tyrantisterror

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That's the German name for Snow White.

Doodled some Midgaheim takes on famous fairy tale characters today.

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my balcony blocks my view of the playground, but I heard one child yell "I FOUND A FROG" with a great deal of excitement and now there is screaming, so I'm filling in some blanks

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insta doodle requestsss

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He is their friend and they love him

WHAT WHAT WHAT. NECA IS MAKING ALIEN TOYS?

Has been for a while now, actually.  Their Alien Queen figure is one of my crown jewels.

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Nice! I've got a good sized collection of them too:

I really love the updates they made for the Kenner toyline aliens - the snake Alien, Mantis Alien, and Gorilla Alien are all really great!

WHAT WHAT WHAT. NECA IS MAKING ALIEN TOYS?

Has been for a while now, actually.  Their Alien Queen figure is one of my crown jewels.

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While I think my tumblr does give, like, a more complete view of who I am than a lot of other things, because I unwisely vomit my vulnerabilities on here... it's, like, still an incomplete view of me, really. I use this place to talk about a lot of shit that I don't have people to talk about IRL, or that I don't feel comfortable talking to people in IRL about to, like, the detail I want to talk about it. And a lot of that stuff I don't want to talk about is, like, anxieties and sadnesses and, like, bummers that I just feel uncomfortable inflicting on people directly, but through a fun psychological loophole have no real qualms just posting it on this, the internet's equivalent of putting a message in a bottle and promptly being mauled by seagulls who claim you hate Buddhists because you have criticisms of Star Wars.

My point being that it can at time paint a depressing picture, I suppose, though that's not the intent. One of the things I've been adjusting to over the last few years is that I finally kinda of like being me. I'm thirty-six years old and, like, I've gotten to a point where even in my most depressive episodes, I can't help but admit that I have qualities about myself I like, and accomplishments that I'm proud of.

I've written novels! Like, you have to understand how important that alone is to me. Ever since I was young, I have loved stories and wanted to tell my own. And I have! I've written six novels, with plenty more in the works. And they're the kind of stories kid me would have loved.

I have pet lizards! Adorable, sweet, lovely pet lizards - again, a childhood dream fulfilled.

I have so many toys, and my soft sculpture skills have progressed to where I can even make my own when I want to. Kid me would be fucking thrilled by that! Kid me would look at my living space, with Godzillas on every shelf and more charmanders than I could have dreamed of, and think it was paradise.

My art style has become distinct to my eye and, like, I like it. I'm still honing and refining it, but I now look at my art and don't think "good enough," but rather "Damn, that looks like something I'd love to see more of!" It's not the perfect imitation of the artists that inspired me that child me would have wanted, but if I showed my drawings to my four year old self, that kid would love them as much as all those other sources of inspiration. And I love it even more because it's mine.

I've helped people, often without meaning it, often by doing small things, and many of them have been kind enough to let me know it. There are lots of people who want to have me around - I'm in so many TTRPG campaigns with so many different people that it's hard to juggle them all, I've got friends who routinely call me despite living miles away just because they miss me, I am loved and wanted and goddamn you do not know how baffled child me would be to hear that. I have friends and a loving and supportive family and wonderful, wonderful pets.

It's just, you know... talking about this shit feels like bragging, and whenever I feel like I'm bragging my gut reaction is to qualify it, downplay it, make it clear to others that I do not overestimate my worth or circumstances. There are few things more disgusting to me than arrogance and it's not something I ever want to be guilty of. And yeah, that definitely fed into my depressive tendencies, and still does to an extent, but, like...

I'm old, and I've lived long enough where a lot of my depression's attacks have just been definitively disproved. I'm sorry, bad brain chemicals, but I've got letters from students and friends that prove I'm not a wholly terrible person. I've got six paperback books on my shelf and a poster from a play I directed and walls full of soft sculptures that prove I have, in fact, accomplished something with my time on earth, and continue to do so. I have so many people that like me that I have trouble finding enough time to return the affection. So, like, yeah, I can't really hate myself anymore - all the old arguments are invalid.

And even the things I know others would judge me about, like, don't matter. I'm 36, what do I care if someone thinks it's weird I have a bajillion charmanders? Yeah, it's weird, I don't give a fuck, it makes me happy. I come home and see a bed full of way too many plushies and it makes me so happy that I plop down and pat my pillows excitedly for thirty seconds - who the fuck cares what other people think when that gives me so much joy? I'll acknowledge that it's weird and probably offputting but, like, it makes me happy, so fuck off, right?

