#which I still think is very worth it! Not a subscription which I love most about the app

[arcxnumvitae]

The grind never stops

[tetrakys]

Hey Tetra, so how is the beta? What do you think of the game so far?

Sorry anon, I know I've been silent here, every time I think I want to make a post I never have enough time to make it as detailed as I used to, but never mind I'm going to give my quick opinion and then write something more in depth later.

So, first of all, I agree with everyone that the way the AP system is at the moment is too expensive. We pay 2AP for line of dialogue and many APs for choices. We get more free APs than in the past with the daily login, so that's a plus, but the choices are way too costly, especially the very basic ones (here called neutral choices), I shouldn't have to spend 40 APs to say I want a cup of tea! All that being said, I'm not too worried about it because I know that Chino has already reported this issue to management, and while these decisions are not up to her I know she sees the player's perspective and will do everything she can to make our voices heard.

Now, AP system aside, there are some things I really love!

Firstly, the website looks amazing, in the end it was worth the wait. It works super smoothly, and it's very pretty to look at.

And the closet/shop part is really easy to navigate, it's pretty much like the Sims so I'm used to it.

Also, the millennial in me who can't afford to buy her own home is really into the room decoration feature

I also enjoy the minigames. One is just like the explorations in Eldarya, but with no pet to feed, so it's a win to me. The other is outfit contests, we receive a theme and we can dress up our Candy and enrol in it. I am TERRIBLE at it, but even if you don't make it top3 you still win some APs and diamonds just for participating. You can also win stuff just by voting in the contest.

Now, to the story. The first episode was mostly an introduction so nothing much really happens, we just meet 4 of the LIs. It was cute, the mechanic is a bit tricky because we can't see immediately if the LoM increases or not, we find out at the end of the episode, but it's not nearly as bad as in ML, so I can deal with it. It's also possible to understand if the LI liked the interaction from their reactions. I think I'm starting to understand their personalities so I hope I'll get the hang of it when the game releases. I'm going to make a separate post about my impressions on the LIs, but I'm quite happy so far.

Something else I want to mention before ending this is a final pro and cons.

Cons, I don't like the "fairy". It's MC's godfather which is a cool character, apparently he is Agatha's cousin, that's nice. But he only brings gifts to Taki which I really don't care about, my duck will remain naked as nature intended. Or, anyway, I won't spend APs on it. I'm gonna try hard to avoid this guy, also because we have a choice to make with him and we can't skip it once we run into him.

The pro is instead the VIP system. From what I've seen, it looks very convenient. We get extra APs and diamonds every day, especially the diamonds it's a really good amount, which we can then exchange for more APs or cumulate to buy extra scenes (which are longer scenes with the LI). We also get some extra perks like an outfit, skip button for the replays, and extra jokers, which are little useful features that can be used in game. We don't know yet how much the VIP subscription costs, but if they stuck to the same prices as other game companies, it shouldn't be more than 10-15$.

And you anon, did you play the beta? Let me guys know what you think. People seem to be happy about most things except the AP system.

[i-write-boop-spoops]

Steven Stone and his S/O living together headcanons

first headcanon of the year, so yall know it's gotta be with my boi steven!

just some cute domestic fluff. gn! reader, not proofread lol

Enjoy!

When Steven asked you to move in

Randomly one rainy day as you watched a movie

Cuddled up on his couch in Mossdeep

You couldn’t even fathom saying no

It meant a lot, him offering you his space, his time, for the foreseeable future

And it just solidified how strongly he felt for you

Plus, it was such a quaint litte home by the sea!!

Steven… well he’s never really lived with someone before

Sure, he’s lived with his father

But that was when he was a kid, in a huge mansion, with a flurry of nannies and maids

Totally different to two adults moving in together

So it’s definitely an adjustment

Though he’s still very excited!

His cupboards are so bare oml

In terms of both food and cooking utensils

You’ve barely placed your first moving box

Before you’ve dashed to the nearest grocery store

And bought a cart’s worth of pantry and freezer staples

(You’re also gone ahead and ordered MANY kitchen gadgets, that Delibird should be here with them by tomorrow)

Despite Steven insisting that it’s your home now

He pays for practically everything related to your house

He’s such a sly bastard about it too

Like he keeps ‘forgetting’ to set you up with one of the bills

Or he already has his card out by the time your cashier is done ringing up your shopping

While it is very nice to be looked after financially

Especially by such a stunning male specimen

You still want to contribute, even in a minor way

He does eventually relent and let you pay for the PokeStarFlix subscription and some milk sometimes

The house has a very specific feel to it

Fresh, slightly sweet, slightly salty air

Always a touch cold

Tidy and spare, but still cosy

Noticeably warmer and homier since you’ve moved in

Steven definitely likes having someone who cooks in the house

Whether you only know how to make ramen or are basically a god in the kitchen

There is just something just so wonderful about a homemade meal to him

Especially by the person he loves most in the world <3

You know he’ll be hugging you from behind as you tend to something on the stove

While he is forbiddenfrom even touching the oven

He does try help out by cutting veggies or doing the wash-up after

Of course, he would never pressure, or even expect, you to cook for him

He’s more than willing to take you out for dinner or have something delivered

Even hire a chef for a day

You think that last option is a little much but you appreciate the sentiment

Surprisingly, despite Steven being a wealthy heir and all that

He’s actually quite… competent about looking after himself and his space??

He cleans up after himself

Vacuums, dusts, mops, etc.

Even does his own laundry

He LOVES his steamer

Though most of his stuff is dry-clean only so his washing machine is not used too often

At first, Steven is firm on keeping his office as his space only

He has a lot of paperwork to do and rocks to inspect

You don’t mind, since you get the run of the rest of the house

This rule doesn’t last long however

He’s quickly come to love just having you around

He’s lowkey clingy like that

Your presence is so comforting to him

So, he starts encouraging you to come sit in his office

“It’s a quiet place to read,” he’d say

“There’s a socket for your laptop,”

“You can keep your craft supplies in there,”

“You’re beautiful and I really want you near me while I work,”

You don’t really need convincing haha

Making your own little corner

Which you decorate with your favourite stones and some of your work/hobby stuff

When you’re in there together, you tend to keep to yourselves, yet still relishing in each other’s presence

While you both sneak glances at each other

And occasionally get up to give each other kisses

Steven still travels from time to time

You were already used to this from before you lived together

But going from waking up to him every day to sleeping on your own for a week or more

Does make your home feel a little empty

And your heart a little achy

Enough to make you stop Steven from doing his thing?

Absolutely not!

You can’t not let the guy whose last name is literally Stone hunt for rare stones!

Or do his job!

Plus, he always invites you along, so it’s not like he’s intentionally ditching you

He even gives you the option of joining him on his trips a little later on if it suits better

It is nice after a long week to just hop on a plane and stay somewhere exotic with your hot, eccentric boyfriend

Relaxing with Steven is somewhat of a funny sight

You’d be in your favourite hoodie and sweats/leggings

Hair not done

And he’ll be in a crisp shirt and slacks

Freshly showered, shaven and styled

Even a waistcoat/vest!

To him, no blazer = fun, casual

His pjs are so fancy and formal too wtf

Though he is not opposed to getting matching carbink or tinkaton onesies

The quality of your toiletries after moving in? Out of this world

Steven gets the good stuff

Luxurious creams, hydrating lotions, masks that leave your face so soft

And he’s totally willing to share his haircare/skincare products with you

Or buy you the ones specific to your wants/needs

You love, love, love rainy mornings in Mossdeep

Waking up next to your silver-haired dreamboat

Snuggling under the covers

Listening to that gentle pitter-patter

Before eventually pulling yourselves out of bed

Getting yourselves presentable

Then you put together some breakfast while he makes coffee (about the only thing he can compentently make)

And you sit together and idly chat and just bask in each other’s company

Just very peaceful and lovely

Which is a good way to describe your home with him :)

[444lpblue]

The Witch and the Beast Anime's Outlook

I've finally awakened from my anime slump and have been catching up on a lot of anime. I learned my lesson about trying to do too much and watch too many shows. Therefore, I'm going to limit the number of anime I watch going forward so that I actually have time to write about them. I was barely finding time to watch the shows I've decided to begin, let alone write about them. I'm feeling a bit more comfortable now after grinding a ton, and I would like to talk about one of my anxiety-inducing and highly anticipated anime, The Witch and the Beast.

If you didn't know, The Witch and the Beast is possibly one of my favorite mangas of all time, if not my absolute favorite. It's very under the radar, and I think if you love the world of Ancient Magus Bride or enjoy The Case Study of Vanitas and want a darker twist with a highly aesthetically pleasing art style, I think you should give it a try. But back to the anime, like most people when their manga get adapted, when I first heard it was announced, I was extremely excited—after all, who wouldn't be? Getting an anime adaptation is probably one of the things you wish for your favorite series. After months of confirmation, we finally got the first teaser PV, which looked fine (I did have some complaints about it, but it was mostly fine). We learned that the studio working on it is Yokohama Animation Lab.

