#how to buy nft

[itti-the-mouse]

piracy is cool, but it would be a lot cooler if the dragon quest 3 remake was on any of the piracy sites.

[enby--ghost]

since metazoo went bankrupt, can we as a community buy the ip and turn it into the fun and silly tcg it deserved to be from the start without all the nft garbage

[phatcatphergus]

Okay so now that we have an economy in the qsmp, someone needs to make nfts of one of the eggs

[akascow]

i feel like that uglyass monkey head nft craze a couple yrs ago was just a way to get celebrities to waste their money secretly created by some cynical normie idk

[beartoothbarry]

I really miss atreyu i loved them there's no key change in the universe that goes harder than The Crimson and porter mcknight is really nice maybe I should get back into-

*Brandon does literally anything*

Nevermind actually. I'm going back in my hole now. Six more weeks of winter

[darcyolsson]

in loving memory of tumblr's april fools' pranks 💐 2014 - 2024

icymi, tumblr used to do an elaborate april fool's prank every year, but this year they suddenly stopped. here's a somewhat detailed recap of everything they did over the decade:

2013 - mishapocalypse (honourable mention): tumblr staff didn’t start doing april fools until 2014, but the mishapocalypse happened on tumblr in 2013 and i feel like this list would be incomplete without it

2014 - tumblrpro: upon opening your dash you were greeted by an “inspirational” video, that ended with the option to get “tumblrpro (for free)”. all it did was put a top hat on your icon.

2015 - tumblr executivesuite/coppy: a copying machine appeared in the corner of your dash. it would offer tips on how to use tumblr, like clippy the paperclip used to do in microsoft word. as the day went on, it slowly broke down and died right in front of your eyes. many people hated him (but not me). you could also make a (small) spreadsheet. @executivesuite2016 is the official blog.

2016 - this is decision/lizard election/tumblrdecides: a parody of the 2016 US elections. there were 4 lizards (well, one of them turned out to be a salamander in a scandal) to vote for. the dash looked different and there was a live news report with election updates, as well as an election blog for each lizard. they all had their own slogans and you would get an "i voted" button after you voted that would get slapped next to your icon. there were built-in functions to make an election poster for your favourite lizard and to create a text post that supported your lizard of choice that autogenerated a statement for all your followers to read. imo tumblr’s april fools peak. @thisisdecision2016-blog is the official blog, @mop-2016-blog @wretchedtooth @timefordeborah-blog were candidates. rick also had a blog (rick-official) but that now seems to have vanished because he ended up dropping out of the election. mop won, if you're curious. by far the most elaborate prank tumblr ever did.

2017 - horse friend: a tamagotchi-inspired game where you had to take care of a little horse in the corner of your screen. it came with a randomly generated name, and you had to feed and clean up after it. if you didnt take good care of it, it died. you could then hatch (yes, hatch) a new one. there was also an option to look at the names of all your dead horses. this is now available to buy in the tumblr shop. @horse-friends is the official blog.

2018 - tumblcoin: a parody of cryptocurrency (this was the year bitcoin took off). you could ‘invest’ in tumblcoin, with which you could in turn buy things with to spice up your dash, including last year’s horse friend, coppy from 2015, and a frame for around your icon. you could share the amount of tumblcoin you owned in an automatically generated gif post which would be tagged #tbc2018 and #tumblcoin. @tumblcoin is the official blog.

2019 - @memories: this blog still functions the way it did on april fools itself! it's like mad libs, where it takes post templates and then adds in tags you use a lot and users you frequently interact with on your main blog. like a personalized shitpost bot.

2020 - group chat prank/@storybot: it was so hard to find info on this because it was contained entirely in the now-defunct group chat function, which no one used. i had to go through the notes of this post for information because no one cared enough to actually write anything explaining it. turns out, you could write a story with your mutuals by adding storybot to your group chat. it also kept working after april fools (well, up until the group chats were deleted) just like memories. many people missed out on it entirely because they did not use the group chat function.

