suddenly shifts from 'Access denied' to 'Access granted'.

"Got you." You whisper. Simon stands straight. You plug your USB and start downloading all the information as well as setting a virus so their system gets permanently damaged.

"What is it?" He gruffly asks when the files finished downloading on your own device. Clearing your throat you try to ignore the horrible pictures you just took a glimpse of.

"Just... insanity." Is all you can say. A loud metallic sound echoes in the room, you never get to see the person behind you. Ghost's eyes widen and he barks an order your ears don't register, static fills your eardrums. The gunfire starts but lasts mere seconds. Crimson blood splutters from Simon's body.

You stand up, knocking down the chair as you jump out and run where Simon's injured body kneels. You fall down grabbing him by the face. The pain you're feeling deep inside has never been worse.

"I'm fine." He hisses. "Just my fucking shoulder."

As if that would make you feel better.

"Let's get the hell out of here." Your lips quiver. You run back to retrieve the small USB drive.

The body of a man lays down, a pool of blood forms around him. He was hiding behind you the entire time. Had Simon been distracted the outcome could've been atrocious. Yo don't dwell on it.

"Come on, baby." You urge him, crouching down to help Simon as much as you can to get him standing. His weight is just too much for you, you think, when he finally raised to his feet.

"S'okay love. Don't... don't overwork yourself. I'm too heavy, don't wanna get you hurt because of me."

Tears form in the corner of you eyes at such selfless act.

"You're the one who got hurt because of me, Simon." You stammer.

"So what? Would fucking die for you." You shake your head but keep close to him. Pressing down the wound on his shoulder as you head towards the exit. "Evac point is ten minutes away. We should be fine." The gun that rests on your thigh feels heavier than it should.

You're lucky, you guess as you walk away from the god forsaken building.

Lucky that you have him by your side, even when his blood stains your fingers. He's there, you're there and you're making it out alive. Wounded or not, Simon would never let anything happen to you, that's how deep his love for you was.

He wasn't like his dad at all.

He was real, caring, something not much people knew. Not in their lifetime.

The amount of blood he was losing was inhumane. An injured shoulder couldn't cause someone to lose this much blood, you ponder. Your black shirt feels sticky and damp, you take a quick glance and hold back a sob. Another gunshot wound, one he didn't care enough to tell you about and you didn't notice, too scared to even think.

Far in the distance between two big threes a black truck awaits. Johnny's face dropping when he noticed Ghost's decaying form. He rushes in your direction, taking him off of you, carrying his weight. He gives you a concerned look.

"Johnny..." you choke up. "We have to save him, please."

-

It's been the worst 48 hours of your life since you landed. He got two surgeries done in order to remove the fragments from inside his body. You were exhausted, barely ate or slept. It almost felt criminal, selfish, when your eyes started to close and finally gave in.

Then the nightmares came.

Ones where he didn't make it back and instead you had to leave him behind and never got to meet his child.

A warm feeling spreads from your skin. A faint touch. Are you still dreaming? His face erupts in your subconscious mind and you cry again. He's fine.

When you slowly open up your eyes you're met with blue eyes and a raspy voice.

"Don't neglect yourself for me, kid." You're speechless, the searing pain in your heart eases. He knows you so well. Knows you haven't left his side. "Takes more than a bullet to keep me away from you." When you don't move nor speak he continues, clearing his throat. "Come here, sweet thing."

There's a new wave of tears that fall mercilessly down your cheeks. You carefully climb up next to Simon's good side.

"Don't you ever scare me like that!" you weep. Sobbing uncontrollably Simon hushes you. Murmuring words of comfort in your ear. The anesthesia is still making him feel dizzy but that doesn't stop him from kissing every part of your face. Your hair, your forehead, your cheek and finally your lips.

"Let's leave this place for a while. Go on vacation while we still can..." you beg.

Simon's lips twitch. He's smiling down at you.

"What do you have in mind doll?"

You breathe deeply.

"Greece. I always wanted to go to Greece."

There's moments in life when you doubt you'll get a happy ending. Being with Simon at first was pure coincidence, something that had evolved from deep admiration and respect, which then turned into something more. It turned out to sleepless nights at the common room with the task force. Longing stares during briefings. Looking after each other during missions.

The training sessions together. Lending his massive leather jacket because you were always reluctant to bring your own. That one night he couldn't resist it anymore and went to your dorm. How you felt under his touch, oh he was touch starved when it came to you. And when he learned he was going to be a father, that moment would be ingrained into his memory until his very last day.

"Greece it is."

It's a promise.

TAGS:

@nijiru @illyanam1011

[dailyrothko]

Do you have any recommendations for books with large, high quality photos of Rothko's work? I'd love to be able to see some outside the small confines of a computer monitor/phone screen but can't exactly afford a visit to the chapel

Hi

If you're on Instagram, I have a short video about this but I will tell you basically here.

The best reproductions by far are from the recent books published in the last year or two. This has to do with the Rothko family making things available and the curation of large exhibits.

The smallest book in size is the Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper by Adam Greenhalgh is 8 3/4 by 10 3/4. This book covers just the works from the paper show (Nearly 100) and a bunch of interesting history of his work in this medium. It's a great book and the size seems just fine given that the paintings on paper are smaller anyway. It's worth having this and the book not high priced, but you're getting a sharply focused aspect of Rothko's work rather than all the famous ones. It's a lovely book though. The scans are excellent and it's likely to give you a different perspective on his work.

The Next book is the Louis Vuitton Foundation book that accompanied the show. It's physically the largest book, roughly 11.42 by 13. 32 inches. The size here helps the bigger works some of which are even foldouts. You can see the great devotion to the task in all of these books but this book contains the most historical stuff and anecdotes and is full of interesting material. The show was curated by Susan Page and Christopher Rothko and you can see a lot of effort went into it. This is the most complete of the books, in terms of a career retrospective and is fascinating. It's 312 pages, a big, heavy book. Scans are again very good. If you don't much about Rothko this is probably the book for you, but one could say in centers most on his big oil on canvas works.

The final book is the Rizzoli "Rothko book" credited to his children Kate and Christopher. This is over 400 pages and the most expensive book but it's a very personal and unique document. Rather than the usual history it has essays including one from Hiroshi Sugimoto, that I really enjoyed. The paintings are a mix, more of a selected group as the book doesn't cover a particular show. The scans here might be the best (even though all the books have really great scans) because they really reveal aspects of the paintings that are different than what we are used to seeing all the time. They reveal more subtly. Some paintings are absolutely revelatory, so much so that I use this book as my reference for how other scans reproduce color. This is a dodgy thing because color depends on light and scans are somewhat of an artistic endeavor. This book is a trifle less wide than the Vuitton book but it's big and has a nice slipcase too.

I have seen in person many of the paintings in these books and occasionally I "Disagree" a little with a scan here and there but it's a minor quibble as Rothko just looks different in different places. There's really a lot of work and love in all of these and they all are so much better than what we have seen before it would be hard to go wrong with any of them. These are not cheap calendar type repos, a great amount of time and effort went into all of them.

If you have further questions I am happy to help.

[jazy3]

ST5 Casting News

So in addition to Linda Hamilton joining the cast for Season 5 it looks like we've got some other new faces! In the Behind the Scenes teaser trailer and the Season 5 Tudum article that was recently published we got some new information about who will be joining the cast this season!

First up, we've got Nell Fisher who has been cast to play an older Holly Wheeler! And based on the trailer it looks like Vecna might be targeting her this season. In it we've got footage of Holly in her bedroom with the lights flickering on and off. You can see that the wallpaper matches the previous BTS pic we got in March of an Alf poster and a copy of Peter Pan and Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock and some other books in a holder. We now know that this is from Holly’s desk in her bedroom.

This feels so validating because I called it back in March that the photo was of Holly's bedroom! A lot of people thought it was Erica's but to me the vibe didn't match. I love Holly's taste in books too! I'm a big Nancy Drew fan and Secret of the Old Clock is one of my favourites! Seeing it is a nice callback to Season 3 when the newspaper guys kept mocking Nancy by calling her Nancy Drew and suggests that the sisters might be more alike than we thought.

In this new clip, we can see Holly’s Lite-Brite, a music stand, and shelves full of board games and stuffed animals. Which means Holly likely plays an instrument of some kind and I'm curious to find out what that is! Next we have a scene of her standing in the kitchen panicking and looking at something off camera while the lights flicker. This could be Vecna or a demogorgon coming through the wall or something could be happening to Karen. Either way this is going to be a rough season for Holly!

I had theorized after Season 4 came out that Holly might play a bigger role this season and I'm glad to see they're doing more with her character. I think this plot could be really interesting because she seems to notice things her parents and siblings don't. We know Holly saw the lights flicker in Season 1 and moved towards them when Will tried to communicate with her. And in Season 3 she noticed the trees moving in a weird way when she was on the farris wheel with her parents. Then in Season 4 we saw Holly was playing with her Lite-Brite in the living room while the Erica, Dustin, and Lucas discussed the mindflayer and watergate in the kitchen.

So we know she's observant and may have knowledge about what's really going on that she's not sharing. I feel like Mike, Nancy, and Karen are going to be so surprised to find out that she's known the whole time that weird stuff has been going, but I feel like Will and the others won't be surprised at all! Next up we've got Jake Connelly whose been cast as an unnamed friend of Erica’s. In the trailer we get footage of Priah Ferguson and Jake Connelly in costume at a barn.

Which makes me wonder if the G.I. Joe lunchbox and Transformers blanket we got photos of back in May belong to him? And if the 80’s Bedroom we got photos of with the computer, board games, stuffed animals, and ET game are from his room? That would make more sense than some of the other theories I've seen so far as the items seem too young to belong to any of the Party members, but too old to belong to Holly.

To be honest, I'm not sure why a new friend of Erica’s that we’ve never heard of is getting screen time when they could be giving Will a love interest or focusing on the characters they already have. I'm not sure why they expect us to care about a character we've never heard of when there are so many other characters who deserve screen time and love interests and to make new friends.

Speaking of love interestes where is Vickie in this trailer? We know she was filming at the hospital with Robin in either episode 1 or 2 and we know she's a part of the main cast so I feel like she should be here. The only thing I can think of is that whatever she's filmed so far is really spoilery so they can't show it to us yet.