Like, my life isn't perfect, and I don't think it ever will be. I think there will be some things I want to do that just won't work out. I'll never get to be the actor who dons the Godzilla suit in a movie - that's one of my childhood dreams that won't come true. And I'll probably never write a story that makes other people feel as obsessively passionate about it as I feel about Dracula or The Hobbit or Pride and Prejudice or Persona 5 or Slay the Princess. And, like...a lot of people don't find true love, you know? There are many people who end up single to the end. I bet a lot of them still have fulfilling lives, even if romance was something they wanted. Life doesn't have to be perfect to be well-lived. You don't have to complete every sidequest, especially if one is really fucking frustrating because you're really bad at it.

For the last few months I've been making these little princess dolls out of wire and fabric and hot glue and as far as I'm aware I'm the ONLY person on earth who makes these kinds of dolls. Lots of other people make soft sculptures and custom dolls, but I've never seen anyone who uses the same combination of techniques as I do. They're mine, they're uniquely mine, and when I see them I'm filled with a profound sense of joy. Only I could do that, and I love being me.

...but, you know, I'm not bragging about it. That would be crass.

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Like, for all my complaining about The Loneliness, it's very much my fault. The things about myself that make me unattractive to other people are things I actively enjoy, and changing them would require doing things I actively dislike. I could wear nicer clothes, but I like wearing schlubby graphic tees and jeans. I could slim down and put on muscle mass, but I like my weird, doughy, disproportionate body with its too-slim arms and too-chunky thighs and weirdly shapely tapering shins. I could style my hair differently, but I like my wacky mad scientist hair and bushy sideburns. I could tan, but I like my sickly pallid skin. I could not fill my living space with a terrifying number of toys, but I like having a vast and off-putting collection of toys.

I like my big belly and my too-long legs and my off-center smile and my buck teeth and my mad scientist hair and my skinny arms and my too-soft skin, and I like my juvenlie graphic tees and my vast collection of plushies and action figures and my little home-made dolls and my silly little lizards. And the fact that I recognize that most people do not like these traits - that they are, statistically speaking, unattractive - does not change the fact that I like them and enjoy having them and don't feel the need to "correct" them.

And yeah, that means I'm lonely, romantically speaking, and likely to remain so, and likely to bitch about till the day I die. But, like, the cure is worse than the disease, right?

I think the best my fashion sense has ever been was the five year stretch I spent working as a substitute teacher. I wore dress pants and button-down shirts because teachers are expected to convey a sense of professionalism, but I didn't wear ties because fuck you school system you're not paying me tie-wearing money. To compensate, I wore this nice black vest that gave me, like, kind of a Han Solo vibe I guess? I loved it, it was the perfect blend of "professional enough to cover for my perpetual baby face" and "comfortable and strange enough for me not to hate wearing it."

But when I got the job at the daycare the dress code was explicitly "t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers," because when you're dealing with kids as young as two-years old, you're going to get messy too often to wear something as nice as a button down shirt and dress pants. And, like, if I'm wearing comfy non-dress clothes at work, why the fuck would I subject myself to wearing dress clothes in my off hours? What, to impress other people?

Fuck that, I want to be comfy when I'm off the clock. In fact, I should be AT LEAST as comfy off the clock as I am on the clock, IF NOT MORE SO. So that was the death of vaguely-fashionable TT.

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I think the best my fashion sense has ever been was the five year stretch I spent working as a substitute teacher. I wore dress pants and button-down shirts because teachers are expected to convey a sense of professionalism, but I didn't wear ties because fuck you school system you're not paying me tie-wearing money. To compensate, I wore this nice black vest that gave me, like, kind of a Han Solo vibe I guess? I loved it, it was the perfect blend of "professional enough to cover for my perpetual baby face" and "comfortable and strange enough for me not to hate wearing it."

But when I got the job at the daycare the dress code was explicitly "t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers," because when you're dealing with kids as young as two-years old, you're going to get messy too often to wear something as nice as a button down shirt and dress pants. And, like, if I'm wearing comfy non-dress clothes at work, why the fuck would I subject myself to wearing dress clothes in my off hours? What, to impress other people?

Fuck that, I want to be comfy when I'm off the clock. In fact, I should be AT LEAST as comfy off the clock as I am on the clock, IF NOT MORE SO. So that was the death of vaguely-fashionable TT.

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Official Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak concept art: Garangolm armor

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Doodled some Midgaheim takes on famous fairy tale characters today.

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Ok, so, this week was really exhausting and I was like, fuck it, I need to get more of that body scrub that the nice green haired lady at Lush gave me a free sample of, that shit was luxurious, and while I could wait a couple weeks since I always take a trip to Lush at the start of a month to restock on bathbombs, I was going to go to the mall where it's at today anyway for some other shit, so I might as well stop in, right? Not trying to see the green-haired lady, just getting some body scrub to relax after an exhausting week. I am not a creep, or at least I'm actively trying not to engage in creep behavior. I have standards, dammit! I've got a code! A don't be a creep code!