2021 - tumblcryptids: tumblr allowed you to adopt “non-fungible tumblcryptids”, a parody of NFTs. clicking a button that said "Summon thy Tumblrcryptid" would spawn an image of a little blob-shaped creature with a short description, which would always read "Hi! My name is [randomly generated name]. I love [thing most people like]. I hate [thing most people dislike]. Like my parent, I can't get enough of #[tag from your main blog]." you could share them in a post, which would automatically add the tag #NFTumblcryptids to your post. and yes, people on the piss on the poor website freaked out about it because they thought they were real NFTs harming the environment. @tumblcryptidadoptioncenter is the official blog.

2022 - click-a-thon: when you clicked a light switch on your dashboard, a bunch of colourful things showed up, like a sponge you could move around, an "engagament meter", clickable buttons, and a “Summon Crab!” button, which would summon a crab when you clicked it. you could. the crabs, like horse friend, are still available in the tumblr store as of 2025. here's some screenshots. there were various ways to share your crab activities, which would all get tagged #april fools 2022. the prank was presented as a marketing technique created by Brick Whartley, a fictional businessman character created by tumblr, who (afaik) originated in a post on the official blog of the 2018 april fools prank, albeit originally in a different role. around this time he also started functioning as the mascot for tumblr's shop ( @emporium )

2023 - abstract reactions (emoji reacts): buttons were added to every post that allowed you to add emoji reactions, many of them based on tumblr inside jokes (horse as a reference to horse plinko/horse friend, vanilla for the vanilla extract meme, pikaman, bug for bug race, and brick whartley, who wasn't a meme but staff really wanted him to be). if one specific emoji was used a certain amount of times it would add an effect to the post, eg many cheese emoji reacts would cover the post in cheese. this was also attributed to Brick Whartley ("his" blog @brickwhartley also documented the day)

2024 - boop-o-meter: allowed you to “boop” other users who had opted in to the booping, like facebook’s poke feature back in the day. depending on how long you held the button, you would either boop, super boop, or evil boop. on the dashboard there was a counter for both how many times you had booped others and how many times others had booped you, as well as how many boops were given side-wide. when booping someone, an image of a cat paw appeared. you would get badges (which can still be used) for booping 1, 100 and 1000 times. if you gave/received more than 999 boops, the counter would switch to showing a three-letter word (see this post for specifics). this was brought back for halloween 2024 (as BOOp-o-meter. get it), with a ghost, skeleton and mummy paw. no official blog, but here's an official recap for april first from staff. i believe this was the only april fools prank that was mobile user friendly.

2025 - @fandom is running some polls, i guess

[inkskinned]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

[ghostreblogging]

Ngl this is a short one.

So Danny comes to Gotham. Down on his luck. But lo and behold, he still has access to the kingly vaults! He doesn't have to worry about money!!! He can just buy a small apartment and live out his miserable little life In luxury!

But then he is stopped on a horrible and a dark stump in his plan. How in the 7 hells is he gonna explain it to the IRS ??????

Money laundering????

Can't he just say he found a mysterious big pile of gold and be done with it?

No, Danny . How are you gonna explain the fact that you keep finding mysterious little gold files to the tax man . Jazz says emphatically through a video call . Which is a multi dimensional cuz I can't explain why sam wont just give him the money. And btw the just assume that the vaults has a magic function to give the money to him in the local currency.

Sso from that day onwards Gotham had a new little cafe in a quiet little nook. The prices are super cheap. And it by far has the best fudge in all of Gotham. If you exclude Alfred's.

The gothamites love it. It's a favorite college hangout. Everyone is pretty sure the cafe is a front. Everyone is 100% sure of it. But in this economy who the hell cares. At least it's not nfts.

People can actually benefit from this because we can get like a whole breakfast for like 4 dollars ( an au where like Danny's 2000s world is like super cheap compared to the modern Gotham city and nobody taught the poor boy common prices of this world. Danny's thinking like how do I keep accidentally going into these rich people stores with their ridiculous prices, Ughh guess I'll have to buy this I don't want to go farther) and the quality is good too. The scrawny little twink owner sure as hell does not know much about ingredients prices or did the bare minimum study of business.

Anyway when the bats came sniffing (the scrunkly little guy was innocent blame Fenton luck) and we'll tried to interrogate the owner people actually chained themselves to the front like the worlds most confused save the trees activists.

