#we all know what this is referencing

[anominous-user]

i was supposed to be working on a thing. but this wouldn't leave my mind.

and a hatless version

[sforzesco]

"Since you've named yourself after Julius fucking Caesar, perhaps I'll follow in your lead and choose one of the conspirators." "Interesting," says Giuliano. "Should I worry about finding you at the center of some kind of conspiracy that ends with my death?" "Not from me," replies Ascanio. He sounds tired. "Not anymore."

informally, some kind of. conversational follow up to the last comic. I'm trying to get the atmospheric conversational whimsy out of my system because I have a vision of the vatican as a body in active decay, a point of infection spreading out and poisoning the well, a jaw unhinged that people walk into over and over, and I am so close to figure out how to convey this visually. maybe.

[lunar-oceansong]

if Sethos ever actually decided to like actually take a class at the Akedemiya (even if it's only one class), Wanderer would absolutely send him a "get out of my school" note-

[brackenferns]

idk if holly has ever addressed the folk's origins but i have spent an unnecessary amount of time thinking about it and have decided they're immigrants

[invaderoli]

Shloonktapooxis: my name is shloo-

Lard nar: that don't matter. That don't matter.

*pulls out marriage certificate*

Lard nar: come sign this bbg.

[dailykugisaki]

Day 355 | id in alt

I was out here just "Wow I should color this so they know I'm gonna put air Jordans on Kugisaki Nobara fortnite tomorrow" then I didn't and just slapped some random shit on. She looks nice though.

[smile-files]

guys. i need your opinion of this. because i'm genuinely so confused now

what time period is the professor layton series in?? the prequel trilogy and the main trilogy. when are they supposed to be taking place

i could've sworn one of the games (though i forget which) mentions that someone's been to the moon already which would put them at least in the late 60s into the 70s going by our world's timeline... but i don't know maybe space travel was discovered earlier in this universe???

[chaoticlandworlder]

Ngl the liam lawson hate is getting real tiring

[rayyanishere1]

the gay fanfic problem is very real and very irritating

[irregularbillcipher]

going through old bob’s burgers blogs and seeing posts from ~2015 that are like “uuuugh the show has been running for SO long at this point, when are they gonna introduce pesto mom already???” is so funny. babes it is 2025 and we’re still asking that question

[lucydoodlessometimes]

mama's boy, mama's boy...

[hannah-heartstrings]

It's What I'm Saying Now

For the @tes-summer-fest prompt: Companion

Dragonborn, Anthony, sharing some burdens with his faithful companion, Lydia.

@druidx @babyblueetbaemonster @inkysqueed

---------

            Smoke trailed up into the cold air. The campfire crackled, its orange light wavering over the Imperial’s unsure face.

            “I’m a soldier, I’ve only ever followed orders, but now that I’m this…” Anthony looked confused, unsure himself what the word fully meant, “dragonborn, they look to me to lead, and I don’t know if I can.”

            Lydia sat beside him on the fallen log, watching him.

            His head sunk with a sigh. “I’m sorry to burden you with all of this.”

            “I told you, I don’t mind carrying your burdens.”

            He looked up to her through narrowed eyes. “That’s not exactly what you said.”

            “Well…” she glanced away, something shy in her stoic face, “it’s what I’m saying now.”

            His head lifted, surprised.

            “Maybe I was mad at first,” an edge in her voice began sharpening as it went, “that the gods would choose not a Nord on not the Nord’s side to be the Nordic hero, but…” exhaling, the edge softened, “then you risked your life to save Stormcloak farmers.”

            “Well, of course,” he looked confused, “they were people who needed help, wouldn’t anyone have-?”

            “No,” she turned to him, expression sad but warm, “and that’s why the gods chose well.”

            He stopped, surprised.

            “And you’re doing a good job leading us,” she smiled.

            Touched, he slowly smiled back.

            “Well, except for when you get us ambushed by bandits.”

            The smile dropped into a quick gape. “I knew it probably was an ambush.”

            “Uh huh,” she looked unconvinced.

            “But what if he really needed help? You can’t just walk past someone who might need help!”

            “Even when it’s probably an ambush?”