Which is fine, because it turns out the green haired lady wasn't working today anyway. Cool, I can just get my body scrub and it won't be weird.

Except

A different clerk does the customer service due-diligence of asking if I need help and all that. Also fine, to be expected, yatta yatta, but when I say I'm just getting one thing she's like, "Alright, by the way, you have sideburns that would scare Wolverine." Like, you know, in a complimentary way - and, like, in a way that made me fucking blush and brush my sideburns reflexively.

And that's fine, that's nice, but as I checked out and walked out of the store, my brain's like... that was flirtatious. I've gotten compliments at Lush before on a lot of things - girls liking my shirt, my pins on my rad jacket, stuff like that - but no one ever complimented my looks before. And the gears in my head start turning and, like...

Are the lady staff members at Lush directed to flirt with schlubby looking guys?

'Cause, like, I am not a looker, you know? I do not have good fashion sense - I dress in graphic t-shirts and jeans and, like, goofy socks with monsters on them because the kids at work are entertained by an adult wearing goofy socks with monsters on them (and because I like goofy socks with monsters on them). My fashion sense has not changed since high school except for the fact that I don't wear button down shirts anymore because fuck them, who am I trying to impress? My rad jacket is a gaudy thing with spray-paint stains and an eclectic mishmash of pins and patches. I do not dress in a way that should be complimented! I dress like a straight cis guy who does not know what to buy his girlfriend at the luxury soap shop - which I assume is why the sales staff always make sure to go up to me to ask if I need anything.

But, like, I'm now thinking that I underestimated the extremity of their potential targeting. Like... it wouldn't be that weird of corporate America to have managers say behind closed doors, "Hey, if you see a kind of pathetic looking doughy guy who dresses like he's still fourteen, schmooze him up a bit so he buys more shit."

So I did what anyone would do and searched "are Lush employees required to flirt with customers?" and variations thereof, looking to see if anyone else talked about this - especially employees of the company itself. And the answer was, "No, but also kind of yes?"

Like, ok, according to my research (i.e. mostly looking at threads on reddit, the most reliable source of information in the post-Google-enshittification world I guess), Lush does require employees to interact with customers whenever possible, with specific instructions for them to not just greet customers, but ask them what they need and recommend products in an organic way. Which, yeah, standard customer service practice.

They also try to personalize this approach by identifying different customer personality types - Assertive customers who know what they want and make decisions quickly, Analytical customers who have a lot of questions and factors they consider when picking products, and Amiable customers who like being treated like friends and are the most likely to become loyal return customers (me, I suppose?) - and then instruct employees to tailor their approach accordingly. Finding this out made me think about that one time I went in during the holidays and one of the sales ladies asked me if it was my frist time, only for the green haired lady to say from the other side of the store, "Oh no, he's an old pro at this." She was helping a new staff member identify which approach to use. It's clever!

Most importantly, though, I found out that yes, employees ARE instructed to compliment guests, with the caveat that said compliments need to be genuine, i.e. not from a stock playbook, but something off the cuff. Apparently management is listening in at all times to make sure employees are doing this and other interactions with customers, and salespeople at Lush are reprimanded if they don't make some audible attempt to personalize each customer's experience.

Aha! I've done it! I've proven what any normal person would have told me should have just been common sense! They are absolutely not flirting, no matter how personal the comments they make get!

They're just required to be friendly! Forced to do it, even!

...

...which makes me feel kind of dirty for being so delighted by it in retrospect. Here I am, giggling and kicking my feet because some nice alt girl at Lush said she liked my sideburns or my Godzilla shirt or what have you, when that entire interaction was very much something they were forced to do, and probably especially in my case given the whole customer profiling system they've got going on. Kind of makes me feel like some creep leering at girls in a strip club.

I mean, I'm still gonna shop there - TT needs his bathbombs and body scrub, dammit - but, like, damn, I feel bad about these nice ladies being forced to act chummy to some weirdo schlubby guy like me. So I decided to leave them a glowing google review for their business in the hopes that they at least get compensated for it - maybe their boss will throw them a pizza party or something. It's not much but they don't have a tip jar so it's the best I can do.

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say what you want about homestuck but you gotta admit: absolute fire soundtrack for a webcomic, a media type that by all definition has no reason to have a soundtrack in the first place.

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in portal, glados forces you to form an attachment to the companion cube, then incinerate it

shortly thereafter, she tries to incinerate you

which could mean nothing

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Hey kid I’m a computa

Stop all the downloadin’