[thankskenpenders]

The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings review

The day has finally come. Many, understandably, thought we'd never get here. Maybe we shouldn't have gotten here. We've been through so much. Lawsuits, reboots, redesigns, unreleased NFTs, empty legal threats over the fact that movie Knuckles has a dad, an attempt to license out Scourge the Hedgehog to fans that immediately got canceled (in both meanings of the term), and many, MANY idiotic Twitter controversies. But now, here we are.

Thirteen years after first announcing it in the middle of his legal battles with Archie and Sega that changed the American Sonic comics forever, former writer Ken Penders has released the first part of his new series: The Lara-Su Chronicles.

Yes. I had to buy the book. I had to take one for the team. Look at the fucking URL of this blog, a blog I've been using to talk about the American Sonic comics for nearly a decade while the specter of this book loomed in the distance. The one time I've actually been paid to write an article about anything in any professional capacity, it was an article about the Penders lawsuits. I'm cited on his Wikipedia page. There was no way I was going to skip reviewing this, and there was no guarantee that scans would ever turn up online given the incredibly small audience for this trash. (Only 166 people preordered this, and even that number feels way higher than it should be.) No, I had to preorder it to ensure I could get a copy and cover it for the blog... even if that meant my name would be forever immortalized in the list of "supporters" in the back of the book. These are the sacrifices I must make as a woman who stumbled ass backwards into being an amateur Archie Sonic historian.

So, what exactly is in this book? How much of it is new? How bad is it? How did we even get here in the first place? How can this exist without Sega pursuing legal action? What happens next? And, most importantly... why are there multiple depictions of an Archie Sonic character breastfeeding in this book?

I'm here to answer those questions as best I can, and in agonizing detail.

First, for those just tuning in to this decades-long saga or those who maybe don't know the full story, here's a refresher on the background info.

"What the hell is this?"

The Lara-Su Chronicles is Ken Penders' long-dreaded long-awaited continuation of his 1994-2006 run on Archie Sonic, ignoring everything written after he left by other writers like Ian Flynn. In particular, it picks up from the cliffhanger ending of the 2003-2004 arc "Mobius: 25 Years Later," which was set in what Ken considers the definitive canonical future of the series. It stars Knuckles' daughter from that future era, Lara-Su, among other new and returning characters. The project was first announced near the start of Ken's legal battle with Archie in 2011, and he's been posting WIP previews online for about a decade. Now, after all this time, a Lara-Su Chronicles book finally exists.

We'll get to the actual contents of that book in a bit.

"He can do that without getting in trouble with Sega?"

Believe it or not, yes, he can.

Thanks to the outcome of Archie Comics' woefully mismanaged lawsuits against Ken (yes, they sued him after he started filing for copyrights, not the other way around), he now has full legal ownership of every story he wrote for Archie Sonic and every character he created for the series. This was explicitly granted to him in the terms of the settlement between him and Archie (acting on behalf of Sega). He can even reprint his old Sonic material as-is to his heart's content. The main catch is just that he can't write new stories featuring Sega characters or trademarks, and his new stories also have to be distinct from Sonic at a glance to avoid confusing readers. As such, reprints can't use Sonic iconography on the cover, a few Sega characters (mainly Knuckles) have been renamed and slightly redesigned in the new stories, and the art style has been changed to less closely resemble Sonic. But otherwise, he can do whatever he wants with his own characters.

All of this is because Archie lost the original copy of Ken's work-for-hire contract that signed over the rights to his work. Without that (or any alternative that was considered permissible in court), his comics and characters are the property of their creator by default. Yes, those old comics are full of Sega stuff, but Sega doesn't automatically own the copyright for every drawing of Sonic in existence. And Sega put their stamp of approval all over those comics and let them get sold at retail for decades, even though (in the eyes of the court) there was no legal paperwork granting them ownership of any of it. It's almost like they were unwittingly distributing a fan comic for years and declaring it a fair use of their property, and now there's no takesies backsies. It's a strange and unique copyright situation. Again, they worked all this out in the settlement. And, yes, fans have long speculated that Ken stole and destroyed his own contract to regain the rights to his work, but frankly Archie was so incompetent throughout the lawsuit (it went so bad that they had to fire and replace their lawyers midway through) that I completely buy the idea of them just losing important legal documents.