            “Like I said, it might not have been.” Catching that the fire was dwindling, he faced forward to stoke it. “And if we didn’t fall into the trap then someone else would’ve, and they might not have had weapons or an idea that it was probably an ambush. It’s our duty to protect those who can’t protect themselves, so we have to fall into traps…”

            Lydia smiled fondly as he rambled on.

[thelaurenshippen]

this is a genuine question not at all meant as a rude gotcha, but I feel like I've seen lots of people cite the relatively low barrier of entry as a huge advantage of podcasts as a medium, "if you have access to decent audio tech you can make a podcast" etc etc. So where does the need to sell a script come in? Is it a financial thing, and IP thing, something else?

this doesn't read like a rude gotcha at all, it's a really good question! there is a much lower barrier to entry when it comes to podcasts compared to tv, film, theater, etc. (though not as low as writing a book if we're talking about hard resources - you can technically write a book with just a laptop and a dream and then self publish! though as a writer who has written a lot of scripts and four books (3 published) writing a book is a much bigger psychological burden imo lol).

the need to sell a script, for me, is entirely a financial thing. if I had the money to produce podcasts at the level I want to entirely independently, I would! I know how to do it! but, unfortunately, I really only have the funds to produce something like @breakerwhiskey - a single narrator daily podcast that I make entirely on my own.

and that show is actually a great example of just how low the barrier is: I actually record the whole thing on a CB radio I got off of ebay for 30 bucks, my editing software is $50/month (I do a lot of editing, so this is an expense that isn't just for that show) and there are no hosting costs for it. the only thing it truly costs me is time and effort.

not every show I want to make is single narrator. a lot of the shows I've made involve large casts, full sound design, other writers, studio recording, scoring, and sometimes full cast albums (my first show, The Bright Sessions had all of those). I've worked on shows that have had budgets of 100 dollars and worked on shows that cost nearly half a million dollars. if anyone is curious about the nitty gritty of budgets, I made a huge amount of public, free resources about making audio drama earlier this year that has example budgets in these ranges!

back in the beginning of my career, I asked actors to work for free or sound designers to work for a tiny fee, because I was doing it all for free and we were all starting out. I don't like doing that anymore. so even if I'm making a show with only a few actors and a single sound designer...well, if you want an experienced sound designer and to pay everyone fairly (which I do!), it's going to cost you at least a few thousand dollars. when you're already writing something for free, it can be hard to justify spending that kind of money. I've sound designed in the past - and will be doing so again in the near future for another indie show of mine - but I'm not very good at it. that's usually the biggest expense that I want to have covered by an outside budget.

but if I'm being really honest, I want to be paid to write! while I do a lot of things - direct, produce, act, consult, etc. - writing is my main love and I want it to be the majority of my income. I'm really fortunate to be a full-time creative and I still do a lot of work independently for no money, but when I have a show that would be too expensive to produce on my own, ideally I want someone else footing the bill and paying me to write the scripts.

I love that audio fiction has the low barrier to entry it does, because I think hobbyists are incredible - it is a beautiful and generous thing to provide your labor freely to something creative and then share it with the world - but the barrier to being a professional audio drama writer is certainly higher. I'm very lucky to already be there, but, as every creative will tell you, even after you've had several successes and established yourself in the field, it can still be hard to make a living!

anyway, I hope this answers your question! I love talking about this stuff, so if anyone else is curious about this kind of thing, please ask away.

[teapot-of-tyrahn]

My payment for the ficlet:

Could I just get Zedaph being a silly? Thanks!

S.O.S / 88

words: 2,587 warnings: implied robot injury / abandonment a03 link! (i have an a03 now!!)