Lastly we've got Alex Breaux whose been cast as an unnamed military character. In the trailer he’s seen in a black jacket holding a rifle with a scope on it and he's bathed in red light that's coming from somewhere else in the room. We previously got a BTS pic in February of a crew member in a room with similar lighting next to a lab coat so it's possible he’s at the lab here. To be honest, I'm not sure why they expect us to care about this character when all the military personnel we’ve seen in seasons 3 and 4 have been utterly stupid and ridiculous.

Like getting me to care about Erica's new friend and this guy is going to be a tough sell! Introducing Argyle as a character took a lot of screen time and dialogue away from Jonathan, Mike, and Will in Season 4 in what should have been their storyline and their time to shine. So I'm a bit concerned that these two new characters are going to do the same thing and take away more screen time from the existing cast of characters we already have.

Since we know there's going to be a large military presence in Hawkins this season I'm wondering if maybe this guy is going to be our heroes' inside man the way that Owens was in past seasons? I'm also not sure how old this actor is so it's also possible he could be a love interest for Karen or another character on the show. I'm still holding out hope that they're going to introduce a new love interest for Will this season and that he's going to get his happy ending! Cause the boy has been through it!

Tudum Article: https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/the-title-of-stranger-things-season-5-episode-1-revealed

BTS Teaser Trailer: https://youtu.be/vEhYTJpC2No?si=la95B7BwxWgav4Dq

ST5 BTS Teaser Trailer Thoughts Parts 1 - 4: https://www.tumblr.com/jazy3/758215736865013760/st5-bts-teaser-trailer-thoughts-part-4?source=share

[femboycatofmystery]

So my post about how you should draw (YOU SHOULD DRAW!) blew up beyond any precedent since my return to tumblr and someone in the FRANKLY KIND OF TERRIFYING NUMBER OF REBLOGS mentioned downloading a free DAW to make music and that got me thinking,

HOBBY SOFTWARE MEGAPOST GO

All of the below software is free to use, and most of it is Open Source (which is its own thing I recommend learning about, its entire existence and success gives me hope for humanity) so GO GET SOME TOOLS! Make things like nobody's watching and then SHOW IT TO THEM ANYWAY! Or don't! Even if you hide your work from the world (lord knows I do!!!) you will have created something! And it feels amazing to create something!

VISUAL ARTS:

Inkscape: Adobe Illustrator replacement, pretty solid if a bit quirky.

Krita: Painting software, if anything slightly overpowered and sometimes more complicated than you want, but can do bloody anything including advanced color management. A wonderful tool.

Blender: You have probably heard it is super hard to use. This is CONDITIONALLY true. Because the developers are working day and night to improve everything about it it's always getting better and now like, 80% of the hardness is just because 3D is hard. Aside: Blender Grease Pencil - A subsystem in Blender is concerned with 2D animation and it is. Surprisingly good. Some annoying conventions but totally possible to literally make professional traditional 2D animation.

MUSIC:

LMMS: A free and open source DAW that can do a lot, except use most modern VST plugins. The practical upshot of this is that if you are just starting out with music it is totally serviceable but over time you might start to long for something with the ability to load hella plugins. (I'm currently trying out Reaper which has a long free trial and is technically nagware after that point...)

PlugData: You GOTTA TRY THIS, it's not mentally for everyone (not HARD exactly, just WEIRD) but if your brain works well with this kind of flow graph stuff it's a magical playground of music. (If you have heard of PureData, PlugData is based on it but has a lot of nice graphical upgrades and can work as a VST if you have a proper DAW)

Surge XT: A big ol' synthesizer plugin that also can run standalone and take midi input so you can technically use it to make music even if you don't have a DAW. If planning notes ahead of time sounds intimidating, but you can get your hands on a midi piano controller, this might actually be a great way to start out playing with music on your computer!

Bespoke Synth: Another open source DAW, but this one is... sort of exploded? Like PlugData you patch things together with cables but it has a wild electrified aesthetic and it can do piano rolls. Fun though!

GAME DEV:

Yeah that's right, game dev. You ABSOLUTELY can make video games with no experience or ability to code. I actually recommend video games as a way to learn how to code because the dopamine hits from making a character bumble around on a screen are enormously bigger than like. Calculating pi or something boring like that. ANYWAY:

Twine: Twine is what I might describe as sort of a zero-barrier game dev tool because you're literally writing a story except you can make it branch. It has programming features but you can sort of pick them up as you go. Lowest possible barrier to entry, especially if you write!

Godot: I use this engine all the time! It's got great tutorials all over the internet and is 100% FREE AND ALWAYS WILL BE. Technically there are more Unity tutorials out there, but Godot has plenty enough to learn how to do things. It's also SUPER LIGHTWEIGHT so you won't spend your precious hobby time waiting for the engine to load. There are absolutely successful games made with this but I think the best thing about it is that the shallow end of the learning curve is PRETTY OK ACTUALLY.

[adoracora-elizabeth]

But Papa! Why? Chapter 6

This story has a slower uploading than I usely do. But it is not coming easily and I rewrite it a lot. I know where I want to go, just now what is going to happen in between.

"Did you talk with Mr. Crawley already?" Martha asked her husband when they sat down at the dinner table.

"I have sent him an email, but Cora only arrived two days ago, I do not want to interfere too much already."

"You are still keeping up the façade, right?"

Isidor sighed, he still was not convinced they did the right thing. Of course, it would be nice to have a London-based office. That way it was easier to spread all over Europe. Although he was aware of the results of Brexit. But it was all set up for Martha's masterplan. Getting Cora to marry an English Lord. "Yes dear. We will go ahead with opening an office in London and we will use 'Crawley Advertisements' knowledge."

"I was wondering." Martha continued. "Cora did not call them Lord or Lady Crawley."

"Maybe they do not use those terms anymore." Isidor said.

"I will have to look into that family again, what if I made a mistake and they are not the Grantham's? If that is the case, I have to get Cora to connect with other people. Than this whole wanting to work together with 'Crawley Advertisements' is a waste of time." Martha put another bite in her mouth.

Isidor looked at her. Why was his wife so obsessed with this Lord and Lady business. Why was an American man not good enough for their daughter. He did not like that Cora was this far away. And if she would find a suitable match, she would be for ever far away.

"Are you listening?" Martha snapped.

Isidor was so used to Martha snapping like that, that he did not even flinch. "No, dear, I was not listening. But I will look into the titles of the Crawley's."

"So, you were listening!" Martha said with an irritated voice.

With a deep sigh Isidor answered. "No, I was not, but you are asking me the same question since this morning. Can we please just enjoy our dinner now." He turned towards Harold. "Did you see that new request that came in today. What do you think? Should we take that job?"

Martha gave Isidor an annoyed look. Why did he not care about Cora's title. They were still seen as new money in this city. She did not like that. She needed Cora to make name and get a title, so she herself would rise up the social ladder.

+++

2 weeks had passed

Cora was starting to find her routine, each morning she went for a short walk along the riverside. Before heading to the office, she loved how walkable this area was. She had not missed her car yet. It would probably come as soon as she had time to explore more of the country. But she could always rent a car.

When she entered the office building, the receptionist greeted her. It was a nice young woman called Baxter. Baxter was more than just the receptionist, she made sure that all the desks were stocked, with paper, pens, paperclips and so on. She made sure Robert got his lunch every afternoon, at exactly the same time. Cora had chuckled about that. It did not take her long to realise how much Robert was leaning on his routine. She preferred to go out for lunch, and she had found a new place each day, due to the recommendations of Baxter. She had also asked her everything she needed to know about the computer system, they were using. Cora had been surprised by how much Baxter knew.

She took the stairs to her office, when she walked in, she was surprised, to find John sitting at her desk. Although was it her desk? It was a bigger one, even the screen that was standing on it was bigger. "Good morning." She said surprised.

"Good morning." John answered friendly.

"Ah, you are already here." Robert said. He was standing behind Cora.

This comment annoyed Cora already, what game was he playing now? "As every day." She answered.

Robert hummed. "Well, as you see, I have moved your desk."

"You moved my desk?" Cora echoed.

"Indeed, it is at the office next door. I need John, who is my assistant, in the same room. It makes work easier."

Cora did not know how to respond properly. But she was not going to be humiliated by Robert. She straightened her back and looked Robert in the eye. "Thank you, for moving it." She looked at John. "Congratulations on your new job." She turned back around and walked passed Robert. "Good to know we can collaborate with assistants now." She did not turn around again, when she heard Robert's "What" She was not going to lose this power battle. Because that was what Robert was doing. Battling her to see who was the strongest and who would last the longest. Cora opened the door, to her new office and it was not even that bad. It was big enough for a second desk. She put down her bag and opened her laptop.

The first email she was going to send was towards Mr. Crawley senior. She needed his approval for her idea. Robert did not need to know what she was going to do.

After she hit send, she doubted. Was it smart to already send out this email, what if it did not work out the way she had hoped. What if she would say no to her request? Cora sighed, it did not matter, when she would not help her, Cora would find another assistant. She had plans, big plans and this was the time to make sure they would happen. Back at home, Harold had always stopped her from forming her own ideas, but with Robert it was different. He was so indifferent to what she was doing, that she had more space to develop things. She had already found a company that wanted to collaborate with her on a pilot idea.

Her next email was towards Rosamund. 'Good morning, Rosamund. I know, I am quite late with my request. I understand when you are busy, if so, please let me know and we can schedule it for another day. I saw that tonight at the local cinema they would show that new Liam Neeson movie and was thinking, that we could go together. Kind regards, Cora."

Right away there was an answer. "Good morning, Cora. That is a lovely idea, maybe we can grab something to eat before we see that film? See you at lunch time for the lunch meeting with 'Sky Garden'. Warm regards, Rosamund."

Cora opened her agenda, there was no meeting scheduled. Then she opened Robert's agenda and there she saw the meeting. It was a good thing their accounts were linked she thought. Robert was trying to make her look like a fool for not showing up. She reminded herself that she should check his agenda more often.

[derpycat02]

Hot Take

Okay so now that I've been on the website instead of the app for a few days I have things to say I think.

The app is better (for me) than the website hands down. Easy. No competition. And no, this is not just because I am used to the app version. I actually thought this out.