Also, in case it needs to be spelled out: while Ken's a weirdo, it's ultimately a good thing for creatives everywhere that Archie lost their lawsuit against Ken. We do not want to live in a world where corporations can claim ownership of peoples' work without the contracts to back it up. That would be an incredibly dangerous legal precedent to set. And more comic creators, and artists in general, should own their own work! Corporations are not your friend! They'll delete your work for a tax write-off in a heartbeat! It's just bewildering that this guy, of all people, was the creator who ended up successfully getting his shit back, and that this is what he's doing with it.

"What about his old collaborators? Are they involved? Is he paying them?"

Ken is mostly doing The Lara-Su Chronicles solo, though he has, in fact, talked about compensating the artists involved in any material he's reprinting. The ones who give enough of a shit to get paid for a small scale reprint of something they did 20 years ago, anyway.

On the subject of his collaborators, it's also worth pointing out that Ken's wasn't the only contract that was lost. Most of the early Archie Sonic writers from before Ian Flynn's time seem to be in the same boat as Ken, with the ownership of their stories and characters defaulting back to them. Again, Archie fucked up big time. But like I said, most of them don't really seem to give a shit. For most of them, Sonic was just a random temporary gig they took to pay the bills while Marvel was busy going bankrupt in the '90s, not the thing that defined their entire careers.

The only other Archie Sonic contributor who's tried to do anything on the level of what Ken is doing was writer and editor Scott Fulop. In 2016 he attempted to sue Archie for the unauthorized use of what are now retroactively considered his copyrighted characters and stories, and he even announced a standalone comic about his most famous Sonic character, the recurring villain Mammoth Mogul (sort of a pastiche of DC's Vandal Savage and Marvel's Kingpin, with wizard powers added for spice). However, Fulop lost his lawsuit because he didn't put together a particularly compelling case. Since then he seems to have wiped all traces of his ill-advised Mammoth Mogul comic and his company, Narrative Ark Entertainment, from the internet. For now, this leaves The Lara-Su Chronicles the only project of its kind.

"What about those other Archie Sonic reprints he just announced?"

At the time of writing, Ken is once again claiming that he's trying to get the band back together to reprint all of Archie Sonic, now under the bad new banner "Floating Island Productions: MOBIAN LINE" that I can't imagine he consulted literally anyone else on.

So, like, look. As we've established, Ken can reprint his own stories. And if he can work something out with the other contributors whose contracts were lost, he can print their work, too. But there is no fucking way he's getting his hands on Ian Flynn's run, which Sega undoubtedly holds the copyright for. Even if they don't, Ian needs to maintain a good working relationship with both Sega and IDW if he's to keep his job, so he'd never go for this. Not to mention that Ian and Ken just... don't get along! Ken's whole plan here seems to be predicated on IDW going out of business (a thing he REALLY wants to happen) and freeing up the Sonic comic license, after which he knocks on Sega's door and goes "hey I've still got dirt on you guys," blackmailing them into giving him the Sonic license back so that he can reprint the later comics. Every step of this plan is ludicrous. It's never gonna happen.

He's been saying he wants to reprint the whole series for a few years now, though. This isn't really anything new. And despite his lofty plans that set Sonic Twitter ablaze, he quickly backpedaled. The only specific things in the works right now are a "two-volume omnibus" of all of his Knuckles stories and a collection of artist Scott Shaw's work on the very early Archie Sonic issues, since they're on good terms with each other. I have no idea how Ken plans on packaging these when he can't put any Sega characters or the Freedom Fighters on the covers, but these projects are small enough in scale that there's a decent chance they'll see the light of day. Scott Shaw only did like five issues. But anything beyond that? I'll believe it when I see it.

Or, y'know, this could've all just been a publicity stunt for his new book. I wouldn't put it past him. Let's just focus on the book that actually exists.

"So he finally did it? He made a whole Lara-Su book? It's out? He finished it??"