If you've been watching anime recently, you might have come across some of Yokohama Animation Lab's works, as they have been quite active since 2017. They have produced visually appealing shows such as Miru Tights and Lapis Re:LiGHTs. However, more recently, they've released shows with less-than-stellar visuals, like Kingdoms of Ruin, The Great Cleric, and Rail Romanesque 2. Even their highest-rated show at the moment, The Genius Prince's Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt, doesn't exactly have amazing animation quality; it's more of a passable-looking show. Which made the studio choice a huge large concern for me, as The Witch and the Beast is a series that relies a lot on its visuals. It's an integral part to the enjoyment of the series, it's a series that relies on its aesthetically pleasing artwork for the sake of showing off the characters and the worldbuilding.

However, studios aren't people, and I didn't want to adopt an incredibly negative outlook because the people working on it will change over time, and anime relies heavily on freelancers. The quality of the anime you see from individual studios will differ greatly. But there is a difference in that aspect to an extent in Yokohama Animation Lab, much like in this interview said. They are looking to become more of an in-house studio rather than freelance due to the costs of subscription programs. Oogami Yuuma emphasizes that while digitalization in anime is often viewed as a cost-cutting measure, setting up the required digital environment can be initially expensive. So they are seeking a cost-effective solution. His statement, to this day, still rings pretty true. If you look at the staff for Yokohama's series episode by episode, you might be surprised that a majority of the episodes do seem to involve in-house staff more than the average anime. However, that doesn't seem great when their recent quality, especially in shows like Kingdoms of Ruin, has been rather atrocious. In all visual aspects, animation (incredibly lacking), storyboarding (low quality and not engaging, scene flow to eachother like a slideshow), compositing (incredibly jarring). The only thing I can praise about it is its art direction.

I mentioned Kingdoms of Ruin specifically as it does share several key staff with The Witch and the Beast and I think it's just worth mentioning. Now with all that being said you can see how my worry for the adaptation was incredibly large at the time (in the fact it still is), but I've lessen my worry of it when I tried to look at the individual staffs working on this show and the stafflist of the recent Yokohama shows.

Unfortunately, I did sit through some episodes of Kingdoms of Ruin (do not recommend), and I found it interesting that the staff list for the show was rather small at times— a lot of animation directors, but not many actual animators. For example, one of the action-heavy episodes only had a singular key animator. It's as if they didn't have enough staff. I would say that Kingdoms of Ruin is of lower quality than even the average Yokohama series.

This got me thinking, where are the staff going? Well, there are several options. Yokohama has some upcoming releases, but unquestionably, their biggest series coming out is Whisper Me a Love Song (which I also love), followed by The Witch and the Beast. The other two upcoming series are not nearly gaining as much traction.

This is all just a guess that likely won't amount to anything, but just the type of series that The Witch and the Beast is and the fact that it's the series coming right after Kingdoms of Ruin, I think it's possible that it will end up benefiting from the staff that was missing from that series. I feel like Yokohama will try to put more effort into this series, considering they didn't opt for their usual newbies and completely in-house directors; rather, they got a veteran director in Takayuki Hamana.

Hamana has been in the industry for an incredibly long time, but chances are you haven't heard of him. Recently, he directed Power of Hope Precure Full Bloom, which had a lot of great cuts from what I've seen. He has also recently finished working on the Sorcerous Stabber Orphen series, which didn't receive the best reception (more so for its rushed nature rather than visuals). Additionally, he worked on the Rakudai Majo movie recently, which unfortunately doesn't have an English release yet.

While it's not like these recent shows have the best ratings on MAL or other sites, it tends not to be because of the visuals but rather the story, over which he likely didn't have much control, especially in the case of Precure. He's very much capable of delivering a good product if the source material and the script are solid. Beast Player Erin is his highest-rated work, but he also has shows like Library Wars or Arte, which I know many people like.

In studios like Yokohama, I always tend to favor veteran directors, as they have been in more situations and will likely be able to find a way to maintain quality better than newbie directors; their industry connections should allow them to get external staff to help out. Hamana has shown evidence of this many times, even in the rushed release of Sorcerous Stabber Orphen and the hazardous release pace of each season. They all still managed to have well-animated cuts here and there, and that has been a trend for a majority of his series.

If you just put some of his randomly directed series on Sakugabooru, for example, you'll find that every one of his series tends to have cuts listed there. I think this is a testament that Hamana, while he won't always make the best shows, knows who to bring in and how to manage them for the more important parts of a show. He's a very consistent director, and I think he's someone who could and likely will benefit The Witch and the Beast's studio situation a lot in terms of its production quality. Whether you'll like his directing style (which tends to remind most of 2008s anime) is an entirely different matter, but he is a source of hope in terms of its production quality.

And you know with all this talk of Yokohama and the many people, like me worried for The Witch and the Beast's quality, while I may not be a fan of the many visual direction choice that has been shown in the PV, we haven't gotten any real evidence that the production quality or animation quality will be bad. From the most recent PV and likely final PV, the character designs look fairly well-maintained for the most part. Close-ups are impressive. I also like the expressions for them, strong eye work. Overall CAD work seems good.

Though, essentially, there isn't a lot of animation shown, so that aspect of it can't really be touched on at the moment. So, conclusion? It's a really lazy thing to say since I made you read through this long spew of mine, but I don't really know either. It really is a wait-and-see situation; however, I do encourage you not to write it off just because of the studio choice. A good pick in a director like Hamana, and some other staff I haven't even touched on, like the character design by Hiroya Ijima, and the external studio situation in terms of releases, provide hope for the series, and I genuinely believe that, at the very worst possible version of the series, it probably will be about the Genius Prince's visual quality, which isn't great but won't be a complete disaster. However, with Hamana at the helm, I do expect a better quality show than that.

I'll see you guys next time on January 11th when the show comes out, because, trust me, I will be there.

[nickmaghighlights]

Nick Mag Highlights - Nick Mag Presents: Danny Phantom (Fall 2005)

Well, well, well, fancy meeting you here. Welcome back to my blog and the words that inhabit it. Today, Halloween comes early this year when we read through another exciting issue of Nickelodeon Magazine Presents, this time all about Danny Phantom. Boo! Trick-or-Treat! Deck the halls!

And not only is this edition of Nick Mag Highlights spooky, it’s also… pretty chill. Y’know? Just takin’ it easy, reading a handful of comics and probably a crossword puzzle or something. As much as I love researching the kind of stuff Nickelodeon Magazine includes in its articles, sometimes it’s nice to sit back and take things at face value and just see what the state of Nickelodeon was like at any given time, and these short-and-sweet issues of Nick Mag Presents are the perfect venue for just that.

But why exactly am I tackling this purportedly Halloween-themed issue in August? Well, mainly it’s because that new Danny Phantom graphic novel just came out… two weeks ago (oops). And I really enjoyed it! So I’ve since been in a big Danny Phantom mood lately. I even ended up re-watching the whole first season and had a blast doing so. This show was a real obsession of mine as a kid, so maybe this blog post is also a way for me to give it its dues.

This issue can be found online here, read along… if you dare!

Another Nick Mag Presents, another humorously wordy introduction. If you’re unfamiliar, basically all these Presents-styled issues have a panel on the first page with a character essentially advertising the book to you and talking about all the comics and activities included inside. This one here features Danny and an understandably perturbed ghost, for example. 

Since these issues were usually sold in stores as opposed to through a mail subscription, I suppose this is the issue’s way of hooking you in and explaining to you why you should buy it. I think a kid would probably be more inclined to just flip through the book and arrive at the same conclusion, but I guess this approach doesn’t hurt anybody.

But anyway, let’s see here… aw, only two wholly new comics? The Fairly Oddparents-themed issue I took a look at previously had five original comics. That’s a bummer, but at least we’ve still got variety… SpongeBob, My Life as a Teenage Robot, and The Wild Thornberrys, oh my! Even Tak makes an appearance here, two years before the premiere of his actual Nickelodeon cartoon, meaning this was an attempt to interest readers in the then-recently released video game: Tak 3: The Great Juju Challenge. Not sure if that worked.

And if you’ll take a look at that yellow, spiky bubble with words on the right there, this September 2005 issue is meant to coincide with the then-upcoming two episode-long Danny Phantom special, “The Ultimate Enemy”, which featured Danny taking on a more powerful version of himself from the future. Seems like the included removable poster is even themed around that very episode! Let’s just hope that poster is still left intact, eh?

So first up, we’ve got a page to get you up to speed on the main cast if you’re new to the show. It’s even got some new factoids for the already familiar superfans! For example: Did you know Sam is into anime? I sure didn’t.

Oh, and if you’re wondering where series villain Vlad Masters is, don’t worry, they go over him later on in the book.

On the right you’ll find an easy if not slightly amusing word puzzle, which tasks you with solving questions where each answer contains the word boo. Simple enough for a kid while still being worth the time, methinks.