Things the website does better than the app (to satisfy you long term tumblees):

I can delete a poll from my post if I accidentally click it thinking it is the listing format option. I do this a lot because listing is different than font type in every document editor ever, and there is no way to remove polls from drafted posts on mobile that I have found. The website puts a big fat red X in the top corner of the poll. This is helpful

Bigger screen = less overwhelm. The information to screen ratio is smaller which is less overwhelming for my skrunkly little brain. Also, since I have the pride theme activated (which was a bitch to try and find) all the extra space is pink!

More customization options. I haven't actually played with this, but it seems to be the thing that most Tumblr users use to say the website is better than the app. I did notice there were more options for themes when I finally figured out how to do that, which was cool. (On mobile, I'm pretty sure there are just 4 themes: light mode, dark mode, tumblr classic, and pride. I could be wrong though)

No push notifications. I have notifs turned on on mobile for all of the polls I follow, so I get like over 30 notifications from Tumblr alone overnight. It's very stressful, but I put up with it because it keeps me from missing voting times and ensures that I can go through and like every post that comes out from accounts that I am invested in. I know liking does nothing algorithm wise. I just like showing support and likes are a nice, quick, easy way to do that. Anyway, without the push notifications, I'm pretty much confined to me my feed, which I've never HAD to scroll before. The way I am now consuming content has become (mostly) more relaxed and less stress inducing.

Text formatting. I like that it's a drop down menu. In the app, It's just a button, and you have to press it repeatedly to get the format you want (this is fonts and listing specific).

Things mobile does better that the website

Navigation. Oh my gosh the app is SO much easier to navigate than the website. It took me less time comparatively to figure out how the app worked than it did for me to figure out how to do most things on the website. The website has been around longer, and therefore has the opportunity to be more complicated. The whole point of mobile apps is to be a simple, accessible way to go about navigating whatever the app is for. It's just easier to use.

Typing in posts. The amount of times my laptop has just randomly stopped typing in the middle of the post is ridiculous. It tends to happen when the "draft saved" bubble pops up, which makes me think it may be a glitch with the website rather than my computer. My computer also does not have this problem literally anywhere else. Also, the "draft saved" bubble, while cute and reassuring, obstructs my vision just a bit. There is so much dead space to either side. Why is this bubble not off to a side instead of right in the middle of where I am typing? It was also difficult for me to find the text formatting option, but this is mostly because I was not used to it.

GIFs. I do lots of propaganda, and to save space on my device I use gifs instead of going on the internet and downloading pictures and finding video links. I'm not always very good with words, and find that images tend to be more convincing anyway. On the mobile app, when I search something in the GIF search bar, it stays there even after I've made a selection. Not having to re-type my search 10 times makes it a lot easier and less monotonous to look for propaganda and fill up a post. This is not the case on the website. As I learned after attempting "Kitbull" propaganda, you have to re-type your search each time you add a new GIF. That got annoying really fast, and I only wound up putting two GIFs when I would normally use all image spaces (10).

Push Notifications. But I thought you said the website not doing this made consuming content less stressful??? I know what I said, and yes, for the most part, it does. However there are a lot more areas where the lack of push notifs on the website make my Tumblr experience a lot more stressful. For one thing, I am missing out on ALL of those polls. I follow SO MANY polls, because I was able to keep up with all of them as long as I had push notifications. I have not been able to vote in many polls this last week because I would have to go through and search every single one of their usernames exactly correct to find their pages and vote in my regular fashion. I simply do not have the time, energy, or memory to be able to do this. I also do not get notified when I am sent a message. I learned recently that most Tumblr users don't use the "share" function on posts, (via) however my girlfriend and I use it all the time. Our feeds consist of different interests that we like sharing with one another, so we share posts and polls back and forth just for funsies. To show that we love each other. Etc. etc. The website does not notify me when I get these messages unless I am actively in the tab, so I don't know when she's sent me something. Same goes for any interaction with my account or on my posts. I cannot see if someone has made a comment or a silly reblog with funny tags unless I am in the app. You know what the website DOES show me? How many new posts have been made. This is CONSTATLY refreshing even while I am actively scrolling and not only shows up in the app but also in the tab information. This is why I have such a problem with this. I understand that computers in general just don't do push notifications, but usually with social media, you can see how many notifications you have by checking the tab above the search bar. There's usually a little number in parenthesis next to the title or name of the social media you are using. This is very helpful for me, since my computer doesn't always give a little sound when I get any kind of notification, so I can just look over and see what I've missed while I was queuing up Spotify or playing Minesweeper or Solitaire. With Tumblr, this number only factors in the number of posts that I haven't seen yet. This number stressed me out, has me constantly refreshing the page even before I am done scrolling, and is not actually helpful in any capacity.

Page Jumping. Both the website and the app are dogwater at not jumping around the page while you scroll. However, the app is slightly less so. Page jumps in the mobile app only happen when an ad loads in where it wasn't before. This is pretty consistent with how any webpage, crappy mobile game, or social media app works on a phone (on my phone at least). When I'm scrolling anything I have to be careful to wait until all ads have loaded before I try pressing a button or I'll accidentally hit something I'm not supposed to. On the website on my computer, Tumblr page jumps every time I reblog. EVERY. TIME. Reblogging is, like, the currency of the realm. It is how things are meant to be done. I don't have the energy for a page jump every time I try to reblog something. That's gross.

Screenshots. This is admittedly more of a device difference than a Tumblr format difference, but it is affecting how I interact with Tumblr, so I thought I should put it on here. If you actually follow me and try to keep up with what I post (which isn't much) you know about my Untitled Bots threads. Essentially when I see a bot follow me, and their name is either blank or "Untitled" I screenshot it, crop it to the word "Untitled" and add it to the thread with a silly quip or lament or goofy photo. However, to make sure I don't miss any, I don't block and report these bots until after I've gotten a screenshot of their profile. Because it is so difficult to take and edit screenshots on my laptop specifically, I have not updated this thread even after being able to access Tumblr via the website.

For these reasons, I have decided the app is better than the website. Thank you. Have a nice day.

[max-nexus]

KGTAC PGS 2080-2082 ANALYSIS (Ft. Home-Skillet page 4 and 17)

The first two pages (Naming gag) have no notable story differences outside of minor art improvements (so i technically lied) BUT 4th page of ACT 2 (5.gif instead of of 4.gif, i guess there was a page in-between the two) has some MASSIVE differences. I'd recommend reading my first Analysis HERE as i will be referencing the one thing that was proven right.

KGTAC Page 2082

Home-Skillet page 4

As you can see there are many notable differences. But before i go on about said differences I'd like to point out that in my previous post, i noted there is no computer on screen on the desk, Which made be state "Which leads me wondering if a computer is even there, Since why else would it be off the panel." And i was right, there was no computer. I'd also like to note that the Page was edited so that the desk is no longer so huge, Fred is still a bit short As can be noted by comparing page 2082 with 2079 (look at the windows) but its a small issue. And if he we're any bigger then the pool would be obscured which would be much worse!

KGTAC PAGE 2079 (NOW)

Now onto the differences, first I'd like to bring up the Narration differences between the two, Specifically anything unique they list for the character

KGTAC: Package for computer, he has tools to get the computer working, He is a Nintendo fanboy, and likes some musicians

Home-Skillet: Room is relatively tidy, a gamer who's very picky, and has an interest in fixing electronics, despite this fact he can't code

In Home-Skillet, he already had a computer, he had tools though that's in the art, not mentioned in narration. He might no longer have an interest in fixing electronics but its just a guess, it might just be unimportant to mention. Art Stuff: On the bottom right corner we now have the FLOPPY-DECK, which used to be inside the closet that we can no longer see in the image, the closet itself might not exist as we can't visually confirm it's existence, We now have a bigger window on the side as i don't remember that window existing from my reading of Home-Skillet. For some odd reason the Hotplate is now on the bottom left corner of the panel instead of the desk which it was on (disgusting, not a hint of tidiness). I'm guessing its so the reader can easily see the objects. Here's a nice closeup shot of the Floppy-Deck, man i love this thing, its such a cool concept.

Home-Skillet Page 17 (FLOPPY-DECK MY BELOVED)

The Section with Genuine Speculation: There is now a shelf and window, though I'm uncertain of how they'll be important at the moment. My feelings with them are the same as with the pool. There's not much to speculate on story wise as of now. But i can assume it won't follow the same path as Home-Skillet, or if it does, it merely follows it in general rather than any specifics.

The Section with Hopes & Dreams: With some of these changes, i hope for the possibility that Fred won't get a sylladex for a while, Like you're telling me you can't trust him with a computer until he's 13 but you can trust him with an item which can launch anything at a force strong enough to break a window? It would also mean the Floppy-Deck as gimmicky as it is will be important for Fred, Especially if he doesn't figure out how to get more sylladex cards (Due to the fact you can merge items into 1 sylladex card) The Floppy Deck could be used as a safe way to get multiple items into a single card. Hell, In theory you could do && with the Floppy-Deck, its only meant to hold 1 item at a time, so if Fred is still interested in Electronic Tinkering, he could try and force it to take multiple items at once and since he's not very good at it, it instead causes the items to merge like in alchemization. It's starting to get a bit silly with my "theorizing" here but i really did like the Floppy-Deck and i felt it was somewhat underutilized. Sure its gimmicky, but Stack modus is gimmicky, hell most modi are gimmicky due to stupid rules, the only reasonable ones are like Array and Wallet modus. In theory the Floppy-Deck is like a bulkier version of the wallet modus, and i just really want to see it used to an extreme. In Conclusion, I will keep analyzing KGTAC with Home-Skillet as no one else seems to be doing it, and i will keep forgetting to join the KGTAC Discord. Also because i pick up on more things when i do this plus it's helpful to anyone looking for an analysis. Next Analysis

[achaiapelides]

Kit's Diary

Chapter 3

Dear Ty,

I enrolled in a school today. Tessa and Jem suggested that it would be good for me to get in contact with some mundanes in our area, so I could find some new friends. I actually didn't want to, but they seemed to think that this was a good idea and were so happy, so I didn't want to disappoint them and agreed. It's a pretty big school, because all the kids in the area go there. I had some problems finding all the rooms first, but I guess I'll get a hang of it eventually. I had to elect advanced courses. Tessa told me history is quite interesting, English too. She knows this because she apparently attended the school a few years ago because she got bored, as you do as an immortal warlock.