Yes and no.

The book that's out now is The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings, a prologue for the series of seven graphic novels Ken somehow plans on making, even though it's taken him 13 years to put out literally anything new. I don't know whether or not this counts as book one of seven, because it only features 30 pages of new comics. 30.5 if I'm being generous.

Most of the book is actually just a reprint of his infamous Archie Sonic storyline "Mobius: 25 Years Later", which ran from issue #131 to #144 in 2003-2004. (Again, yes, he can reprint this, he just can't put Sonic on the cover.) Why's it infamous? Well, Ken had been building anticipation for this future era of the series for basically his entire run. We kept seeing King Sonic and Queen Sally from the future. Knuckles' entire backstory hinges on his dad having a vision of this future. Several years before Silver the Hedgehog was created, it was Lara-Su who was Sonic's equivalent to Future Trunks, the cool-looking child of one of the main characters who traveled back in time to try and prevent a dark future. Believe it or not, yes, there was hype for Lara-Su. And then we finally got M25YL, and none of that cool stuff happened. Instead it really ended up being about how unbearably boring the middle aged Sonic, Knuckles, Sally, and co. are in this peaceful future where Robotnik is dead and they're all married with kids, forced into traditional nuclear family gender roles. Lara-Su is present, but she mostly just does generic teen girl stuff and complains about how Knuckles won't let her do anything even though she REALLY wants to be the new Guardian of Angel Island, like, super bad! Come on, dad!!!

In its original printing, this meandering arc ended on an abrupt time travel cliffhanger that Ken was never able to follow up on before he left Archie in 2006. This new printing slightly changes that ending, using the unresolved timey-wimey shenanigans as a convenient excuse to alter the entire timeline. This creates the slightly different world of The Lara-Su Chronicles, where the few relevant Sega-owned characters have been replaced and everyone is ten times uglier.

After this, we finally get two short new stories picking up where M25YL left off: "The Storm," starring Acorn Kingdom super-spy and known creep Geoffrey St. John, and an early release of the first chapter of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows, the first full TLSC graphic novel.

And now that we're all on the same page about what we're looking at, let's actually talk about the book!

The cover

Let's start by beating a dead horse. The cover art: it's still bad! But why is it bad?

The cover is, of course, based on Patrick Spaziante's cover from Archie Sonic #131, the start of the "Mobius: 25 Years Later" arc. (Ken did the layout for that cover, though, so in the eyes of the law he's the original creator who owns that cover.) That cover was, itself, a tribute to the iconic cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, the issue that introduced the version of the team with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, etc.

Ken seems to have forgotten that the point of both these covers was to hype up the arrival of a new cast of characters. The new guys are supposed to make a dramatic entrance front and center. That's the focal point. Meanwhile, the cover for Beginnings has the old timeline versions of the cast from Archie Sonic dramatically bursting out of a shattered crystal ball, while their new counterparts look on in mild bemusement - if they're even bothering to look at all, since most of the characters here are just copied and pasted from their profile pages. That's just not how you do this particular homage! The point is supposed to be "out with the old, in with the new." And why are they using a crystal ball to view the past? Hell, why are they even using a crystal ball at all? The original arc was presented as a magical vision of the future courtesy of Tails' uncle Merlin (don't ask), but the new story leans all the way into being futuristic sci-fi.

Of course, there is no real artistic intent at play here. The old versions of the characters are placed front and center in the crystal ball simply because Ken traced over Spaziante's original art of Lara-Su and Julie-Su (the only two characters on the Sonic cover he owns) and threw out the rest, ruining the composition in the process. Look at the awkward empty space where Sonic, Sally, and Rotor once were, and the new drawing of The Character Formerly Known As Knuckles who's no longer properly centered between his wife and daughter. Even if Ken can claim ownership of the cover because he did the original layout, this all just feels scummy and lame.

And, yeah, if it needs to be said, the new characters and Ken's new rendering style look like absolute fucking dogshit. Putting new Lara-Su directly next to old Lara-Su does her no favors. The shattered glass effect looks absolutely atrocious. I could go on, but we'll have plenty of time to talk about the art style when we see how bad the stories inside look.