When Zedaph had first found her in the scrapyard, she’d been little more than a telegraph sounder. She wasn't even capable of making dihs or dahs, just dots and dashes. She was, by every definition of the word, useless; discarded, unuseable, utterly inutile… Broken. But Zedaph had never believed in such a word. Things were never really broken; just… temporarily decommissioned! They could be in states of disrepair, but never beyond repair. Everything could always be mended, rebuilt, improved; everything could always be fixed. That was why he came to the scrapyard in the first place. Zedaph knew what it was like to feel broken. He felt sympathy for every machine discarded by its creator in a wasteland of flotsam and jetsam, deserted and dejected. And so, whenever he wandered across one of these poor orphaned apparatuses, he felt it was his duty to try to give them what their inventor had not: A home. A purpose. Besides, it was much easier to fix an abandoned machine than to make one from scratch, especially back when he hadn't had the funding to afford his own materials. Upon closer inspection, it looked like her developer had intended for her to be a translator of sorts. A humanoid polygotic interpreter AI which had been designed to serve as an assistant to foreign diplomats and ambassadors. Scavengers had had their way with her, however, and so she didn't even have the tools left to serve as a functional morse code transliterator, let alone a functional world-wide translator. There was a twisted sort of irony in the fact that the AI meant to translate for others was unable to even properly translate her own thoughts and feelings into words, able to process the words being spoken but never able to understand them. Able to talk but never able to speak. A translator who couldn't even translate herself.

For the first few weeks when Zed had been working on fixing her transmitter, she always kept repeating the same string of sounds: Dot, dot, dash. Dot, dot, dash. She made the noise so often, it became an association, and Zed decided that was just what he would call her in meantime - a bit of a mouthful, sure, but wasn't Dot Dot Dash a better name then Unnamed Abandoned Appartus Number 21? It was just a temporary title until he found a way to get her communications sorted and she could come up with their own name, anyway. Though it turns out, she had been saying her own name, in a way: Dot, dot, dash. E-E-T. Ease-Enhancing Translator. Her hostname. He'd only figured that out when he found the marque on her forehead about three weeks into her repair. For a genius, he could be a little bit stupid, sometimes. Maybe really stupid. When he did finally figure out how to repair her transmissions, for about a month she was stuck only speaking in Dutch, because he'd accidentally selected the system's default of Netherlandic as his preferred language instead of his own of English in his excitement to get her up and running. And, with her operating system now in a foreign language, it was incredibly difficult to figure out how to turn on her bilateralism. Not his brightest moment. But it didn't mean it didn't lead to bright moments. Even though they couldn't communicate, at least not through language, that didn't mean they couldn't communicate in other ways. That didn't mean that, over that month, he didn't learn that she was an absolute menace at Mario Kart (Guess the Dash part of her name really rung true!), that she'd become an immediate fanatic of Hamilton, and that Sesame Street was her favourite comfort show. Just because they couldn't exchange words didn't mean they couldn't exchange glances, exchange touches, exchange laughs, exchange smiles. Just because he couldn't understand a word she said didn't mean he couldn't understand that he was falling head over heels for her. It took an embarrassing amount of time and effort, but eventually, inevitably, he finally managed to repair her communication system. And, finally, they managed to have their first conversation.

"So… what's your name?" It was a bit odd, asking the question; such a simple, innocent question, but it felt wrong. It was the sort of thing you asked somebody you just met. But they hadn't just met… not really. It felt like they'd known each other for years. All their lives. And, yet, these were the first words they'd ever spoken to each other. He - literally - knew her innerworkings inside and out, and yet, he didn't even know her name. They knew everything about each other, but at the same time, nothing at all. The robot replied with a simple answer to a simple question: "Dot, Dot, Dash." "Oh — oh my goddess, oh dear, oh no — did I accidentally set you back to Morse Code again?!" Oh, this was horrendous, he'd been trying to help but he'd put her back all the way back to square one— "No, no," A jittery, high-pitched sound came out of the android's voicebox, a soft laugh as she reeled Zed's hand away from her inner panel. "That's my name." "It is?" Zed asked, baffled and still slightly breathless from the scare, before he jumped slightly with the startled realisation, "Oh — oh! Oooh, Because, that's what I've been calling you — no, no, nonono, that's — that doesn't have to be your name, you see, I just… well, it felt awful drab calling you by a model number, and you always used to go dot, dot, dash!, So I was just using it as a placeholder, which, I… which I am realising, was perhaps slightly insensitive, it's little better then calling you boop beep bop, now that I'm thinking about it, it would be like naming a dog woof woof… Oh my gosh, I am so sorry—" "— I like it." "—Oh, I'm such a dunce, imagine calling a duck quack quack, or a chicken cluck clu— wait, you… what?" "Yeah!" She smiled. "It's silly! Who cares if it's a bit on-the-nose?" She booped his nose for emphasis before she continued, "It feels like me." "O—oh! Well… well, in that case. It's… It's nice to meet you, Dot Dot Dash! I'm Zedaph." He held a hand out for her to shake out of cordiality. Dot stared at his outstretched hand dubiously, her features almost betraying offence at his attempt at courtesy, enough to make him almost begin to worry it had been a test to see if he'd fall for calling her such an offensive name and he'd fallen for it, like an idiot… and before he had a chance to profusely apologise again and retract both his hand and his statement, she abruptly grabbed him by his offered hand and pulled him in… …to a hug. "Zedaph… I've watched you fling an oreo from your forehead into your mouth on multiple occasions, you once bit into an onion like an apple and then rubbed it on your face to make yourself cry, you sleep with a mint condition package of Minions playing cards underneath your pillow, your favourite colour is red even though everything you own is pink… I already know you, Zed. And you know me. Just because we didn't know each others' names doesn't mean we didn't know each other… and it certainly doesn't mean this is our first time meeting. This isn't an introduction… it's just… finally getting a chance to say hello." "O—oh." Zed felt his voice crack. There was nothing between them now, no barrier, language or otherwise. His voice was soft as he whispered, "Hello." Her voice was softer, a smile on her lips, as she whispered back, "Hallo."