Although all the stock ghost art on the page gets me wondering, how come most of the ghosts in the show manifest as typical-looking cartoon ghosts while others manifest in a human form? I guess maybe it comes down to the strength of your spirit. Who’s to say?

You’ve met the characters, now it’s time to meet the voices behind them! I’ll always take a side of interviews with my Nickelodeon Magazine, and this is no exception. The questions are cute, and I had fun reading them. Not much to say.

So we’re finally here at the first comic of the issue, and… not really a fan of this one! Yeah, sorry to start this retrospective off on a sour note but this isn’t really doing it for me. The main villain of this one is Youngblood, who already isn’t exactly one of my favorite villains from the series. But here they’ve got him and all the other characters stuck in a pretty by-the-numbers plot where Danny and co. get stuck babysitting the brat while he tries to maim them, with them of course unable to fight back lest they face the wrath of his parents (who are humongous lizard monsters, for some reason). 

If you’re even a little familiar with cartoons you’ve probably already seen quite a few takes on this formula already. And even if you like Youngblood as a character they don’t have him doing his usual pirate shtick he’s remembered for, so I’m not sure what anyone is getting out of this, really. What's especially not helping is that this goes on for ten pages, further dragging out an already tired concept. 

So there you have it, I guess. Done-to-death story with accordingly done-to-death jokes, a lame villain, and about two pages of action. I will say though, Danny and Tucker’s babysitting poster on page 2 did get a smile out of me, at least.

You’ve met the characters, and you’ve also met the voices behind them, now it’s time to meet… the rest of the characters! The villain ones! These guys really made the show for me, cause the team behind the show really just seemed to understand the assignment and made all of them really unique and memorable.

So we can see they’ve been ranked in terms of how dangerous they all are, which is a fun idea. ‘Course you’ve got Vlad at the top of, but then there’s Technus just behind him? I can’t say I remember him being notably more dangerous than any of the other baddies, I’m fairly certain he gets swept up at the end of his specific episode just like all the rest. I’m pretty sure Valerie gave Danny a bigger run for his money, and she’s down at #3.

Woah now, I’m starting to scrutinize the power levels of cartoon characters. Cartoon characters from a show I haven’t even fully watched all the way through since I was a kid, no less. Better put a stop to that before it gets ugly.

Cool little cartoons on the left there, that one on the top right is properly devious and I’m all for it. All the art is quite lovely too.

The right is… well, it’s Mad Libs, there’s no other way around it. Y’know the Mad Libs website refers to itself as “the world’s greatest word game” but I seriously think they need to take that up with Scrabble, or hell, even Hangman. Yeah I was never a big fan of this kind of fill-in-the-blanks stuff, but I guess it’s a pretty inoffensive activity to include.

Check out Danny’s dad rocking that emo hair.

And now we’ve made it to the second and last new comic for the issue, and unfortunately it’s only a two-pager. But hey, if my thoughts on the previous ten-page comic said anything, it was that I prefer quality over quantity. And this one is… okay. It’s funny enough, does what all it needs to with the concept, and it definitely doesn’t overstay its welcome. I’m again surprised by the lack of action in both of these comics, considering Danny Phantom is an action show, after all, but it’s not like the show wasn’t a comedy either, so it’s not that weird.

I guess while we’re here I could nitpick it a bit. The lineart here courtesy of series creator Butch Hartman* is a bit wonky at times. There’s the aforementioned emo hair Danny’s dad is wearing, but my main gripe is that dog robot just doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the artstyle. It being the only new original character design for this comic as well doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me. I guess the team was fine with whatever Hartman drew because he made the show after all, so surely he knows what he’s doing, right?*

*Insert obligatory comment about how much of a loser Butch Hartman is here.

Just want to give a shoutout to this pretty creative puzzle here. It actually stumped me a little when I first read it! Those monster designs are pretty entertaining too. Solid activity overall.

Next up it’s an installment of Sam Shade, which was a short-lived recurring series in Nickelodeon Magazine. Apparently the series ran from 2002 to 2005, so this may be one of the last times a Sam Shade comic was ever printed in a Nick Magazine. 

These comics mainly consist of the titular Detective Sam Shade trying to solve some mystery, sleuthing around the area in a series of detailed, wordy scenes. Likewise, you as the reader are as well tasked with scouring the pages for clues to help deduce the culprit. Each panel here smoothly moves into the next, making for something like a Where’s Waldo puzzle but with an actual narrative. It’s a really good idea! A shame this series didn’t last longer.

Hey, is that Carl from Jimmy Neutron on the bottom right there?

Pretty nice My Life as a Teenage Robot comic here. Although that’s kind of unfortunate in a way, since that means I haven’t got much to talk about! It’s pretty much a 1-to-1 translation from animation to comic here. The artstyle and writing are both on point, it’s all just in a shorter, more paper-y format.

I wonder why the aliens’ speech bubble has flowers in it. Is that a theater reference, maybe?

The design of these fiery aliens are particularly awesome - simple but effective. I’m surprised they used such a cool design in a comic that was going to be seen by way less people as opposed to using it in the cartoon. Man, this show is so cool, even its supplementary media is stylish!

But anyway, do you want to know how this story ends? Read it yourself!

Ohh man, I distinctly remember this comic. I don’t remember what issue of Nickelodeon Magazine this one is sourced from, but whichever one it was, I had it. The story’s nothing to write home about really, It's another take on the age old tale of “Squidward yells at SpongeBob and Patrick for doing something annoying, so they inadvertently ruin his life”. Squidward must have a really good lawyer for him to be able to bounce back from all the crap SpongeBob and Pat get him into.

This version of the usual story has S. Bob and P. Rick making a cake in Squidward’s image. Mr. Krabs ends up mistaking it for the real Squidward, bringing it to the Krusty Krab, and having it run the cash register, obviously to disastrous results. It’s all pretty par for the course, and there’s some funny lines to be had.

Weirdly though, unless I’m blind, I can’t seem to find any credits for this one. Not in the comic itself or at the back of the book. I’m pretty sure the artist(s) behind this one did more SpongeBob SquarePants comics though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same writing team had a hand in them too. I distinctly remember one where all the characters turn into desserts. Or maybe it was an alternate universe where they’re all desserts? Something like that. Maybe I’ll find it and cover it on this blog someday!

And up next, it’s a Wild Thornberrys comic of all things (said with feigned surprise, having read the table of contents moments ago). And I’m just now realizing none of these comics have anything to do with ghosts, or horror, really. Quite the magazine you’ve got just in time for October, Nickelodeon!

But hey, it’s not right to judge a piece of art specifically by the context in which it is presented. Especially when it was originally published in a magazine that likely came out years earlier, probably not even around the month of October. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that, even when it comes to filling the pages of a magazine.

This comic is especially cool, anyway, as you can no doubt tell from its distinct shakeup in style!

The story has Eliza receiving some gifts from her Japanese friend, Mayumi (who was probably in the show, presumably), one of those gifts being a homemade manga. And while I’m not exactly an expert on the Japanese arts, I certainly find this art convincing and really appreciate the attention to detail. I bet any kids that were fans of manga around this time must have felt pretty seen to have one of their hobbies referenced in a rather unlikely place, and with such attention to detail no less.

One thing I can also appreciate is that this story really isn’t something they could have pulled off in the show itself (unless they studio really wanted to have an anime-themed episode and go through the undertaking of doing an episode in an entirely different, foreign animation style all on their usual budget), so overall this is a really fun idea done quite flawlessly. My only gripe is we don’t get to see a manga-styled Nigel Thornberry, but what can you do?

Oh boy, the Tak comic, cool. Now, I know these games have their fans, but I can’t say I’m one of them. I did watch the show a bit though, but I’ve heard it has nothing to do with the games, so I guess that makes me rather unprepared to tackle this two-page comic on an intellectual, researched level. I will say though that I think the Sam Shade comic from earlier pulled off this style of free-flowing, no-panel storytelling to a much greater effect. The amount of Taks they threw around the page makes it feel really busy and cramped, and they had to essentially remove the second character Tak is traveling with from the story since I guess they were strapped for page space.

But yeah, the colors are nice at least, and Tak media is especially hard to come by nowadays, so I suppose if I were more into the property, I might be more into this.

Last comic of the day, and it’s Jimmy Neutron. At least this one kinda fits the theme, I mean, aliens are almost in the same horror-league as vampires, zombies, ghosts, and all that. This is a pretty quality one to end off the book with, and in regards to Jimmy Neutron, this is one of the better ways these characters have been translated to 2D. Although the incredibly warm colors and harsh shadows throw me for a loop. Pretty good overall!

Before we wrap things up, I would like to mention that advert for The Nicktoons Film Festival on the right. I totally forgot these used to be a thing! From 2004 to 2009 Nickelodeon hosted a film festival and let viewers vote for their favorite animated short, along with letting proper animation people who know what they’re talking about vote on their favorites, too. Lots of great up-and-coming cartoonists took part in these festivals. This one in 2005 actually featured a short by J. G. Quintel that eventually was used as a basis for his own Cartoon Network show, Regular Show! You can check the short out below:

Neat bit of history there, yeah?