Changes to "Mobius: 25 Years Later"

Overall, 99% of M25YL is presented identically to its original printing. Sonic, Sally, Knuckles, et al. are still present with no changes to their names and no tweaks to the art. Even the original cover for issue #131 is included only a few pages into this book with its Archie, Sonic, and Sega logos still intact and everything. Again, because of the weird copyright situation described above, these preexisting comics can be released without any changes.

There is exactly one bizarre change to the art, though, where a hand drawn shot of Angel Island is replaced with an unfitting photo background and the ugly Floating Island photobash that Ken has been using as his personal logo for decades. I think he only did this as part of a test for his motion comic app that nobody asked for. I don't know why this had to make it into the print version. It's like the book is firing a warning shot for what's to come if you keep reading.

The new content begins on the final page of M25YL. In the original wet fart of a cliffhanger ending, Sonic and co. accidentally alter the timeline with an old time machine of Robotnik's and Lara-Su begins to fade away. Then, after everything goes white, we just cut to the present day heroes going "gee, you ever think about the future?" In this new printing, that last bit has been cut, and the rest of the page has been awkwardly shrunk down so that Ken can fit in a new panel. We now see the hands of an off-screen villain, seemingly named "Override," proclaiming that "the Praetorian" (Knuckles) has messed up the timeline again and that they'll finally get their revenge.

Who is this Override? I have no fucking clue. The new stories in this book make no mention of them. You have to buy the next book to find out.

My confusion over the identity of this villain overlaps with another big problem: name changes. So many names and nouns have been arbitrarily changed in The Lara-Su Chronicles, even ones Ken didn't have to change for copyright reasons, and I only know what half of them are replacing because Ken's been tweeting about this shit for years.

The echidnas are now a totally original alien race called "the Echyd'nya." Even in flashbacks to events from M25YL attempting to mimic the old art style, if it's on a new comic page, they're gonna call themselves "Echyd'nya." Evil echidna faction the Dark Legion is now the "Cyberdark Dominion," hailing from the "Cyberdark Colony." The Brotherhood of Guardians is still the Brotherhood of Guardians, but now the main guardian is called "The Praetorian." Angel Island is still called "The Floating Island," like it was in the older Archie comics, but it's ALSO sometimes called "Avion"? When I read this I wasn't sure if he had randomly renamed Albion, the other echidna city from the Archie comics. But no. Now we have an Albion AND an Avion. Sally is mentioned simply as "Princess Acorn," while Sonic is referenced once as an unnamed "blue-spined Erinaceinae," using the scientific name for hedgehog to make it sound more sci-fi. In an incredibly ballsy move, Ken even mentions Robotnik as "the Insurrectionist Kintobor," retaining his original surname from the Archie comics that's just "Robotnik" backwards. Guess Sega never trademarked that one.

Aside from every name change being a downgrade, this leads to confusion when you're not sure if something is supposed to be new, or if it's just an Archie thing you're supposed to recognize despite having a new name and design. Is "Override" someone I'm supposed to know already? Am I just supposed to have read a fucking tweet from Ken where he said he changed the name of some existing villain to "Override"? The answer is no, but I had to term search his Twitter just to verify this.

Moving on!

New story #1: "The Storm"

If you've been following the WIPs, this is that story about Geoffrey St. John that Ken's been posting previews of for almost a decade. The title page copyright dates it to 2015, and that absurdly long gestation is probably why the art is so inconsistent here. Even the style of speech bubbles and the font change between pages two and three.

This is a problem when there's supposed to be a deliberate and noticeable change in art style here signaling the moment where the time travel stuff alters the timeline, replacing the Archie Sonic world with the Lara-Su Chronicles world. If you don't already know that's what's going on, the idea isn't conveyed clearly at all. It just goes from one hideous art style to a slightly different one with no explanation.

The main problem here is that Ken has hitched his wagon to a franchise about anthropomorphic animals when he can't draw furries to save his life. (Though a bit later in the book we'll also begin to wonder if he can even still draw humans.) He's shifted away from the cartooniness of the original designs and given them more human proportions and facial features, but this just ends up making them look incredibly uncanny and lumpy and gross. With some designs he's trying to lean into more of a Star Trek alien vibe, but then he still insists upon retaining the giant Sonic eyes on most characters even though he has no idea how to make them emote.