Not another word fell from either of their lips. They didn't need words. Sometimes, actions were more powerful than words. And their lips' actions spoke louder than any sentence they could have strung.

.. / .-.. --- …- . / -.-- --- ..- .-.-.-

Safe to say, everybody on Hermitcraft loved Dot. And not just because she was one of the most talented people on the server - which she was, indisputably. She'd been built as an interpreter, but her skills were far from confined to linguistics…. she made the most thrilling commercials and logos for the shops in the Shopping District in all of it's history: Lookie Lookie at My Bookie, Shade-E-E's, Beefy Stores, Lamps Plus, ODEA… that was just to name a few successful bussinesses' whose success could wholly be attributed to Dot. She was also an absolute marvel when it came to the political field, somehow simultaneously making adverts for both Mumbo, Scar, and Plopper's mayor campaigns without either party realizing she was also advertising for every opposition, playing every side of the spectrum. And then, later, she pulled the exact same thing with HEP, The Podzol Party, and The Mycelium Resistance… This feat was one that could either be attributed to her astounding intelligence or the Hermits' astounding lack of intelligence. She was also a stupefying film director, and, in a similar vein, a stupefying music video director! Maybe too stupefying of a music video director. He still had nightmares about Bohemian Keralisody. And he couldn't help but still be a little lingeringly offended that both Poultry Man and Iskallman got their own fan edits but Wormman, the significantly cooler superhero of the server, got ziltch. Not that it was personal, just an astute observation from an outsider with no stakes in the superhero business whatsoever. He really didn't get why Poultryman of all people was her favourite superhero… to the point she'd requested he manufacture her a pair of bionic chicken wings. She even had him provide her with a chicken soundboard so she could communicate with her new brethern… which she had specifically requested not be made with real chickens' voices, as they could not consent to being recorded and doing so would infringe upon their rights, so the soundboard ended up just being Zed going buck, buck, buckawk! into a microphone for her at various pitches and inflections to use as she saw fit. She even ended up making an alter ego by the name of Stanley in an attempt to become Poultryman's sidekick, despite the fact there were much cooler superheroes out there to sidekick for besides a chicken in a trenchcoat. For completely random example: Wormman. Wormman was much cooler! And actually looking for sidekicks! Not that Zed was jealous. Not at all! Just a third-party observation.

Anyways. You'd think, surely, being the top graphic designer, commercial producer, film producer, and music video producer in the game was impressive enough of a resume… no, her awesomeness didn't stop there, not even close. She also dabbled in the armour stand business, and even further, became one of the server's best castle architects. Which was quite was a feat, given it seemed every season at least somebody had to build a grand castle of some sorts. But her castles were better than all of them - better then the NHO Castle, The Red Sky Bay Castle, Coe's Quest Castle, Wels' Cathedral, Bdubs' Castle, The Area 77 Castle, Stress' Ice Castle, RentheKing's Castle, The… wow, Zed was just realizing, Hermitcraft really did have a lot of castles. But, digressing! Her castles were the best castles. And that wasn't even just him being biased in his girlfriend's favour - that was just a fact. If monarchy on Hermitcraft didn't have a reputation for ending with a HoTgUy to the face, he would have crowned her Queen of Hermitcraft. It seemed the only thing she couldn't do was hit the high note in Hamilton's Burn… an feat she was coming closer and closer to achieving every day, which terrified Zed, for he was sure once she did so she'd become the epitome of perfection on all fronts and would transcend this mortal plane in a state of sublime quintessence.