Even though I’m still a bit disappointed this issue didn’t include more original content, I still think this ended up being a fairly entertaining walk down memory lane. And hey, I hope you had a good time too. I’m doubly disappointed, however, that the archive of this issue didn’t come with that tear-out poster! Now we’ll never see it in its full hi-def glory.

As always, thanks for stopping by and checking out another bit of Nick history with me. Have yourself a good one, and I’ll see you all next time!

[j0kers-light]

Hii! If requests are open could I request Heath ledger’s joker with a digital artist s/o? They’re constantly ranting about their OCs and showing him drawings/animations of them, etc?

Hey hi anon 🖤✨

Mad respect to digital artists!! I love you each and every one of you and the work you share with the world!! Keep on keeping on!

As someone who can’t draw a straight line I be envious but I’ll stick to what I love. Which is why you’re here 🤭Let’s get into it! Please enjoy to your hearts content!

Joker is used to you bent over your drawing pad, stylus in hand (wrist brace on; carpal tunnel ain’t no joke! I know from experience 👀) that the visual of you is second nature to him when he walks through the door

He knows when you have your headphones on and your tongue is sticking a bit out of your mouth, that it’s drawing time.

Joker leaves you be until you come to him to ask for constructive criticism. J is always honest and tells you things no matter if it hurts

You shove the pad into his face and begin rambling about if the shading is off, are the lines too harsh? What about the anatomy because you HATE drawing (insert) maybe you should focus attention away from that by drawing a secondary figure?

“I could add more to the background or maybe soften the edges? What do you think? Should I just start over?”

Joker knows you’re the toughest critic regarding your own work so he genuinely tells you it’s great.

The shading is amazing and he personally likes the outline still visible through your signature style. It makes the whole piece feel more natural that way than full on illustrated (he’d hate for you to be called out for using AI) 🙄🙄 he’d probably kill someone for flaming you.

He subtly reminds you to add your watermark signature to the artwork in a unique way because you forget to when you critique your work so much.

You are constantly on your drawing pad day in and day out and it’s not the latest tech so… you run into a problem early on: it breaks.

You don’t tell Joker since you’re been saving up for a new one for a while now but…. you’re not quite at your goal. It’s all good, you take a break from drawing and focus on another skill

Rest assured Joker instantly notices you’re not drawing (how dare you; he adores your work!) and goes out and buys steals the most state of the art equipment for his bunny.

I’m talking a rig that the professionals use with all the bells and whistles. It’s already set up at your workstation the following morning and your head over heels thanking Joker with hugs and kisses

Joker fully supports your craft and knows it’s your source of income sooo he uses different accounts to commission you for the most random artwork so you stay getting paid and he helps you draw out of your comfort zone while ultimately improving as an artist

You are none the wiser and people start to notice your work with the endless flow of commissions Joker asks for.

He may or may not leave your username/digital card in the most random places across Gotham. It’s free exposure at this point.

Joker doesn’t get tired of listening to lore about your OCs and their world.

He knows so much about each character that Frost, Mac, and Neo are fully convinced they’re real people with how much J talks about them.

“OC’s name went viral the other day. I think it’s because of the new uhh, underwater.. ani-mation Y/n made. Very err crisp.”

“Is you talking about Y/n’s drawings?” Mac asked.

“It’s noT just a drAwINg!” Joker quickly defends your work.

Mac’s dumb comment prompted J to threaten ask them to pull out their phone and subscribe to your Pateron account. And it better be the highest tier or risk J’s wrath.

He pays them enough to afford a monthly subscription and it’s worth every penny

The four of them spend the rest of the night scrolling through your online portfolio. They oo and ahh over the hard work you created. You are beyond talented.

A low level goon knocked on the door and got their attention but was floored by the illustration shown up on the projector. It looked like a literal masterpiece. It was so detailed and some elements were animated, he asked for the artist’s link.

Joker was forever grateful you used a pseudonym for your work so he had no issues of your identity being compromised by association

Neo provided them your username, lith0useart, on all platforms and told them to get back to work. They did while spreading your work like wildfire amongst the others.

That same night you called J screaming in joy to tell him about all the new Paterons and commissions you got! You were on your way to being an artist full time and Joker couldn’t be more proud.

[counterspelling]

Hi! I hope you don't mind me asking, but I've been interested in getting into Dimension 20 for a while, but with all the campaigns they did already, I find it a bit hard to understand which one to start with, so I thought I'd ask you, as you seem to know your stuff ! So I was wondering if there was a chronological order to some campaigns, if there was one you advised to start with, and where I could watch it. I hope this doesn't bother you, have a nice day ! ♥

This doesn't bother me at all, I love questions like this! And this is truly one of the worst weeks of my life, so thanks for the distraction <3

Short answer: d20 is divided into short and long seasons, long with the main cast (brennan dm'ing for lou, emily, murph, zac, ally, and siohban) and short sidequest seasons with different players, mostly dm'ed by Brennan but also with guest dms! You need a monthly/yearly subscription to dropout.tv to watch, but it's truly the best subscription service in my life, $6/month or 60/yr, with d20 putting out a 2 hour episode every week plus a half hour talk show in Adventuring Party (in addition to their other stellar comedy shows, Game Changer and Make Some Noise, especially). If you just want to dip your toes in and see if you like it, you can watch the first seasons of Fantasy High or The Unsleeping City for free on youtube

Long answer! Fantasy High is still to this day my favorite d20 property, it's teen adventurers at an adventuring academy in a sort of magical realism world. It's extremely funny and the first season was the first season of d20 so most of them are learning 5e after switching over from 3.5, although a few had no previous dnd experience. The second season is probably my favorite season of any tv show ever, and it's a great introduction to the main cast. Those characters will probably always be the closest to my heart in d20, they're all perfect to me.

The Unsleeping City is an urban fantasy series set in a magical New York that is also very good! There's again two seasons, and they are both well worth watching. The second season is again even better than the first, imo.

If you're getting into it because of Matt's season next month, then his The Ravening War series is a prequel to another main cast season, A Crown of Candy. ACOC is the biggest outlier in d20, which isn't ONLY a comedy show, but comedy is very much at the core of d20, but ACOC is a very, very emotionally heavy show. I loved it, but I have also never rewatched it since it took such a mental toll. It's a very high stakes, inter-party conflict, no resurrection magic world, and the entire cast had backup characters prepared in case of character death. It's very good, but not the best example of what the rest of d20 is like. If you've seen EXU Calamity, it is similar tonewise, just a longer campaign.

Then there's the two most recent main cast campaigns. A Starstruck Odyssey is a screwball scifi series set in a world created by Brennan's mom, Elaine Lee, who wrote the original Starstruck comics/play! It's very much a labor of love from him, and it was the first season the main cast filmed in person post-pandemic and the unhinged energy is truly off the charts. It was extremely good and would be a great starting point, no knowledge of the original Starstruck is necessary.

The most recent campaign is Neverafter, which is horror-inspired, but still very much a comedy. It's fairy tale inspired and I'm very sad it just ended because it was so good, although the ending was perfect.

Then there are the sidequests! My personal favorites of those are Mice and Murder, a murder mystery series set in an animal-populated turn of the century England, where the cast were all collegehumor alum so it was very funny and I love murder mysteries and think Brennan did an excellent job at it, and would frankly love another murder mystery season from him. A Court of Fey and Flowers from Aabria is another favorite, a fey-regency romance mashup that was absolutely perfect. The Seven is an all ladies/nonbinary season (dm'd by Brennan) that's technically a spinoff of Fantasy High so I would recommend watching it first, but also it stands alone if you don't mind spoilers for the main seasons.

So!! That was a very long answer, hopefully it was some help to you. You could really pick any season and be fine, and I hope you end up falling in love with d20! My personal recommendations would be to start with either Fantasy High or Starstruck, since I think they're the best examples of what the show is like overall. Good luck! Feel free to let me know what you think :)

[epersonae]

The cooking project - Crêpes

If yesterday's post was probably one of my most-made recipe cards, this might be my most-made recipe in my binder, which is sort of a Binder of Theseus. My sister made me a binder full of typed-out recipes as a gift when I was a sophomore in college, and I still have the section separators, which were collages of images cut from magazines, and I have some (most? all?) of those typed recipes, though the binder itself has been replaced. And of course I've added many more recipes, printed from the internet or sent to me by email or clipped from magazines. (I had a subscription to Sunset for a while in the late 00s!)

This recipe, though, was copied from a webpage into probably a Word document and then printed out, and dates from March 15 2003. The URL in the image no longer works, but the contents can be found in the Wayback Machine (ctrl+f, "crepes"). It was posted as part of the author's "French Week" as sort of an oblique protest of the impending Iraq War. In any case, I have been making it since then.