First I got my timetable and a tour of the school with Tessa and Jem by the secretary, an older, very strict looking lady, but she was actually not that bad. She looked at my hand weirdly though, as if she could see my rune, Tessa assumes she probably is a mundane with sight. Afterwards I had my first class. Obviously maths. Ugh. But the teacher, a young man about 25, is very nice and actually managed to make me understand the stuff he explained. He even uses some new technology called IPad and beamer and made videos for us to watch at home so we can understand the topic better.

Since I know you're interested in that and Livvy is probably too, I'm going to explain it to you now. An IPad is a bit like a computer but you can, like on your smartphone, touch the screen so you don't need a mouse. But it's bigger than a phone, so you can write on it too if you have a pen that is connected to it. I don't quite understand how this works, I'm bad at physics and electronics okay? But I'm sure you can find that out by yourself if you want. A beamer is a device that you can connect to your IPad and project the thing you see on its screen onto a wall with light, like in a cinema.

So maths wasn't actually that bad. The only problem was a girl in my class, I think her name is Leo, who looked at me really weird, but not the same way as the secretary. She probably has the sight too and can see my runes. I fear she might ask me about it, so I guess I have to come up with some story, how I got them. I'm going to ask Jem and Tessa later.

After two hours of math, where I surprisingly did not die of boredom, I had history. They talked about Henry VIII, you know, the English King with the many wives. The teacher, Mrs. Addams is pretty strict, but still quite a good teacher. You have to imagine her a bit like a young Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter. If you don't know Harry Potter, you should read the books immediately, there's pretty good, even though the author is a bitch. But back to history: It was also quite interesting, especially the history of Henry's wives. Especially Anne Boleyn and Catherine Parr are very interesting.

Afterwards we had English with the same teacher. Apparently she kind of connected both subjects because we're reading Shakespeare in English class. She decided that we're going to read different works of him in groups. My group consists mostly of girls, who of course chose "Romeo and Juliet". I'm kind of bummed because Shakespeare has so much more interesting works but, I mean who can blame them, when Leonardo Di Caprio plays Romeo in the movie.

There is another boy in my group, his name is Sam. He has light brown skin, dark brown hair and is definitely straight. Not that he said that, my gaydar is just like "nope, don't even try". He does look a bit like a male Livvy, but more tanned. Quite attractive, but not my type... that's you. (Ok Kit, stop simping about Ty, you were writing about school!) Leo is also in my group. She does look a bit like Hazel, but white, blonde and definitely not a werewolf. But they kind of have the same face. Maybe they're related or something. She was eyeing me the whole time though. But not like a "fuck me"-stare, more like a "you're very different and interesting"-stare. Kind of the way you're looking at animals you find interesting. Okay, she will definitely ask me about the runes sooner or later. I really should come up with a story for that.

After English, my day was over and I walked home. Yes walked. The school is really close to Cirenworth. I told Tessa and Jem about my day and when I mentioned Shakespeare; Tessa jumped up and ran up the stairs, only to come back a few minutes with really old editions of his books. She told me, that Will, her late husband from the 19th century, bought them for her on her 21st birthday. Both she and Will and their children read them, maybe their daughter and son in law, too. Afterwards they stayed in Cirenworth, which was her daughter-in-law’s home, until today. There are even notes from all the people who read them in there. Tessa even allowed me to bring them to school for our next English class. Also they wanted me to invite Sam and Leo over because "you need some friends". I promised I would ask them. Mina was also very interested in the old books, and even though she can't read, she flipped through the pages very carefully and looked quite pleased. It was sooo cute.

I wish you could meet Mina. I just know you would love her. She's so interested in the little things that easily get overlooked, just like you. Speaking of you, I wasn't as sad about us today. In fact I was the happiest I've been in a long time. I still think about you almost every time something happened, but it doesn't hurt that much anymore. Maybe I'm starting to heal. Maybe one day I can meet you again without breaking into pieces. (Did you understand that expression? It's what it feels like when you see something that triggers your sadness and it gets so overwhelming that you literally feel the same pain as if you were breaking into pieces.) And look at that. I just noticed it but I even write as if you'd actually read those diary entries. But you won't. At least not now. But I always hope that someday we will see each other again. And that we maybe can understand why we did the stuff we did and forgive each other. Even if it will take a long time, today was the first time I actually believed in it. That maybe, just maybe, you completely misunderstood me and actually love me as much as I love you. (Okay. Stop it Kit! You're simping again... you gotta let a man dream though.)

For real though, I love you still, and I always will

Always yours,

Kit

Happy December 12th, everyone!

[roebeanstalk]

months ago i amazed many by saying i liked windows 11 (within an hour of installing it)

i still like it, mostly. however, of course:

here are the things i do not like about windows 11, as promised.

-yeah, a lot of right click options are under "show more options" now, requiring you to click through for a lot of stuff. extra clicks. annoying. -the window snapping to edges uh, hitbox, is bigger now and it's kind of annoying. sometimes yes, i really do just wanna put a window kinda in the corner but not have it take up a predetermined amount of screen. takes some nudging -sometimes streaming on discord does not do audio?? i dont get it but it works sometimes. i also use eartrumpet so this could be on me somehow lol -sometimes i have a hard time finding old settings. it seems like moving things over from the old settings/control panel style is a work in progress and happening slowly - so not everything's migrated yet. idk if it all will. but it can just be tricky finding stuff. it's THERE, somewhere, but it's harder to find than it should be probably -taskbar can't be moved. i do not like that. it's fine but i just used to always have my taskbar either on the top of my screen or on the left. i'm used to it now. -the widgets box could be so fuckin cool. but they force you to have a bunch of awful news stuff and i can't seem to figure out how to either get rid of it entirely, or make sure it doesn't show me stuff that'll make me rage. so i never use it, despite a lotta useful stuff.

here are some things i am loving about windows 11 tho, because i am sticking with it lol

-rounded corners. they just make me happy. -centered taskbar. hell yeah. -phone link is massively improved. i can text and call my mom from my computer now. nice. -quick settings. this is in windows 10 but it always felt kinda pointless. here it has a lot of little settings, and you can do a lot without having to leave the box finally. yay. -window organization/snapping - yes i bitched about this. however, built in are some grids that help for some quick organization in a really nice way that you could only do while running power toys. i admittedly still use it

BEST THING ABOUT WINDOWS 11 THAT PC ARTISTS WILL UNDERSTAND: it remembers window/monitor locations. so if you disconnect your cintiq with clip studio open, even though it bumps it to your main monitor... IT GOES BACK WHEN YOU PLUG YOUR CINTIQ BACK IN. it actually remembers which monitor a program was on in different settings (extend, pc screen only, duplicate, etc). fuckinggg finally. so good.

anyway

i'm sure i will hate the things i love and love the things i hate and learn how to do things or windows will update them out. i'm here for it.

SHRUG!!! it feels modern finally and not like, an attempt to be modern. so that's cool. it'll get there eventually i hope, or ai will take it over in a horrific manner. we'll see.

(note to linux people: do not tell me to use linux i will go into a rage) (note to mac people: do not tell me to switch to a mac unless you're buying me a new mac)

[tsukioreo]

I heard you were having some troubles with devices breaking for you and so you’ve opted to doing commissions? I’m unable to pay for a big commission but I was wondering if you have a patron so I could support you there? I’d love to be able to support you but as I said I currently am unable to pay a large sum for a commission sadly, though I would love to one day as your art is magnificent. Thank you and have a nice day! <3

Oh wow that's like... so damn adorable and sweet ?? I don't have a patreon sadly tho I have a ko-fi ( https://ko-fi.com/tsukioreo ) but it's just for donation so please don't worry about it, my laptop and phone are not related to my art, not completely so I feel kinda not legitimate to ask help about it...

Tho I'm taking the opportunity to rant about my current situation cause it's just blowing my mind and I am so super exhausted on a daily because of it.

I have (well had now yeay -_-) a lenovo legion laptop which was my everyday useful, very good for staying at anytime with my rabbit in the living room and playing some games here and there, photoshop, the basic. Tho I had a crack on the top lid and because of that I was scared to close it and decided to repair that issue since the cracked appeared to get bigger. I gave it to a repair shop ( just remindind that I live in Japan so shops with english speakers is a bit rare, I speak japanese tho for some technical issues I prefer to be able to understand everything fully and since no one speaks french, english is somewhat possible to find ). They gave me a diagnostic with so many problems in the laptop : a fan which was broken, the lid, another crack in a screw hole or whatever that was and the hinges which had to be changed. The shop has good review so I didn't question it and I got pics so yeah alright I accept to repair it for 55.000yen, which is a lot of money considering it's more than half of my salary. But I want to repair it, my mom gifted me this computer and I love it. After I got a call from the shop that the replacement pieces have arrived I gave the machine and I was told that I could get it back the same day or the next. I didn't have any news the next day so I decided to call and on the phone "Oh yeah, thanks for calling, well bad news your computer isn't responding anymore" well great my computer worked absolutely fine, never had any issue. They said that probably the fan they installed fried my motherboard so it's just... dead. The repair service killed my laptop.

To make it even better, the day I gave my laptop to them, the same night I noticed my phone back camera had ceased to work... How great right. In Japan, it's like COMMON to use QR code to order at the restaurant etc so I absolutely need it. It's an iPhone, and it's not under warranty so I can't go through Apple or it'll cost way too much in here, I decided to go to an electronic shop, with again a lot of good reviews, to handle it. They don't speak english but we understand each other well enough. I was told that the new camera would arrive in 2-3 days and here I am a week later still waiting. They also scared me by saying that there is a risk the screen would crack while opening the device and if it happens I'd have to pay extra 30.000yen for the new screen, dude isn't it your job to repair things without breaking those further ?? What is going on, is it so normal what the hell.

So for the laptop we decided that they would order a computer (used one) to replace mine, almost identical except for the CPU, and that they'd refund me 10.000yen of the price I paid, which isn't so bad and actually I don't have much choice. But still they need so many days, it's been like what, 4 days the other laptop got delivered and I got a call about the keyboard cause japanese keyboards don't have as much symbols as french ones and I need those to write in my language.. And that'd take another 2 days to just change the keyboard.