The rendering of these godawful designs doesn't do them any favors, either. Ken's going for more of a painterly look now, but it almost seems as though he's shading everything with Photoshop's burn and dodge tools that are designed to darken and lighten select areas of a photo. The result is a muddy, smudgy look that makes it feel like the color layer has been smeared in vaseline. And it only looks worse after coming off of 14 chapters of M25YL that have way more palatable art.

The backgrounds, too, are a complete mess, a jumble of low res jpeg photo elements (sometimes with extremely noticeable pixelation), stock textures, and smooth digital gradients. There's no real sense of place here, and it gives everything a surreal, dreamlike quality when you can't really tell where anything is supposed to take place. This first story is seemingly set in a high-tech stronghold below Castle Acorn called "the Bunker," but it could just as easily be confused for the bridge of a spaceship. This whole story features characters speaking to each other over floating video displays and hologram projectors from three different locations, but without a hologram effect and without a clear sense of where the characters are it often feels like they're just in the same room as each other. Characters will be in one location on one photo background, and then the camera angle changes and they're in a completely different place, because Ken just uses mismatched photos off of the internet. It's been like 25 years since he first tried using photo backgrounds in the Archie comics and he hasn't gotten any better at it.

When I had my boyfriend read the book to see if it made literally any sense to him (it didn't), Anthony said this: "This is the kind of shit I'd see linked on a Second Life world that hasn't been touched since 2004." I think he really hit the nail on the head. Now, there's actually a contrarian part of me that thinks that might theoretically almost be kind of cool, in sort of a messy counterculture way. I love weird indie shit. I was a Homestuck reader! But this isn't a scrappy mixed media zine, or experimental outsider art from someone just messing around with Photoshop, or a loving throwback to weird old internet art, or even something intentionally bizarre and offputting like Xavier: Renegade Angel or a PilotRedSun video or whatever where the fact that it's weird and ugly is part of the humor. This is supposed to be a sincere sci-fi epic drawing on Star Trek and Jack Kirby comics, made by a guy who's been drawing comics professionally since the '80s. This is supposed to look good. This is supposed to compete with mainstream comics that are on sale right now. He thinks any day now IDW's gonna go out of business and Sega will come crawling back to him so that he can stamp the Sonic logo on shit like this. It just doesn't work.

But, okay. It's ugly. We knew it would be ugly. But that ugliness would be much easier to accept if it was in service of an otherwise genuinely good story. So what about the writing? After all this time, how does Ken choose to kick off this new saga? Well, credit where credit's due. "The Storm" feels like a proper continuation of Ken's writing style from M25YL.

Because it's eleven pages of characters standing around and talking while nothing fucking happens.

Here's the synopsis: A dog woman named Brownie, an ensign in the Royal Secret Service fresh out of training and the only character who's almost cute, walks up to Geoffrey to deliver a report. He's immediately suspicious of her, asking who let her in and if she's a spy for Elias (Sally's brother, if you're new here) or Alicia (Sally's mom). The art style suddenly shifts when the timeline is altered, but the scene continues uninterrupted. Geoffrey points a gun at Brownie when she won't say whose spy she is. Geoffrey is distracted by a call and proceeds to have a conversation via a mix of holograms and video screens with Remington (head of Echidnaopolis security), Spectre (Knuckles' great great great great great grandpa, the one with the helmet who always looks evil), and a new scientist character named Dr. Zephyr/Zephur. (The spelling of this character's name changes multiple times throughout the 11-page story, because I guess nine years wasn't enough time to spellcheck this shit.) They say a bunch of made up technobabble nonsense about how it looks like the timeline was just altered and Knuckles and co. seem to be involved. It's complete drivel that I'm not even going to try to make sense of. Everyone decides to investigate further, and the conversation ends. Brownie tells Geoffrey she's his spy, then walks out and implies she's actually Alicia's spy in her inner monologue.