Because this can be found in the Wayback Machine, and because the instructions are hilariously long, I am not going to retype the whole thing here.

My only personal notations are combining "whole wheat flour" and "white flour" into a single line (I've literally never made these as savory crepes in 20 years), and a note that 1 egg approximately equals 3 crepes.

Making the batter

One of the things I love about this recipe is that it scales really well: one egg to 1/4 cup flour. The sugar ratio is weird and I usually have to do a rough approximation, because 1/4 cup sugar is 4 tablespoons, but also it's a very forgiving recipe that way.

I have learned over the years to beat the eggs first and THEN add the flour/sugar/salt, much less lumps that way. (ironically, 20 years and I just noticed he never says when to add the salt, altho clearly it's with the flour)

I have literally no idea how much milk I use. I mix in a bit at a time until it looks like the right texture/color. It's all vibes, baby.

I don't think I've ever let it sit two whole hours but it definitely does change texture a bit, for the better, if left to sit at least a half an hour. (I have also never drunk a glass of red wine while waiting for the batter.)

Below is: just after mixing in the flour/sugar/salt, then after some milk, all the milk, and after sitting for idk half an hour? 45 minutes?

Jam! Eating while making!

As I said, I've literally never made them savory, altho the last time I had them with a little bit of local whipped goat cheese and strawberry jam, and that was FUCKING TIGHT.

My usual is to take out whatever jams I have (today: strawberry and raspberry freezer jam that I made in 2020 and 2021 respectively, quince jam that a friend made, and marmalade) and just alternate flavors as I make them. I usually end up eating some while I'm making them. (As the guy says, bachelor mode™️.)

Two eggs' worth did in fact make about six crepes, I think, which is kind of a lot for dessert but I guess I had dessert for dinner, it's fine.

(Oh, and I think I've tried flipping them without a spatula exactly once, I am just not that bold.)

In any case, this continues to be one of my favorite recipes of all time, I will make it for anyone at any time for any reason. (The longest stretch I ever went without making it was after Ryn died, and I finally had eggs and milk and enough energy...and found BUGS IN MY FLOUR and about lost my damn mind. But I have made them a couple of times since then.)

Fanfiction bonus content!

So if you are reading my fic for the benefit of all the broken hearts, and you have already read chapter 16, then you know why I posted this today. If you are reading it and have not yet read the new chapter, consider this a teaser.

If you are not reading it: for the benefit of all the broken hearts is a fix-it fic for Water Flowing Underground, a very strange beautiful fic that blurs the line between Actor AU and RPF, that plays with questions of identity and choice and intention and also what we are even doing with fanfiction. My fic picks up from the end of that fic, from the point of view of a character who is dismissed by the narrative of the original, and who finds a way out of the wreckage. (it's the weirdest goddamn thing I've ever written, and yes, I think that includes the Bigfoot fic, and also I think my best writing ever. Certainly the most work I've ever put into any writing in any medium.)

And also there are crepes.

[rmd-writes]

hi rae i love your fics 🌟⭐️❤️ do you have any must follow blogs or writers on ao3?

hi nonnie!

Thank you so much, I'm really glad you've liked my fics and I always appreciate hearing that so, so much💖

As to your question, I did try to confirm which fandom you were asking about but you mustn't have seen my posts! So, I'm going to assume you're asking about LS fandom because that's what I've been posting the most about here and in terms of fics lately and hopefully I'm not way off track 😅

I do want to preface this by saying that there are a lot of very talented creators in this fandom, so I know I'm going to be missing people off this list and I'm sorry for that! But I'm doing this off the top of my head and there's just no way I'm going to be able to include everyone.

So, a list of blogs that I rec:

@welcometololaland first and always 💖💖 she is my ride or die, we share a brain and I love her to bits because she's a superb human being, but objectively, she is funny as hell and one of the best writers around, and if you don't read her fics you're missing out

Blogs for cast content, bts content, promos, stills etc:

most of the cast/characters have source blog type blogs, and there are a bunch of tarlos/show ones as well! these are the ones I tend to check for content most often

@911lsbts @rafaelsilvasource @ronenrubinsteinsource

Blogs for gifsets and edits (either because they make them or share a lot of good content, or both!)

@strandtk @maxbegone @danieljradcliffe @reyescarlos @guardian-angle22 @lutavero @tailoredshirt @angeltk @velvet-ink

Blogs for meta posts that will make you think, laugh or cry (or all of the above)

@doublel27 @goodways @guardian-angle22 @reyesstrand @strandnreyes @beautifulhigh

be sure to check the tags, sometimes the things that make me feel the most are in the tags and not the posts!

Blogs for fics

this is the one I'm most scared I'll forget someone for, but I'll do my best and also preface this by saying that as someone who reads fic in three fandoms, I know there are a lot of great fics out there that I miss because a) I just don't have time b) I don't actually check the ao3 tag very often and c) I don’t tend to read whump or very angsty fics which there is a lot of in this fandom. To find fics, I tend to rely on ao3 subscriptions, seeing fics on my dash (this is why it's important to reblog fic we like!) and recommendations from friends.

Having said that, here are some blogs/writers I definitely recommend, (and you'll find links to their ao3 on their blogs):

@welcometololaland @liminalmemories21 @iboatedhere @strandnreyes @reyescarlos @reyesstrand @goodways @doublel27 @maxbegone @sunshinestrand @heartstringsduet @lovesgalores

There are many other writers whose fics are languishing in my open tabs or whose wip snippets I’m enjoying and I've generally reblogged those snippets so if you have a scroll through my page on wip wednesday/snippet sunday you'll see those too!

God, I know I'm missing people off this list (I'm sorry, I've done my best late on a Sunday night!) but it's worth checking the blogs I've linked out and seeing whose creations and thoughts they're sharing too!

Nonnie, if I've done this and you were actually asking about one of my other fandoms, I hope you enjoyed this anyway and please let me know if you wanted recs for another fandom! 💖💖

[liskantope]

It seems that if I listen to any public intellectual long enough, even after a long run of liking them a lot, there will still come a point when something about them will start to grate on me. Such is getting to be the case with the Feminine Chaos podcasters Kat Rosenfield and Phoebe Malz-Bovy; I still love their podcast and my subscription feels well worth it, but if you look at some of my recent posts tagged with Kat's name, on a very subtle level she's started to get on my nerves. In a members-only episode -- I think the one from October 20th, 2023 (I've been backtracking through members-only episodes since recently becoming a member) -- it's the way Phoebe talks about some things that bothers me.

She and Kat are grappling with the issue of free speech in a college campus context and applying the issue to the (then very recently exploded) Gaza conflict. Both appear to be aware that they don't know much of the details surrounding the many decades of Israel-Palestine conflict -- it's not in either of their wheelhouses -- but both are pro-Israel in a kneejerk way and come across to me like they're halfway doing the thing where as experts on criticizing overblown fears expressed in the name of social justice you're suddenly sounding an awful lot like the SJ-ish people you were criticizing. I say "halfway" because they are at least trying to consistently stick to their pro- free speech stance and presenting it as a struggle (my own take on how to deal with such struggles is to let go of the "free speech" framing, which is misleading in most particular social and professional contexts where there has never been such a thing as absolute free speech in the first place! But I acknowledge that the object-level issues that arise often aren't easy to figure out.)

Here is the bit (from Phoebe) that kind of made my jaw drop.

We were talking about where it crosses over between, like, anti-Zionism and antisemitism's always an interesting question, because I saw a professor, um, somewhere, but like, with a big social media presence, had tweeted something about, like, that... was claiming that professors who are supporting Israel at this time are doing so because they don't want to be in trouble. Which just seemed so extremely nuts, when in academia, if you're pro-Israel... it's not pop... that doesn't make you popular. But it seemed to be insinuating almost, like, Jewish cabal -style things. But then I think, that makes me think two things. One of them is that I don't want this person teaching Jewish students, and yet, they have the right to, and I'm not saying they shouldn't legally have the right to do that, but it's not... like, emotionally, I don't like it.

Okay, so a professor (1) is pro-Palestine (nothing unusual so far), (2) frames their position on this ideological spectrum as the underdog/minority position, and (3) suggests that those vocally on the upperdog/majority side are only pretending to be because they're afraid to take the underdog side in public. Parts (2) and (3) certainly seem obnoxious given that within any typical university context (not in the space of American political discourse as a whole, but in the subculture of academia!), as Phoebe points out, it's the pro-Palestine side that's popular and if anything, I would think that it's pro-Israel faculty that are afraid to speak out (I have good evidence of that at my current university for example). But this is one of the oldest and most common and natural culture warrior tactics there is: make yourself out to be the underdog and your ideological opponents to have the power and to be rhetorically surrounding you on all sides (closely related to what Scott Alexander might call "bravery debate" tactics). Taking it to the point of wild claims that in fact, most of those who appear to be one's ideological opponents are just cowed into playing this role is extra obnoxious but again nothing shockingly unusual: look at the ideologues far enough down any direction on any spectrum and you'll constantly hear "my side is afraid to speak out and the weaker among us are pretending to be on the other side so that it looks like most people think like them when actually most people think like me!", "silent majority", etc. Twisting this into some kind of antisemitic trope about Jewish cabals seems like quite an athletic move on Phoebe's part.