I am just soooo tired of the situation, especially cause I am finally going to vacation with my SO next week and they don't make the problem they created a priority... and the phone shop keeping to say everytime I ask for news on the phone "yeah it will arrive tomorrow or the day after tomorrow" for a week now...

So sorry for the rant but I am so damn stressed, it has nothing to do with you guys and I am so happy to have your support, honestly it's my only fuel right now. I haven't drawn for a week and getting that commission helped a lot, tho messages and love will always remain the best.

I appreciate all of you, thank you always

❤️

[weaselle]

thoughts on a theme on a scene on a dialogue too fast!

to write it is to halt its flow, sitting here with a blank document open i’m overwhelmed by a three-trilogy, nine book series worth of socio-economic /socio-political explorations set in a sci-fi fantasy crossover universe. Like, i’d have to commit to writing at least two hours a day most days of the week to .. hm, actually.

OH MY GOD I’M ALREADY BORED OF IT

now i want to sculpt the bone creatures my grandmother haunts me about

what i really want is like, the mad-scientist’s-lab version of a creative space

with like paints and clay and 3D printers and tools and musical instruments and recording booths and microphones and cameras and computers and a stage and circus gear and props and costumes and a green-screen room, a big kitchen and a workshop.

Like, a really nice gym but for creativity instead of fitness.

Because if i had access to that (and a budget of some kind) i could jump in and stay in, just do it as i feel it, wake up like:

 “i want... toys, i want to film like dinosaurs and cars in a pre-history to far-future City of Alltimes we make as a setting for some stop-motion shit. Okay we’ve done some of that i want to make a song, hold on, let me write lyrics to a song about that, cool, okay now let’s pick a vibe to build on and get some music going, this is going to become a music video featuring the dinosaur and car stuff we were doing, I think it’s going to be an awesome part of the choose your own adventure video tree i just thought of...”

oh yeah, “we were doing”, because in my fantasies about this it’s always with a group or a team of some kind

The dream is, we all wake up and have a nice breakfast and morning time, some of us eating together, some doing quiet solitary dawn greeting or whatever; anything each person likes (ideally there’s, like, a sauna and hot tub and viewing lounge with a nice view and a coffee station. Hey, if i’m dreaming, might a well dream big)

And then after our morning routines, we congregate in the creation lab

First I ask if there is anything the group wants to do, like if people sort of “song? anybody feel like songs” “how about a cooking video?” “i kind of want to do something in the workshop today” “yeah, let’s build something” “that sounds nice let’s do things with tools” “yeah building stuff” 

okay so it sounds like a lot of us want to build something in the shop, let’s do that, any ideas on what we should build

 Or maybe someone has a specific thing they have an idea for, a mural or something, and everybody else gets hype about it.

But then, for times when people were willing to create but didn’t have a specific idea, i would be there, with my ten latest greatest ideas and we could pick one to sort of let me conduct it like an orchestra meets mad-science experiment.

Anyway, the entire dream is that, but expanding the projects from purely creative to also include things like creating programs to help local homeless people, and looking at school charters and social messaging and local political projects that could help the next generation get the education they will actually need to accomplish what humans need to get done for ourselves sooner rather than later, in terms of turning climate collapse and politico-economic corruption into global peace and world-wide sustainable prosperity.

And maybe running a couple home businesses to fund it all.

So just, a tight crew, facilities, a budget, and getting up every day and making something happen that we want to happen, because no matter what that thing is, it’s going to happen faster and bigger and better with a highly-cooperative group than with individuals. 

and that’s how i want to live.

[dracyoola]

Bizari

This is a fanfic that I wrote one chapter for. I wanted to do an 'alien comes to earth, meets and falls in love with a human' fic but I instead ended up writing my Extraterrestrial series, which is currently 3 stories long and posted to AO3 here.

I do like the concept of this one and I may come back to it someday. It was planned to be a MinSung + ChanLix fic, with JiLix being from the same planet, Bizari.

The first (and currently only) chapter of this fic can be found under the cut. :)

Chapter One - Crash Landing

He never thought his life would play out the way it has so far. What was supposed to be a fun trip to planet Zichi with his friends, turned into a life changing event. He was flying along in his small, one person ship, heading from his home on planet Bizari, to the nearby planet of Zichi. It should've only taken an hour in Earth's time to arrive, but he hadn't anticipated his small ship colliding with a rogue asteroid and being sent plummeting down to Earth, of all places.

He'd crashed into a field, which was thankfully empty, though his ship was destroyed with no hope of salvaging it. Luckily, he escaped the crash unscathed. He used his Wrist Personal Computer or WPC for short, to figure out where he'd landed. He'd need that information, so he'd know how to make his human cloak look, what language to speak, and what name to give himself, so he could fit in with the people in whatever country he'd ended up stranded in.

"South Korea. National language spoken is Korean. Written language is Hangul," the computerized voice informed him, speaking in his native language of Bizarian.

"Right," he muttered. "Okay. Got it. I can speak Korean. Just need a look and a name."

He took a deep breath, thinking for a moment, before applying his cloak. It took a decent amount of energy to keep his cloak on, but he'd be okay for now. He could recharge his energy when he found a place to rest. Looking in the reflective side of what was left of his ship, he smiled a little at what he saw.

He thought he looked attractive, kind of cute even. Short black hair, big round, expressive brown eyes, cute lips and a cute human nose. His cheeks were a little bigger than he'd like, but he didn't have the energy to try and reshape them, so he was fine with them.

He turned back to his WPC, tapping a couple things on the screen. He'd need a surname and a first name. Looking through a list of Korean last names, he settled on one that stood out the most to him.

Han.

Now he needed a first name.

Jisung.

Han Jisung.

It had a nice ring to it.

It was getting late, getting dark out, and Jisung finally made it into a city. A super busy city, at that. There were humans all around, walking, talking, laughing. It was a bit overwhelming for Jisung at first, so he kept his head down, walking along the sidewalk, trying to make himself appear as small as possible. Of course, since he wasn't paying attention to where he was going, he bumped into someone.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there!"

Jisung's head snapped up at the familiar deep voice. Sure, he was speaking Korean, not Bizarian, but Jisung would recognize that voice anywhere. Of course, Jisung didn't recognize the face at first. It looked familiar but more… human. Though it was a very adorable face, with a cute nose, wide smile, big brown eyes and freckles dusted across his nose and cheeks, reminding Jisung of the galaxies he was familiar with. His hair was short and a really light blonde color.

"Are you okay?" he boy before him asked, brow furrowing in concern.

"Naux?" Jisung asked, stating his best friend's name. His Bizarian name. If this was really who he thought it was, the boy before him would have a surprised reaction, for sure.

Just as he suspected, the boys eyes widened, mouth dropping open in surprise. The boy looked around, before grabbing Jisung's arm and dragging him to a more secluded area of the street.

"How do you know my name?" he asked, now speaking their native tongue.

"Naux. It's me! Deikos!" Jisung replied, smiling widely now. What were the actual chances that he'd crash land on a foreign planet and still run into his best friend? Who went missing two years ago.

The boys eyes widened again, before he was smiling widely, throwing his arms around Jisung in a hug.

"Oh my god! I thought I'd never see you again," his best friend cried, tears in his eyes as he clutched Jisung close. "What are you even doing here?"

"I crash landed a few hours ago," Jisung replied, sheepishly. "An asteroid came out of nowhere and hit my ship and knocked me clear out of the galaxy. I'm okay, though. What are you doing here? Have you been here all along?"

His friend nodded. "For the past two years, actually. I um… I left. To get away from my parents. I'm so sorry I left you. I had no choice. You know how… cruel they were."

Jisung nodded, frowning. "I understand. I'm glad you got away and that you're okay. What are the odds of meeting like this?"

"It's crazy, right?" his friend laughed, before switching back to speaking Korean. "What name have you chosen for yourself?"

"Han Jisung," Jisung smiled. "What should I call you, instead of Naux?"

"Lee Felix," his friend, Felix, smiled at him. "Come with me. You obviously need a place to stay and we have room. I have a three bedroom apartment with my mate and his best friend. You can stay with us and take the extra bedroom."

Jisung stared at Felix. "Your mate? When did you have time to find a mate? Is it a human mate?"

"He is a human, yes, so is his best friend," Felix smiled, taking Jisung's hand in his and walking along with him down the sidewalk. "Your cloak is really adorable. It suits you. It looks just like you, only more… human."

Jisung blushed a little. "Thanks. Yours does too. Does your mate and his best friend know about you?"

Felix hummed. "My mate does. We haven't told his best friend, though. Most humans are… not ready to hear that people like us exist. People from other planets."

Jisung nodded. Don't tell Felix's mate's best friend about them. Noted.

"But your mate was okay with it?"

Felix smiled and nodded. "Yeah. He's the sweetest. He was totally okay with it. Didn't freak out at all when I took my cloak off in front of him for the first time. I was surprised, honestly."

"I'm happy for you," Jisung smiled at his best friend. "And grateful. I didn't know what I was going to do. Maybe just wander around, take on the cloak of a human pet or something and hope someone would take pity on me."

"That's not a bad idea," Felix laughed, leading Jisung into a big apartment building, before heading over to the elevator and hitting the button. "But I'm glad I found you, too. I think you'll like it here."

When they got into the apartment, Jisung took a moment to look around. Sure, the technology was nowhere near as advanced as he was used to, but he knew he could adjust.

"Shoes off at the door, it's part of the Korean culture," Felix informed him, smiling and toeing his own shoes off.

Jisung nodded, kneeling down to untie his sneakers and slip them off his feet, before standing and stepping into the apartment with Felix.

"You did a good job picking human clothes," Felix smiled at him, taking in Jisung's jeans and hoodie. "You fit right in."

Jisung blushed a little. He was always pretty bad at taking compliments. "Is your mate or his best friend home?"

"No. Minho, that's his best friend, is at work. Chan, my mate, is at the store. He should be home soon," Felix explained with a smile. "Make sure to call Chan my 'boyfriend' when Minho is around. Humans don't call each other 'mates' like we do."

Jisung nodded, storing that information away. He'd make sure to remember that.