Luckily for Zed, though, Dot had no intent to transcend. As much as Zed raved about her accomplishments, which were impressive in their own right, she wasn't going anywhere while she hadn't completed her greatest accomplishment of all. Her life's mission. Dot wanted to make sure nobody ever struggled like she had again. Words, vocabulary, verbality… Language itself was it's own 55-pin ladder puzzle. She was built to be a translator, and a translator she would be… not just for other languages, but for languages within languages, for inflections and undertones and connotations and implications that might as well have been their own language. She didn't want to let linguistic barriers to prevent somebody from living their best life… from saying hi to the love of their life. If she'd given up trying to speak English, she'd have never gotten the chance to tell Zed she loved him in words he would understand. And if he had given up on repairing her auditory processor, she'd have never gotten the chance to understand when he told her he loved her in words she'd understand. She still had a long way to go to be the global translator she was built to be, she didn't speak near seven-thousand languages nor with the fluency she would have liked, but that was okay. Because one of the languages she could speak was English - and, if anybody struggled with the language, just like she used to, she wanted to be there to help. To be what Zed had been to her — a teacher, a friend, and a crutch. The first person she helped, of course — coming full-circle — was Zedaph himself. The conversation went a little something like this: "Zed, dear, could you bring Danny's leash downstairs?" "Hm?" "I asked if could you bring Danny's leash downs—" "Come again?" "I SAID COULD YOU BRING DANNY'S LE—" "PARDON??" And that was how they learned that being in constant proximity to loud industrial machinery and exploding himself for comedic effect on a near-daily basis was not very good for his eardrums. It didn't take her long to diagnosis him with partial hearing loss, prescribe him with proper ear protection, and invent something to help. CCs she called it, or Closed Captions. Not a very original name, but it got the point across! She never really understood Zed's tendency to give things elaborate names like The Chickenerator, or Zombie Plinko, or The Celestial Cosmodrome… well, actually, she supposed she couldn't blame him for that one, but, the point with the first two still stood! The CCs were a simple device; a pair of contact-lenses that provided real time, accurate translations of what was being said in the corner of the wearer's vision. It was even toggleable! A subtle way to get subtitles in your subsidiary. And it wasn't soon after she'd made Zedaph his pair that word spread, and GeminiTay appeared at her doorstep to politely inquire what it could cost to have a similar device manufactured for herself. Gem didn't suffer from quite the same plight as Zed, but instead with an auditory processing disorder, which made Dot realise how helpful her invention could actually be to the Hermit masses… whether hard-of-hearing hermits, second-language hermits, hermits with auditory processing disorders, or even just hermits who preferred reading over listening… She was helping people. Even if only two, the fact she could even just help two people struggle a little bit less with the language she had struggled with for so long made it worth it. It made it so, when Zed praised her for how indisputably awesome she was, she could smile, and say, without hesitation, "I know!"

[wheucto]

with that new revelation in ii2 e16, i feel like there's... a lot less to know about the world of ii. at least, not to know for sure.

because, before then, you could extract some information from passing comments. remember the french or whatever pizza delivery guy who tried to pass as italian, but spoke spanish instead? from that, you could determine that 1. france, spain, and italy are places that exist and 2. if those countries exist, why not all the countries in the world?

but. but, according to what cobs said at least, mephone4 seems to have made everything. he made the weird looking grass. if he made that, then why not anything else? did that guy exist before he came onto the show? probably not! and if he was made that day, was the concept of "france," "spain," and "italy" made that day too?

there's no way for us to know what the normal world of ii looks like. do they have parallel countries to us? well, we know their continents aren't parallel. it follows that their countries wouldn't be, either. who knows what their history is like? how the normal objects are like? will we know?

[lastthroes]

they really did this to me huh