(I mean, I haven't seen the actual tweet she's talking about, and she's completely vague in her memory of where it came from, so I can't check and will allow for now that I might have a different opinion based on the precise wording I suppose?)

I'll point out that Freddie deBoer, who is Phoebe Malz-Bovy's friend and has let her guest-blog on his blog, is staunchly pro-Palestine in his outlook and has done a rather similar, if less extreme, version of the thing with "People who think like me are weak and powerless underdogs in the discourse space!" (much to my annoyance!). Does his friend Phoebe think he carries a dangerous enough degree of antisemitism for young Jews not to be safe around him?

[domjaehyun]

omg i was notttt prepared for smut in the first quarter and yet we're spiTTINGGG????? haechan u freak (me too i guess)

tbim making me feel so many things likeee it's all such a mess (which i love does that make me a masochist idk) and i feel so bad for every fucking character like yn is confused and haechan is a dick (in every sense) and winter is pretty self explanatory and then there's jeno who got dragged into it poor boy. and all of their friends myyyy god if i was one of them i would be torrrnn any decision they decide make regarding yn and hyuck it's like basically picking sides and i would feel so fucking bad if i had to

and i just want to add a tier of my fav your work of yours and idc if udc

1.pussy fiend (been here since it came out literally never leaving)

2.tangerine love (weirdly a very comforting fic likeeee what's wrong with meeee)

3.the boy is mine (new entry might even rank up based on the ending have so much hope for this one)

and i wanted the patreon contents sooooo bad but i live on the other side of the world and when the currency is converted its craaaazyyy im so sorry ill just have to imagine shit myself and support u morally ig if i am any help

OMG HEHEHE HI HI

yeah we’re spitting IN MY DEFENSE THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ONE LONG FIC I DIDNT MEAN TO COME OUT THE GATE SWINGING WITH SPITTING IN THE FIRST SCENE OF PART 5 😭 yeah me too that’s hot hehe

I’M SO HAPPY YOU SAID THAT that means im doing something right :D I DONT THINK IT MAKES YOU A MASOCHIST it makes you human. it makes you curious. feeling emotions is what makes life worth living (and hopefully the good emotions are powerful enough to make you stick through the bad ones) so wanting to read complex situations with a myriad of emotions makes total sense! it’s more realistic than, like, i am…… bc ideally i would never have angst ever ever ever only happy thoughts at all times :D and yeah they’re all going through it EVEN HAECHAN GIVE HIM A BIT OF GRACE!!!!

OF COURSE I CARE I LOVE KNOWING WHAT PEOPLE LOVED MOST OUT OF MY WORKS !!!!! now im going down 1 by 1:

1. pussy fiend — this is fair i love pussy fiend it’s perfect perverted lovesick haechan like what is wrong with that boy and can he date me

2. TANGERINE LOVE MEANS SO MUCH TO ME I ADORE IT HE’S SO . FJKGLDSJKGFJKLDKJ I CANT EVEN FORMULATE WORDS something abt that specific haechan is so dreamy. its one of the first times i considered like . him just knowing she likes him from the get go like in pussy fiend he figures it out at the end but in tangerine love he can tell like from the beginning and theres no playing around with her emotions, he’s just very earnest while still being hot and flirtatious and playful and i love that so much

3. HEHEHE well i hope it ranks up but i would understand if it stayed in the same place bc i am not sure how you want the ending to go,,,,, but i hope it goes the way you wanted!!!!!!!!! :D

AND i was thinking about this earlier but if you wanted to like . paypal/venmo/cashapp me the $6, i could share the tbim patreon content with you!!! like if you can’t do a monthly subscription i totally get it bc we’ve all got stuff going on !!!! i’ve already done it for one person and i wouldn’t mind doing it again!! if you’re interested u could come off anon and i could work something out w you? up to you though no pressure 💖 THANK YOU SO MUCH DARLING THIS MADE ME SO HAPPY have a great day ily 🫂

[kart0]

Today was not a good day and my mood is terrible and I have no money and I am barely surviving

I have been planning on opening commissions because I really, really need money. All I have, literally, is $0,053. I am not joking. I have R$0,29 ( my currency ). That's all I have on my bank account. and I refuse to use credit bc I know myself and I don't want to owe money. I'm already owing $40 to my mom, bc I had to prepare for a con, which ended up being very bad and I made no profit whatsoever. I borrowed $100 from her and all money I got, I used to pay her back. And I still haven't paid it all.

And I am. Desperate. I have to buy clothes ( haven't gotten new clothes since 2019 ) and I need new shoes ( I always ask for shoes on my birthday, bc I don't have money to get new ones by myself so I use my birthday as an excuse ) and I plan to save money to buy a new computer. I have a notebook that doesn't work, takes around 3 hours. THREE. FUCKING HOURS. to turn on and work properly. I've been meaning to switch to drawing on a pc because my ipad can only do so much ( and it does a lot, I love it, but it doesn't have a lot of options. I can't get clip paint studio on my ipad cuz it's a subscription and it is expensive. I have clip paint on my notebook tho, but it just doesn't work cuz it's too heavy, and I like working on big canvas )

Last year I was looking for a display drawing tablet ( I bought myself a Wacom intuos in 2017, but I couldn't adapt. I am not very coordinated. At that time i would prefer to draw traditionally, and if digital, on my phone with my FINGER. ) and my dad ended up gifting me one that I really loved ! I had been looking for good and cheap alternatives to wacoms, and I was so dedicated into finding one that I'd be able to afford and he ended up gifting me one !!!! I was over the moon !!!! It was pricey, so I got it as a birthday, and Christmas gift combined. My birthday is in August btw so it was toooootally fine. I don't usually get any Christmas gifts anyways. At least not expensive ones, I usually ask for underwear, or socks, or pajamas. Things I need.

I opened the display tablet and then it dawned on me. My notebook suuuuuuuucks. It will be such a hassle to work and just inconvenient. Why would I spend 3 hours turning it on when my ipad it's already there.

Ugh I am sorry I am getting so out of track, I just. I need to explain why, this matters so much to me.

The actual upsetting thing:

I will open comms, and I have been struggling to price my art because. I don't want to fail, and not get any customers cuz it's too expensive. But I can't work for free, lately I've been spending at least 2 hours on every bust I've drawn. And I know it's not the cleanest or sharpest artstyle out there. I keep doubting myself that no one is interested in my art, in me. I have some followers on Twitter, which is my main source of clients. But I barely get any interactions. If my art can barely get any comments or likes or fucking views, then most likely no one will see my commission post, and no one will buy one.

And to make things worse, I have a mutual who is super nice I really like her I think she's awesome and she has great art but she just announced she's planning to open comms too, soon. And I feel so fucking stupid. Everyone was commenting on that post saying "I can't wait" "ohhhh this will be good" "this is so exciting I will definitely comm you" and I got. Nothing.

It's my own fault. I'm the only one to blame. I don't interact a lot. I'm not a part of the community there. I don't have friends there. Even though I have double her followers, I don't have their trust, or their empathy. Maybe I'm just that unlikable. I'm not worth it.

And I feel like I could've done something about it. If I had been braver and posted my comms sheet sooner, before her post. If I tried harder to make friends there. If I posted more art. If I. If I just.

I don't know what to do, and I feel terrible about these thoughts. She deserves it ! She deserves more than I do. She's nicer and I'm just me. A prickly, bored, unfazed, egocentric narcissist who can only cry about themself. I feel such shame, and guilt, but I can't help it. I am a naturally envious, jealous, and putrid shell of a person.

I've been trying to be nicer but I don't have the energy to talk to them, and I feel too awkward. I feel so fucking lonely all the time and I need validation. I seek for love. I want to be seen and loved and cherished. I want them to look at me but I don't do my part. All I'm good is my art, and it's not even that fucking good. My worth is my posts. Gosh, I feel so stupid.

Why am I like this ?

I feel angry to myself that I can't be normal. I don't make friends I don't talk to anyone I don't make connections.

I don't post a lot and I am not that active.

The worst thing even is that I don't even have a job.

I don't want to charge too much, I don't want to get paid too little. I don't want to burn out and not be able to get more comms. I don't want to not get any comms at all.

This other artist is in the same fandom as I am ( haikyuu ) so we basically have the same clients. If I charge too high, they will compare our prices and choose hers. "Her art is better" "her art is worth more" "at least she will offer full bodies, when you only will offer headshots"

They will choose her, and I don't know what to do. I know we're in a crisis, economy is in shambles, and people just can't afford to support both artists. I know that ! I know that and I can't change my pricing because it's already cheap, for me. People always say to charge more but most people just don't want me. And my commissions always tend to look like shit because I am too afraid to upset people. I need to prove they did the right choice by commissioning me. I need them to know I did my best. I want them to be happy. But all I feel is that I'm failing !