"Come on, I'll show you to your new room," Felix said, leading Jisung down a hallway, before stopping outside a room. He motioned for Jisung to go inside.

The room looked similar to ones back on Bizari. It was fascinating to Jisung just how similar Earth was turning out to be in comparison to their home planet. As if reading his thoughts, Felix spoke up.

"Earth is a lot like Bizari, isn't it?" he smiled. "You can make yourself comfy. I'm going to grab some clothes for you. We'll take you shopping later for some of your own."

Jisung looked around the room as Felix left, taking everything in. There was a twin sized bed with a small table beside it and a lamp on the table. Across the room was a desk with a chair and a computer set up. There was also a horizontal bookcase with a television on top. It was cozy and Jisung found himself liking it. He sat on the bed, laying back and letting out a breath.

While he was sure he wasn't going to be able to return to Bizari anytime soon, if at all, he was content for the moment. At least he'd miraculously bumped into his best friend, so he had a place to stay and someone who understood what he was going through. It felt good to not have to do this all alone. Felix returned with a stack of clothes, setting them down on the desk for Jisung.

"I can show you around the apartment, if you want," Felix smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Show you how to work the various things like the shower and all that. It's all pretty similar to home, so I'm sure you'll catch on quick."

Jisung sat up, sitting beside Felix and pulling him into a hug, which was eagerly returned. "I don't know what I'd do if I didn't bump into you," Jisung sighed, leaning his head on Felix's shoulder.

Felix smiled and rubbed his back gently. "I'm here for you, Dei. Always."

Felix's mate, no… boyfriend, Jisung had to remind himself, arrived home not long after Felix finished showing him how to work all the gadgets and stuff in the apartment. It was all too simple for someone like Jisung, who was used to way more advanced technology. But it made him feel better, knowing how to work everything. At least it would make it easier for him to blend in, especially if they didn't want to let Chan's best friend, and Jisung's new roommate, he supposed, in on their secret.

"Channie!" Felix smiled, throwing his arms around the man's neck as he came into the kitchen, hugging him and kissing him. "I missed you."

Jisung couldn't help but smile. He never remembered seeing his best friend look so happy before. His home life back on Bizari wasn't the best. While Jisung had missed him, he was glad Felix was able to get away and start a new life here on Earth. Who knows, maybe Jisung could do the same.

"I missed you too, baby," Chan smiled, his eyes sparkling with adoration and love for Felix.

Chan was roughly Felix's height, with adorable dark brown curls and a friendly smile. He noticed Jisung, smiling and bowing to him. "You must be Jisung! I'm Chan, it's nice to meet you."

Jisung returned the gesture, smiling back. "You too," he replied, instantly liking Chan. It was hard to not like someone who made Felix happier than he's ever been before.

"Jisungie is going to stay with us for a bit, if that's okay?" Felix asked, looking to Chan. "He crash landed earlier this evening and doesn't have a way to get back home."

Chan nodded in understanding. Felix had texted him and explained the situation in vague detail, not wanting to leave too much information on their phones. "You're welcome to stay as long as you want to," Chan smiled at Jisung. "Just… don't tell Minho about you or Felix, yeah? I trust him with my life but… the less people who know the truth about you guys, the better. And I've no idea how Minho will react to it. So it's better if we don't say anything."

Jisung nodded. "Right. I understand."

Felix smiled. "We'll take you out shopping tomorrow, so you can get some clothes. And we'll get you a phone, so you can keep in touch with us."

Jisung nodded, blushing as his stomach grumbled. Felix's eyes widened.

"Oh my god. You must be starving! How did I not think of getting dinner first?" Felix groaned, covering his own forehead with his hand. "Aish…"

Chan laughed at his boyfriend's antics. "Let's just order something? Minho's not going to get home until late, so he's definitely not going to want to cook."

"Yeah, okay, that's a good idea," Felix agreed, smiling. "Get pizza. Pizza should be the first food from Earth that Jisungie tries. It's amazing."

"Pizza?" Jisung asked, tilting his head to the side cutely.

Felix smiled and nodded. "Yeah. It's amazing. I promise you'll love it. I've never met anyone on this planet who didn't love it."

Jisung smiled, taking a seat at the kitchen island. "I'll take your word for it."

It was later that night when Jisung found himself unable to sleep. Of course he wouldn't be able to fall asleep easily, not when it was his first night on a whole new planet. He got up from the bed, looking around the room, before heading to the doorway. He paused as he reached for the doorknob, taking in the sight of his light green skin.

He cursed softly, before putting his cloak back on, effectively hiding his true form again. He was going to have to remember to put it on when he left his bedroom for anything. At least he remembered to keep his door locked. That was the only thing Felix had asked of him.

Keep your bedroom door locked when you take your cloak off and make sure to put it back on before leaving your bedroom.

It was tiring to keep it on all the time, as it slowly drained his energy to do so. Felix had told him that he would sleep with his cloak off, since Chan already knew about him. Jisung understood their reasoning as to why they wanted to keep it a secret from Minho but at the same time he also wondered how Minho would react. It would surely be much easier to just tell him, so they wouldn't have to hide outside of their bedrooms. But either way, Jisung respected Felix's request. It was a small price to pay for his best friend's hospitality and willingness to take him in and help him.

Jisung left his bedroom, pausing as he smelled something delicious cooking. Looking down the hallway, he noticed that the kitchen light was on. He walked down, peering around the corner, his breath catching in his throat.

He assumed that the man in the kitchen was the elusive Minho that he'd heard so much about from Felix and Chan. He was definitely the most gorgeous human that Jisung had ever laid eyes on. From his warm brown eyes and his sharp nose, to his soft, dark brown hair that Jisung found himself wanting to run his fingers through… the man was beautiful.

Jisung stepped into the kitchen, taking a tentative step. Minho looked up, locking eyes with Jisung, before a soft smile spread over his lips. Jisung was sure he felt his insides melt.

"You must be Jisung."

Oh, his voice was heavenly. Jisung could listen to him talk all day about everything and nothing at all. Finding his own voice, Jisung smiled and nodded, bowing politely.

"I am. You must be Minho."

Minho returned the greeting, still smiling at him. "I am. It's nice to meet you. Felix told me a little about you."

"Oh? He did?" Jisung asked, interested.

Minho chuckled, turning is attention back to the food he was cooking on the stove top. "Yeah. He told me you're his best friend. That you're from out of town and needed a place to stay, so him and Channie invited you to have the spare bedroom. I gotta admit, it's kind of nice to have someone new around to talk to. You can only take so much of them being lovey dovey towards each other."

Jisung found himself blushing. He stepped closer to Minho, peering down into the pot on the stove, looking at the bright red sauce and the white, cylindrical shapes floating inside it.

"What are you making? It smells good," Jisung asked, watching as Minho stirred the contents of the pot.

Minho raised an eyebrow, before smiling. "Tteokbokki. Have you never had it before?"

Jisung shook his head no, before pausing. He was supposed to be Korean, right? It would seem kind of weird if he kept saying he's never eaten any Korean dishes.

"Mmm… it's good," Minho smiled. "You might like it. It's not spicy. It's kind of sweet. Felix did mention you were from out of town. Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?"

Jisung paused, before trying to remember what Felix had told him was his cover. He'd made up a backstory to tell Minho, to keep their true origins hidden. "Australia. I um. Lived there pretty much my whole life. Before coming here."

"Wow, really? That actually makes sense," Minho laughed a little, before turning the stove off. "You and Felix have been friends since you were kids, right? Then it would make sense you'd be from the same place as him."

Jisung internally patted himself on the back for not messing up. The last thing he wanted was to cause any problems. He watched as Minho dished the tteokbokki into two bowls, handing one to Jisung with a pair of chopsticks, before they sat at the table. Jisung stared at the chopsticks, watching how Minho was holding them, before trying to do the same. He ended up dropping them onto the table.

"Shit, I'm sorry," Minho apologized. "I keep forgetting that Australia does things differently than we do here. Here, I can get you a fork."

"Um, can you show me how to use these?" Jisung asked, before Minho could get up from the table. "I want to learn."

Minho smiled and nodded, before moving around the table to sit beside Jisung. He handed the chopsticks to Jisung, before positioning them in his hand for him and explaining how to use them. After a couple failed attempts, Jisung started getting the hang of it. Minho smiled at him.

"See, you're a fast learner," Minho told him, smiling warmly at him.

Oh, Jisung loved that smile. It looked so good on him. He definitely thought he was going to like living on Earth, especially if he had someone like Minho around.

[j-graysonlibrary]

Heartbeats; Paradise XX

Title: Heartbeats; Paradise

Author: Jay Grayson

Word Count: 112K

Genres: Psychological thriller, drama, sci-fi, LGBT+

Available on: Kobo and my website

Synopsis: Melvin Hardy and Kade Axel appear to be a match made in heaven. After a meet-cute in the rain, the two quickly find themselves in a burgeoning, wholesome relationship.

Yet, things feel…off. It isn’t the ghosts of their pasts that resurface to test the strength of their partnership—no—it’s something nebulous. Something indescribable. Melvin can’t put his finger on it but, the more time he spends with Kade, the more he starts to wonder what’s real and what’s pure fiction. 

XX:

“Kendra?!” Starla is the first to speak and move.

As she pulls herself from the heap, I fall back onto the floor and I guess that she was the one I landed on top of. I’m glad I didn’t have her pinned too terribly since she squeezes out from me with relative ease. Oz gets pushed to the side as well as she rushes over toward the woman in the middle of the room.

“Is it you…?” Starla’s voice trembles as she kneels in front of her, reaching her hands out toward her face but not committing to the touch. It’s as if she’s afraid that she’s mistaken but I can’t imagine who else she could be.

“I told you I don’t look like Bree,” Kendra replies, sounding rather sheepish. “This is me…”

There is a big physical difference—I’m able to see better now that my eyes have adjusted and the computer screen has also switched to a brighter, white light that illuminates Kendra’s form more clearly.

Her skin is a medium brown with her eyebrows and shaved head being a slightly darker shade. She’s a large woman—a body type that didn’t exist in our closed off world but one I became more familiar with through my memories. My own body, as Liam, got bigger as I got older and Gavin was always larger than I.