I'm failing at everything, look where I am !

I DONT EVEN HAVE A FUCKING DOLLAR. I DONT HAVE 1 DOLLAR. One fucking dollar.

And I feel like I'm going crazy. How could I not ? I don't have a job, I will never get a job, I am barely surviving at college, I have no plans for the future, I am neurodivergent and no one will hire me, I don't work well with other people I am not friendly. I'm just.

I'm bad at being a person.

I don't know what to do. Yes I will be opening comms. And I'm considering lowering my prices. I don't blame this artist at all. It's not her fault, and I know that.

And I don't wish her any harm. I just. I feel envy. Why am I not her.

Why am I so bad at this ?

[moonflower-rose]

The three things thing!

I am so behind that people are going to start calling me Dr Cheeks. I was tagged by three lovely humans of fandom, thank you all!

@shealwaysreads things here  @kbrick things here  @writcraft things here 

I can unhesitatingly recommend any of these writers works, not just the ones they've mentioned above, but I'm sure I don't need to tell anybody here that.

So, on to ME! The thing we're doing is 'Recommend us 3 of YOUR fics: 1 that is “most popular” and 2 that are “hidden gems.'

Most popular first.

I think whatever way you measure it, Watch the Castles Burn is my most popular fic. Every metric on AO3 has it on top, with the exception of subscriptions (its beaten only by my one fucking WIP that I stg I will finish one day soon).

I feel amused every time I see this fic. I wrote it for Wireless 2021 and not far off completion I had a complete emotional breakdown and went to bed for like 3 weeks and cried (not over the fic!). And then on the day that the fest started posting I pulled myself together and reached out to the mods to ask if it was too late to submit, and they were extremely kind and understanding and said yes, so I finished the last little lingering bit and had a non-fandom pal do the most last minute beta you can conceive of because I didn't really have any fandom connections that I felt I could impose on at that time, and we tried to take care of the worst of the comma crimes etc, and then at the end of the fest there she was! I was incredibly emotional, on a rollercoaster (grief is a bastard), and I felt like I had submitted an absolute steaming turd. I thought nobody would read it and nobody would like it. @shiftylinguini had only recently become a new friend and I spewed anxiety at her non-stop for days which she was very patient about and still kept answering my DMs, and has not yet abandoned me which speaks to her very good character and kindness lol. And somehow, this possibly-a-turd became the most popular thing I've written in eighteen years in the fandom. It's not what I consider my best work, but people like it!

Have a bit:

Potter found him in the shower block later that afternoon. Draco had one hand braced against the tile beside the shower head, letting the hot water pummel him. His left shoulder was bruised to hell, in fact he could feel the muscle along his ribs beginning to ache as well, the adrenaline slowly waning.

“I was looking for you,” Potter’s boots echoed off the tiles. “I went up to your office, but they told me you were probably down here.”

Draco turned his head just enough to look over his shoulder, and winced when his whole left side cramped in objection. “How’s Ron?”

Potter, to his credit, looked him in the eye. “Good. Very pleased to be alive, thanks to you. I think you’ll be getting Christmas shortbread and Easter buns from Molly for a couple of years or so, after this.”

Draco would have laughed, but that would have required using muscles which were currently strained to buggery, so he just made a noise instead and hoped it wasn’t too pathetic.

“That looks pretty sore. Do you need a hand with a Healing charm?”

He did, actually, not that he would admit it. Still a stubborn, proud arsehole, despite his best efforts. He turned slowly, flexing in the water. That fucking hurt, but the look on Potter’s face was worth it. “If you wanted an excuse to see me in my altogether, Potter, you need only have asked.”

Potter let his eyes drift down Draco’s body like fingertips. His drew his wand from his thigh holster, and gestured with it. “Turn around, you lush. Healing first, flirting later.” Draco turned the water off and braced himself again against the tile, and Potter’s magic collided with his back a moment later. He made a noise, it was punched out of him rather than anything voluntary, and the pain coalesced before fading to a low thrum.

“Thanks.” Draco’s voice was rough.

“Get dressed, and come home with me. I’ll give you a back massage, sort out the last of that stiffness.”

“It’s barely four.” Draco had a feeling there would be other kinds of stiffness afflicting him if he let Potter give him a massage.

Potter just looked at him with dark eyes. “Come home with me.”

Draco went home with Potter.

Next, two hidden gems.

I really like Relief from this years Sudsfest. I had 60K of thoughts about this fic but I only had about 4K of time and brainpower, so I sliced out the right bit for Suds and plan to come back to this very soon.

  Watersports is a challenging kink for many, its a broad label so it makes sense that people might be unsure of it, lol. But it gives me such a kick when people trust me and have a go anyway, and then say so in the comments. Love that!

Some Relief:

The afternoon management briefing had essentially been a write-off. The scar on his hip prickled and itched, and he kept zoning out, head full of warm sheets, velvet skin, stubble, sweat. Vivid flashbacks to things they’d done in bed together threaded through with things they hadn’t tried yet. Budget updates and governance and risk assessments and compliance reports. It was like the mumbling of a meeting happening in a different room.

Receipts! This was so much fun to write, I don't know what came over me one afternoon but I was full of beans and asked @shealwaysreads for a random prompt, and Receipts was born a couple of hours later in between meetings.  I also have thoughts about this, which I'd like to revisit one day (god knows when, the to do list is painfully long as it is).

A bit of Receipts:

“Parkinson, you look surprisingly well fed.” Weasley was all but bouncing in her trainers. “Care to show me your receipts?”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, Weasley,” Pansy said smoothly, and Draco didn’t miss the flash in the red-headed menace’s eyes. He looked desperately at Potter, who was attempting to enter the flat behind her. Eventually he had to shove her forward to get past her.

“Malfoy,” Potter’s eyes were sparkling, which was very annoying and not sexy whatsoever. “Alright?”

“I’ve been better, if I’m being honest,” Draco muttered, and Potter shook with suppressed laughter. “Let me get you a water.”

The girls barely noticed their departure, and in the kitchen Draco got down a pair of glasses and took the Brita out of the fridge.

“I hope you’re going to tell me your week has been as miserable as mine?”

Potter took a big sip of water, and his eyes crinkled. “Sorry to disappoint. This is going to be a piece of cake for Gin. She’s as stubborn as fuck, but she’s also already on a pretty strict diet because of training, so it didn’t take much to cut out luxuries. She made me go to the farmers market with her to get even cheaper veg—actually, I could have lived without the run on the way there, if I’m honest.”

“Well, Pans is basically made of refined sugar and nicotine, so I spent our last shop slapping Percy Pigs out of her hands like I was playing Goal Defense for England.”

Potter snorted and nearly spit out his water. Draco felt his belly swoop, and looked away to hide his smile.

“How long do you reckon this will go on?”

Draco cocked his head. “I mean, let’s not kid ourselves, this is foreplay. So I predict whichever one of them gets overcome with the need to hump first.”

Potter shook his head in amazement. “Somehow when you say vulgar things, I’m never expecting it.”

“I’m vulgarity personified,” Draco said, his nose in the air. “I also have a bar of Dairy Milk hidden in Pansy’s top shelf, and if you’re a very good boy I may share it with you.”

“I can be good for you, Draco,” Potter said in a low voice, and Draco stuck his head in the pantry to hide his reddened cheeks.

Tagging is the bit I'm really shit at, obviously never hesitate to just do this if you see it but the rules require tagging so if you haven't done this already and you want to, you are hereby tagged: @gracerene and @thehoneybeet and @candybarrnerd and @nv-md and @academicdisasterfic and @ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm and @oknowkiss!

[selfundiagnosed]

Insane that my mom ran the most popular patrick stump archival blog on tumblr + was a full time lawyer + was raising two mentally ill kids + doing culinary arts school + having a cookie business. I think its her autism i wont lie. But now its all catching up to her and she has no energy which would be the ehlers danlos fault this time.. tried to convince her to steal her old url back but on cohost so she made an account but couldnt immediately make side blogs but boy oh boy. she would be giving the fall out boy fandom what they want and more. Shes like i cant do it again i have no idea how i did it before im like ma! its called having boundaries. Shes like i cant do that when i have a special interest its called autism. Im like right but queue posts for once a day and find 30 pictures from a photo set and boom one months worth of posting fall out boy and you can conserve your energy. But she doesnt know how to do her special interests in moderation. Im honestly just glad she went and accepted a bunch of access to her mega archive folder thingy. But shes so mad she doesnt have access to like her actual archive bc the website she used go archive everything changed their subscription plans and she has so many photos it would be like a zillion dollars she doesnt have 😭 like bogus i remember photo storing websites were so free. Take me back to 2010 for real :T Anyway she used to get so mortified when i told my friends as a teen about her blog i actually told her coworker once and her coworker somehow RETAINED the url and went home and looked at her blog and she was so upset at me 😭😭 but now like she kinda doesnt give a fuck anymore bc fall out boy was her special interest for an entire decade and she’s over it. Obviously still a big big fan but not in bandom anymore. Her new special interest is a band i introduced her to when i was 13 and its kinda cringe so i dont talk about it but she also ran an archival blog for THIS band and i told my friend at a sleepover who liked this band about her blog and they fucking FOLLOWED HER and shit bricks and my mom was MORTIFIED. But anyway yeah she doesnt gaf now if i tell people she was this blog and i even posted a tiktok about it once and people started doing detective work that would make her autistic self so proud…. Bc thats what she was good at! sleuthing stalking detective work on the band. Pete wentz privately answered several of her asks on tumblr i’ll see if she can send me the asks and their responses. But yeah she doesnt care anymore. her original url was scrubbed by tumblr and shes very angry about it bc it was an original bandom url for patrick stump so shes like wtf ever i dont wanna touch this im so mad. Which SAAAAME. ive done that so many times. She started permitting access to people who requested it for one of her photo archive website thingies she left in her last post. But yeaaaahhh… she was patrick stump for halloween in like 2008 and she won the costume contest bc she had rhe coolest sideburns and looked so much like him. My first ever concert was a fall out boy concert in spring 2007 i was 6 turning 7 within the next few months lemme just say the music video for carpel tunnel of love played on the screen as they played the song and my brother and i was so traumatized. But then immediately they played this aint a scene after that and we were like HELL YEAAAAAAAAA. And my brother (5 at the time) and i knew every single song and sang along and my mom went look at everyone else no one else knows these songs. You guys are so cool. And we looked around and yeah no one was singing the songs and were sooo excited! Oh and theres that one time she recorded us singing keep it simple by cobra starship and THEY PUT IT ON THEIR MYSPACE PAGE AT THE TOP WE FLIPPED SHIT. i wish THAT video was still up. Shes also met fall out boy so many times and walked away from patrick stump while he was talking to her bc she didnt want to take up his time at a meet and greet. Omg. so many memories. I was literally raised in online bandom thats so insane. Maybe thats why im a homosexual

[afarewelltokings]

i got tagged by @waspstar 🥰 thanks for the tag!! i love doing these things

rules: tag 9 people you want to get to know better

last song: this is kinda hard to answer because i'm currently listening to the ost for pokemon mystery dungeon: explorers of sky, which is all like minute-long songs so by the time i'd finished the "currently watching" category i had to go back and rewrite this as i'd already heard at least 5 more songs LOL. if not counting osts and other classical music, then it was new damage by soundgarden

last show: ...house hunters

currently watching: ...also house hunters tbh. my partner and i are working on a goal of having a comprehensive guide of as many episodes of House Hunters as there are available after their first airing. on an entirely unrelated and not illegal note, if anyone knows how to download videos from prime's channel subscription things please let me know in private lol there are episodes of house hunters locked to it due to discovery+ uploading it incorrectly

currently reading: i've been bouncing between two books recently, "Long Promised Road: Carl Wilson, Soul of the Beach Boys The Biography" by Kent Crowley and "I'm Glad My Mom Died" by Jenette McCurdy. the former i'm finding to be interesting but mildly inaccurate, the latter i'm finding to be an emotionally rough but very good read. can i do a last read? because the last book i finished was "My Life In France" by Julia Child and i think that was an excellent read all around and cannot recommend it highly enough to everyone and anyone

current obsession: lol i guess house hunters? that and/or veggietales. no yeah definitely veggietales. got myself a couple veggietales music cassettes for my birthday coming up :D being that the show not only predates the first Toy Story but also that it did not start as part of the mega conglomerates, it's a very interesting and actually important piece of 3D animation history (let alone indie 3D animation history). i learned recently that it was outselling disney's children's tv home media for a bit in the late 90s, a very small period but it's nonetheless highly impressive that it even got to that point. it's interesting to reflect on how for most of the 1990s, veggietales was disney/pixar's nearly sole 3D animation rival worth giving a shit about competing against

i tag: @somecleverreference @gruel22 @kingtrigger @the-supernatural-atheist @beepadoobop @cinnamon-grump @transgengars @echoanddust @analog-machine/@analog-machine--is-shadowbanned (not sure if you're still having that weird shadowban bug so i wanted to tag both of your accounts just in case)

[thefearandnow]

Audio Drama Sunday: 11/29/22

So its been almost a full month since I stopped checking Twitter and one of the things that I always loved reading on a Sunday was all the lovely Audio Drama Sunday threads where I discovered a ton of amazing fiction podcasts. Inspired by those and my goal to write more on tumblr I thought it'd be fun to put together my first Audio Drama Sunday post and try to make it a semi-regular thing. Mostly to just get my thoughts down and get through my listening backlog but also for podcast recommendations!

Quiet Part Loud

I posted about this a couple weeks ago (I'm including the past two weeks in this post) but Quiet Part Loud is high on my list for favorite podcasts of the year. The Monkeypaw created, Mac Rogers written, Jordan Peele executive produced Gimlet show really delivered on the hype and I'm excited that there's possibly going to be a season 2. Though the premise sounds very similar to like a Limetown/Black Tapes sort of podcaster/investigator type of thing going on, the way it's written actually reminded me more of last year's comedy series Dark Air starring Raine Wilson (though of course this one is squarely horror, also very Burned Photo in terms of plot). They do an excellent job conceptually and aesthetically grappling with audio as a vehicle for social terror across history and mediums, which is the type of shit I live for! I thought the story was really well paced, the second half of the series had some incredible stand out episodes and the last two episodes were very satisfying. I think this show has a ton of re-listen value and I'm excited to see what happens in the next season. The only bad part of this podcast is that it's a Spotify exclusive so not as many people can listen and I'm not really sure it's worth a subscription if you don't already have it. But if you already have Spotify and love horror I can't recommend enough!

The Goblet Wire

The Goblet Wire is probably one of the more unique podcasts I've listened to: a surreal horror scripted role-playing collection of bite sized portraits (it'd be a stretch to call some of them stories). Very similar to John Darnielle's Wolf in White Van. And last week I finally listened to the last two episodes, which I thought really helped give the whole first batch of episodes a true sense of a series arc. Which I don't think it necessarily needed, but it felt like the end of a season y'know? I love the writing, the simplicity of the format but complexity of the imagery. It's such an open ended concept and I'm looking forward to hearing what the next set of writers do in the next batch of episodes. On top of the show itself being fun to listen to it's just like an incredible thing to exist as a platform for indie fiction podcast creators to collaborate on and make crazy shit. I've got a ton of other podcasts to check out from the plugs at the end of each episode and it just feels so like underground comics community vibe.

We're Alive: Descendants

We're Alive was the first audio drama I ever listened to but I dropped off somewhere in the middle. I tried to get back into with with Gold Rush but felt too lost from the original story line and felt intimidated by going all the way back. But when I saw that they were doing this most recent Descendants season I decided to give it another shot and... it's sorta like my guilty pleasure listening. Like it's nostalgic mainly. It's like their Hunger Games moment which I'm into but for the most part everything that I'm excited about so far during the season gets watered down in clunky dialogue or slow moving plot points. And overall the episodes end up being too long and kinda boring. This last week I listened to Episode 7 (parts 1 and 2 which is a whole other thing) and I can't tell if it all went over my head because of a ton of lore and character work I missed but I definitely felt confused. I'm still gonna keep listening cause at this point I'm invested in figuring out how it all goes down from a story perspective and it feels like this next episode will finally connect the two concurrent story lines. I'm curious to see if longtime fans have enjoyed this season; I've found it an easier entry point than Gold Rush and I like hearing about the regional evolution of the infected, I'm definitely enjoying it even if it's a bit slow.

Welcome to Night Vale

Seems a bit basic to be adding WTNV here but I have been inspired recently to go back to some select episodes, all of them recommendations from this post. And yeah: Night Vale is still such a classic with hilarious writing, fun concepts and undeniably influential style. So far I've only listened to a few early episodes (The Glow Cloud episode is 100% gold) that I was already familiar with and it's been really interesting to listen back to them after listening to Start With This for the past few months. I have a completely different appreciation for what they were doing with this show as it was coming out, like when I was heavy into Night Vale I think I took it for granted that this show existed and was perfectly weird and couldn't really wrap my head around the talent and thought that went into making it so special. I'm really enjoying my trip down memory lane but I'm also really excited to hear some new ones y'all recommended so I'll probably be carving out some space for future posts about my wtnv backlog.

Honorable Mention:

This isn't audio drama but I do want to note that the "Qatar's World Cup" episode of Throughline was really a great listen and worth the hour or so for anyone who's even vaguely following the World Cup or if you saw that John Oliver video. Throughline is one of my fave non-fiction podcasts and episodes like this one feel especially valuable in terms of their research and production.