Starla, however, has had no exposure to people who look like Kendra (unless she’s had old memories crop up for her, which I doubt). She looks over the woman with a furrowed brow and I genuinely start to worry she’ll reject her for her appearance.

But she throws her arms around Kendra’s neck and, to my surprise, kisses her on the lips.

I’m nowhere near as shocked as Kade is though. He jumps up, finally getting off of me, and shouts, “What the hell?! You two are seeing each other?!”

Oz shoves him in the arm, sending him back on me in the process. “Shh.”

Kade’s elbow just barely misses my crotch but it does dig into my thigh. I wince and try to reposition him but he squirms away from me. I get a slap on my arm as I attempt to scoot away and, at some point, Oz involves himself again and, in his effort to help, just makes Kade more volatile.

I hope the women are having a nice moment in the meantime.

“I’m so glad to see you all,” Kendra mentions, making us all look over at her. Starla is at her side, still clinging to her. “Don’t get me wrong but…how did you get here?”

We exchange glances, even checking in with Starla.

How do we explain what happened?

I’m still not sure myself.

But, of course, Kade doesn’t take long to respond. “No fuckin’ clue, honestly. We got sucked into this weird tropical forest and a big flower guy tried to kill us but, when he realized he couldn’t, he said he’d ‘give us bodies’ and then we fell here.”

Kendra’s face contorts with the expected amount of confusion.

Oz sighs loudly. “That’s a very…basic explanation, yes.”

“We’re not sure what exactly happened,” Starla adds on, “But that thing that brought us here was what killed Melvin’s past life. It’s why he was in IVAR, I’d guess.”

“No shit?” Kendra looks to me for more answers.

I don’t know if I have much to contribute, however. Starla pretty much just said all that needed to be said on my part and Kade, while leaving out a lot of details, covered the key points. I’m sure Kendra would like to know more but I’m not sure what giving her details will do other than paint a better picture.

We’ll still have all the same questions at the end.

I take a deep breath. “My husband and I found a weird object that I recklessly touched. We were sucked into that place Kade described and the flower killed us.”

Kendra rubs over lips with her index finger and stares past me as she thinks. “Hmmm…Well, when IVAR was invented it was more like it was discovered. The guy that found it said he came upon a spot that reacted oddly with technology. He and his team studied the phenomenon and, eventually, were able to replicate it and implement it into a system. Before IVAR came to be, the phenomenon was referred to as the ‘God particle’. Though, since IVAR, it’s become less interesting or mystical.”

“Wait…” Oz holds up his hand, “IVAR was created from a natural phenomenon? Not something purely technological?”

“Yep.” Kendra smiles but doesn’t hold it for long.

I feel like there is an answer right on the tip of my tongue but I’m just not smart enough to get it. Although, if Oz isn’t piecing it together then I probably have no hope of doing so in the first place.

“What’s it matter?” Kade asks with a groan, “We’re out, aren’t we? We’re in the real world?”

Kendra laughs quietly and shakes her head. “Yeah, you are. I can’t be too upset about this freakishly powerful threat you faced since it saved me the trouble of having to figure out how to get you all out.”

“Did you have any idea how you were going to do that?” Oz questions as he sits up onto his knees.

“Um…not really, honestly.” She chuckles breathlessly as she wrings her hands together.

“You would have figured something out,” Starla defends her and rests her head against the woman’s shoulder. It’s a sweet gesture but I can’t say I have the same faith that she does.

No one says anything for a moment so I take the reprieve to observe my new surroundings. Mostly, I’ve just seen Kendra and her immediate area which is quite bleak. Other than her computer, there isn’t much of note. But, behind her, still covered in some shadow, is the outline of something long and smooth. I’ve never seen anything like it before but the sinking sensation in my gut tells me exactly what it is.

It’s large enough to fit a person inside and the closest comparison I have is to say that it looks like a tanning bed. A very technologically advanced tanning bed, that is. A few lights occasionally blink on the side of the device but it’s not so bright as to be distracting.

Kendra’s IVAR pod. I can’t look at it for longer than those few second so I turn my attention back to the group and decide to break the silence, “So, where are we, exactly?”

“My university apartment. But where isn’t nearly as important as when.”

My brow pinches together. “What does that mean?”

Kendra softly pushes Starla off of her in order to retrieve her computer. She stares at the corner of the screen and sighs. “According to this, it’s been two years since I went into IVAR. Now…maybe it’s wrong because I can’t imagine my laptop lasting two years and then just booting up without a problem after so long. But…I don’t really know for sure.”

“Your IVAR pod stayed on though, right? So someone must have been paying for your power,” Starla points out. Right after Kendra, she really does know the most about this stuff—I never would have considered that.

“Not necessarily,” Kendra counters, “unplugging an IVAR pod that’s in use can get you a manslaughter charge in some countries. You can plug in an external source to let the person in the pod know that they need to come out but just unplugging it can lead to death.”

“I feel a loophole in there somewhere,” Oz mentions with a face of intense concentration.

“Some people trying to evade the law will hop into an IVAR pod or people who are just trying to get away from financial troubles. It’s…a bit of a problem back home.” Kendra scratches the back of her head. “But, as I was saying, I haven’t been able to access the network on my laptop so I can’t verify what year it is.”

“We can just go out and ask around, can’t we?” Kade asks and we all look at him. I don’t know if anyone will say it but I’m sure we’re all thinking it.

Is he in any state to be talking to real people?

“If you let me take the lead, sure,” Kendra says it in a much nicer way and offers a smile.

She stands up and pulls back the blinds on her window. I see a faint light but it’s from a streetlamp. It’s pitch black otherwise.

“We can travel to a convenience store down the road. I need to get us some food too…” Kendra mumbles but her words fill me with urgency as I realize something that I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to think of.

I sit up straighter. “How could you have survived for years in that pod without food and water?”

Kendra laughs. “Oh—a lot of pods have life support functions. It’s…well, some from the states are being made without them to prevent the issues I mentioned earlier but all the old models have them.” She jerks her thumb over to the pod in the room. “I could spend the rest of my life in there if I want. And some people do.”

It sounds like a pretty bleak existence to me. Sure, IVAR might have every kind of entertainment one could imagine but what’s the point of wasting a very real, very fleeting life disconnected from others?

Just as I start to think this is something I would definitely never agree with, everyone else starts to stand. I guess we’re headed out.

Oz offers his hand and helps me to my feet. I’m still a little sore but I do suppose stretching my legs might do me some good.

Kendra leads the way out and we follow her down a couple flights of stairs and into a parking lot. It’s only half full and there is some trash scattered across the ground. I look around and only half pay attention to the conversation happening at my right.

“Think there will be an axe for me to pick up somewhere?” Kade asks and darts off, acting as if he’s actually about to search for one.

Oz chases him. “Kade, you cannot break more emergency glass here!”

They’re having fun—whether either of them will admit it or not—so I don’t worry myself over them any. My eyes, instead, find what I can only guess is an art piece on the grass beside the parking lot. It’s twice as tall as me and many times as wide, thin, and reflective. It’s in the shape of a wave and I’m drawn toward it.

Though, as I approach, I notice my reflection staring back at me.

It’s mildly distorted due to the curves in the structure but I see myself well enough.

I could have guessed that I still looked like Melvin but I still feel nothing but disappointment upon seeing that face on the surface. All those beautiful features have been replicated perfectly for this human body but I don’t want perfection.

I don’t want this body at all.

“Not feeling it?” Kendra’s voice at my side doesn’t really surprise me.

I just glance down at her and, for a second, I stare past her to see that Kade and Oz have been joined by Starla. They are actively talking and laughing. I’m sure they’re beyond excited to have succeeded in leaving IVAR. I can understand that to an extent but I don’t feel free at all.

“Um…I guess not,” I answer as I fix my eyes on her. “It might sound weird but I wish that flower had given me my old body instead of this one…”

Kendra shakes her head. “It doesn’t sound weird at all. I hated being in Bree’s body.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

She smiles at me and her deep brown eyes squint in the process. “Yeah. Bree was very hot, don’t get me wrong, and I think I’d always wondered, in a way, what it would be like to be someone who looked like her. I’ve always been a big girl and, for most of my life, I hated my body. So, being someone like Bree would be ideal for me, right? It’s like wish fulfillment.” She sighs. “But that wasn’t my body. I didn’t think I ever would but…I missed this. My body.”

While Kendra and I’s issues with our bodies might be different, I still understand. As Liam, I spent years and a lot of money changing my body so I could be happy with myself. And, while the final outcome wasn’t some perfect, chiseled male physique, it was still my body. It was who I could finally be happy inhabiting.

I know Liam is dead and I’m just his ghost living in a manufactured shell but that doesn’t mean I can’t miss what I once had.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it,” I say as I stare at the reflection.

I don’t know if I want to either.

“What are you guys doing?” Starla asks as she, Kade, and Oz approach us.

“You’re supposed to be leading the way,” Kade mentions, staring specifically at Kendra.

She gives him a faint smile and nods. “Right. Let’s go.”

Like before, she steps to the front and Starla keeps close by her side. Kade falls in line after them and Oz lingers by me. He’s looking at me like he wants to say so many things but can’t decide where to start.

I worry what will come out when he finally opens his mouth.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

Mentally, I sigh, but I keep myself together on the outside. The corners of my lips twitch in an attempt at a smile and I nod. “I’m fine. Just…getting used to everything.”

We start to walk as well, keeping some distance between us and the rest of the group. Not too much to where we can’t keep up but enough to where we can have our own, private conversation in peace. Though I don’t really want to talk right now, I can appreciate the space.

“It is a lot,” Oswald agrees with me after a lull. He sighs as he looks out at the three ahead of us but then focuses on the ground directly under his feet. “I’m happy to be out of that cursed place but I still have so many questions. Questions I don’t think Kendra can answer…questions I’m not sure anyone can.”

That is just what he’s like, I’m tempted to say. Oz could be given the answers to the universe and life itself and he’d still have follow ups.

“I’d like to know who I was still,” he continues, “Even if I had nothing to do with your old life, I still want to know. I want to know about Kade too. And Starla. I want to know what that flower creature really is and how this ‘God particle’ came to be. Do you think there will be books about it here?”

“The God particle you mean? Yes,” I answer with certainty. The way Kendra spoke of it left little to doubt that there is copious research on the matter. When things settle down, I’m sure Oz will be in heaven with the amount of knowledge at his disposal. I don’t have to strain hard to imagine what he’ll be doing with his new life.

“It’s fascinating,” Oz whispers and I catch him rubbing along his chin from my peripherals. “Though, it all takes a back seat to getting things settled immediately. As much as I’d love to sit down with all the information I can find and start piecing things together, we have to acclimate to our new surroundings first.”

“Acclimate?” I repeat without really meaning to but it’s out of my mouth before I can stop it.

“You know, get used to everything. Find our place—”

“I know what it means, Oz,” I snap but immediately feel guilty due to the look on his face. I shake my head and let out a slow exhale. “Sorry,” I mutter, “I just don’t really know what I’m feeling right now.”

Oswald doesn’t take my lashing out personally which is a minor relief but he does set his hand on my shoulder. He squeezes with care and asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Part of me wishes he would just take offense to my distant and stand offish nature right now. I swallow down a lump in my throat and answer, “No. Maybe later.”

I doubt I’ll feel up to it later either but, maybe by then, he’ll forget that he even asked. It’s a foolish and, largely, self pitying thought but I also wonder if he’ll forget he even cared…

My head snaps up when a loud thumping sounds overhead. I (and everyone else) watch several helicopters pass over us. Just as they cross the horizon, a siren begins to blare and it’s so close and so loud that I have to clamp my hands over my ears.

We all look toward Kendra, hoping for answers but she seems just as upset by the commotion as we are.

And then the ground begins to shake.

My heart flies into my throat.

What is happening?

[timeoverload]

I tried so hard to be in a good mood today but I failed. It was too loud and chaotic. I am so overstimulated and I feel like I can't calm down. Everyone was so tense. I was stressed before I even got into the building. I was crossing the street and I saw that the eye coordinator had texted me. She said she couldn't find a pan that I had processed last night for a specific case so I had to rush so I could help find it.

The morning team lead is making me and everyone else uncomfortable. He has a serious drinking problem and he comes in hungover frequently.

He has been making some very sexist and insensitive comments lately. He has no respect for women and doesn't think we should get the final say in anything or be decision-makers. He doesn't care about my opinion because he always has to be right about everything. He had a great performance review so now his ego is bigger than ever. I think he is on a power trip. He called me a bitch earlier but he said it was a joke. I didn't think it was very funny. There is a doctor who is from India and he doesn't like him because he was rude to him one day. He said something like, "well maybe Apu should go work at kwik e mart instead". He also made a terrible 9/11 joke to my co-worker who is middle eastern and that pissed me off because he is such a nice person and he didn't deserve that at all. No one deserves to be talked to like that. He apologized but that's not enough. That's not ok and he can't go around saying shit like that.

When he doesn't have anything to do, he follows me around while I work so I can't end the conversation. I just have to put up with him and be nice even when he says awful things. I have to avoid arguing with him since I'm stuck being alone with him in the morning.

He is overly critical of people and gets so upset when people don't do things the way he wants. He has to be confrontational about everything. He has problems managing his anger. He broke one of our big autoclaves by beating the shit out of it because he was frustrated that the door wouldn't unseal. That one is very old and it won't be in service much longer at this rate. The repair man came to fix it today and it's still broken even though he said it was fixed.

I am at the point where I feel like I need to talk to the director about what is going on because it's not ok. He's a 40 year old man and he shouldn't be acting like that. I am not sure if anything will change but I hope it gets better.

Unfortunately his negative attitude put me in a sour mood today. I shouldn't let anyone get to me like that. I said some things I shouldn't have said because I was stressed and I feel bad about it. I'm pretty sure some of the techs overheard me and I think they were upset. I was definitely being an asshole. I just need to learn to shut my mouth sometimes. Hopefully they don't hate me now.

I don't want to think about work anymore right now. I hope I'm in a better mood tomorrow. I have a lot going on this weekend and I wish I didn't. I'm frustrated because I got 4 gifts to donate last week but obviously our plans fell through so I couldn't bring them in. It is very unlikely that I will have time to do that tomorrow and I feel bad about it. I still plan on donating them but I guess I will have to take them somewhere else sometime.

My eyes hurt and I'm so ready for my appointment tomorrow. It would be nice if I could pay to have my glasses made more quickly because this sucks. I'm also not super confident about driving in the dark right now but it's always dark when I leave in the morning and when I come home. I am doing my best. If my vision gets any worse, I might have to ask my dad to take me to work because I don't want to get in an accident.

I think I need to get off the computer now. It's difficult for me to focus on the screen. I think I also need some quiet time because today was just too much for me. I will probably go to bed soon because I'm exhausted. I don't want to feel like garbage when I wake up but I probably will anyway. I don't have much else to say at the moment.

I don't want to be negative right now. I know I complain a lot and I'm sorry. I just need to talk about stuff because it's bothering me and I don't know how to deal with it. I really hope tomorrow is better. Thank you all for listening to me vent. It helps a lot. I hope everyone has a good day tomorrow. 💖💖💖

[sparkleonitstuesday]

How i make my gifs - piracy andy gif process

(Quick disclaimer, due to the nature of picmix, there is going to be bunch of eyestrain/fast movement/flashing gifs on the editor, so if you want to make your own gifs, be careful)

Ok, in this post I'm going to do a quick "sparkle on" picmixcore gif (going to call it sparklegif to identify it better), for this one, i'm going to do a simple picmixcore style.

I'm going to use picmix, some free online tools, an image editor and a bunch of images from the net. Picmix is super easy to use it's basically a streamlined image editor you would see in a phone but with gifs.

Before I start, this is not a tutorial nor "tips" on making "better" gifs, im just showing how i make a particular style of gifs, everything, every single thing im presenting on this post are stylistic choices, do your own thing!

1. Thinking of a concept/narrative

When I make a new sparklegif I like to have sort of a little narrative going on, so i base it around a particular concept or joke, for this sparklegif im going to do a piracy themed one (this idea was suggested by a comment), so I thought about making a sparklegif where jerma pirates adobe products.

Another thing I like to do is to have some sort of central jerma gif/image, for example, this snack sparkle on (tw: links to a gif with eyestrain/flashing/fast movement) has a jerma eating a "shoe" as the central gif.

So, in this sparklegif i thought about jerma infront of a computer pirating an adobe product doing a thumbs-up, ive also done a crappy removal of the background by hand.

For the background, since it's about piracy why not screenshot the infamous "you wouldnt steal a car", this one has a person on it (so photoshopping jerma on them would be pretty funny) and it also has a nice angle of the computer.

i also decided to put a more interesting image for the computer screen, i picked an image of a keygen cracker, and with some quick photoshopping (i did it with krita), i put this image on the pc screen.

2. Laying the basic composition in picmix.

I don't think it's necessary to cover picmix as it's already an easy application to use, so i'm going to cover the basic steps and non-obvious things i do.

Let's first put the background and the primary jerma gif, starting with the background, there's two ways to make a background, one is with the 'background' button and the other is just drag'n'dropping like a regular image, i prefer the latter because frames don't work with the initial square aspect ratio and also it adds to the old picmix vibe.

Now here's the initial composition:

3. Where to find sparkle elements.

This next step is what really puts the picmix aesthetic in a sparklegif and is core to the picmix editor, grabbing a bunch of gifs/images and slapping them on the composition.

There is a lot of stuff you can put in a gif, the gist is just searching for things to add, get the keywords you want (eg: keygen, pirate, piracy, torrent, jerma) and search.

Do note three things:

If you're looking for gifs outside picmix, some gifs high FPS and some transparent gifs may not work, to fix gifs with high FPS you need to drop frames, you can do that on ezgif, but transparent gifs on the other hand, im not sure how to fix them.

big gifs (like, bigger than 2MB) will freeze the site for a bit when you drag and drop them

picmix is going to compress the final image, this means that its going to drop a lot of frames, have a lower color count and the duration may shorten

Places to search:

(Psst, I havent used some of these resources. Also, some of these resources may be more fit for things like weirdcore and stuff but I think they are still useful here)

Picmix searchbar (good for images/gifs that have the 2000's boomer gif vibe, sometimes it has more recent gifs like for example of jerma there.)

Gifcities Same thing but it's more 90's-ish, yields weird results sometimes

Google images

Pinterest (gives different results than google images, some keywords give far better results than google, like aesthetics for example)

Flickr (for photography in general, should yield some interesting results, low-quality photos, high-quality photos, should be good for backgrounds)

Weirdcore/Dreamcore/Whatevercore edits or plain images (REMEMBER TO CREDIT THE CREATOR IF YOU'RE USING AN EDIT)

old websites (geocities on Wayback machine)

old game assets/screenshots (eg: sims 1 furniture) (the spriters resources has those)

Image reverse search (tineye, google, etc.), since they show the link where an image comes from and similar results, it should generally lead you into a rabbit hole. be careful, it may show some weird results.

This guide explains how to get base images for weircore, which could be a good use depending on the aesthetic you want to achieve.

glitter text online (it has the glittery texts you see in all of my gifs, plus, you can also "steal" the glitter patterns for other stuff)

Spinning Food Gifs

Picmix searchbar essentials, what I generally search: [glitter, sparkle, color, frame, border] the rest is the other sources i cited above.

If you really want, you can download these gifs and keep in a folder for quick access.

Also, an extra tip, in a lot of cases you can drag and drop an image/gif on an website directly to picmix, this saves a lot of downloading and pasting headache.

4. The composition

The composition is totally up to your, you can slap a lot of gifs and make a busy image, you may want to go minimal, its your choice, for this gif im going to use this composition formula

The rest is just having fun and doing whatever you want!

5. Finally, now watch me do this sparklegif.

Basic composition + Text + Filters

Gifs added + hue adjustments to make the colors more coherent + Slapped a bunch of sparkle gifs with a little transparency over the text and everthing in general

two big sparkle overlays underneath everything (takes a lot of clicking depending of how many layers are there), a gradient gif on top with a lot of transparency, and finally two border overlays on top (one with a lot of transparency underneath the main one).

(you don't need to add these things, it's just to make the image even more busy)

You can barely see jerma using the computer to pirate, great, but on the good side it adds to the insanity.

Press save when your done, copy the gif, upload, share this insane creation you just made. thanks for reading