To be continued!!!

Yes, that's it. It's really just a bunch of technobabble where some characters talk about how it seems like the timeline has been fucked with. That's it. The whole time Geoffrey doesn't even get up out of his damn chair, which he's of course sitting in backwards to show how cool he is. It's just 11 pages of Geoffrey sitting in a chair and talking to people and looking uglier than he's ever looked. Nothing happens. Nine years for this.

I'm also struck by how meaningless all of this is to anyone who hasn't read Archie Sonic. The added context from M25YL may help a little, but "The Storm" focuses on characters who weren't in that arc, and the story does very little to introduce who any of them are. Brownie could've been super useful as an inexperienced point of view character who's only meeting the others for the first time here, but instead she's really just a passive observer who's here as part of some kind of 4D chess game between Geoffrey and Alicia, an off-screen character whose motivations in this era of the story are completely unknown to even returning readers. Who are the good guys and bad guys here? What are the conflicts and the stakes of the story moving forward? What do these characters want? Basic questions like this aren't really answered. I can't imagine a new reader being able to make heads or tails of this. Hell, I can't really imagine a returning reader who hasn't been following the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets about this story making heads or tails of it, either.

...Maybe more will happen in the next story?

New story #2: Shattered Tomorrows preview chapter

After another message from Ken, the story of The Lara-Su Chronicles proper begins with the redesigned Lara-Su walking along a jpeg photograph beach at sunset and crying while thinking about how Knuckles - sorry, his name is K'Nox now - is dead.

Yep! Straight into the dad stuff!

Look, I'm the last person to complain about writers getting super personal and drawing from their own baggage in their writing, but Ken's just no fucking good at it. There's no nuance, nothing interesting to say. He just keeps writing mediocre-to-horrible dads whose misdeeds are always justified by their "good intentions," and then sometimes they die and their kids are like "we may have fought but actually you were the bestest dad ever and I'll miss you forever, I'll never be able to fill your shoes!"

This is the only part of the new material here that feels like it has any heart behind it, because I know how much his complex relationship with his late deadbeat father means to Ken (there's an author's note in this outright saying as much). But the guy died 42 years ago, and it doesn't feel like Ken has had any new thoughts about this part of his life in those four decades. He's just not an introspective or self-aware enough artist to actually mine his personal baggage for anything beyond "father knows best."

Anyway, so then it jumps forward in time(?) and now we're following this human guy who looks like this.

Previously, Ken got a lot of shit for literally just using the likeness of Anthony Mackie for this guy, based on his IMDB profile photo. Ken has thus redesigned the character... and by that I mean I think he looks more like Ernie Hudson now? Ken's clearly just working off of photo references (if not straight up tracing), given his face is the most detailed and realistic-looking thing on any page where he's present.

But you may be wondering: who is this, and why is he here? Well, for one, he's here to run around in front of some low res space photos while making trite references to things like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek. Haha, he makes a joke about red shirts! Original!! But beyond that, Commander Mykhal Taelor (yes, that's really how he chose to spell it) is a human... from Earth! Archie Sonic readers are probably confused, because in those comics Mobius is Earth in the distant post-apocalyptic future. Well, despite being a Planet of the Apes fan, Ken always hated that particular worldbuilding decision from Karl Bollers, always preferring to think of Mobius as a separate alien planet. And now he gets to make that canon in his own stories and throw out Karl's ideas. So Mobius is basically just, like, a Star Trek planet now, with its own alien creatures that sometimes just so happen to look like anthropomorphic Earth animals.

Also, at one point Taelor wonders if the inhabitants of the dead Mobius might have been human, and the alien ally he's talking to over the radio says it's unlikely. "I don't understand why your kind has a problem understanding you're a minority within a minority." Perhaps poor wording for a line said to the only Black character in the story.

Anyway, Commander Taelor here seems to have discovered the uninhabited husk of Mobius after the vague time-space cataclysm everyone was worried about in M25YL has come to pass, and he finds an audio log from Lara-Su that I presume will explain what happened. I guess those are the titular Lara-Su Chronicles. In theory this flash forward establishes some sense of pressing danger, but when the threat to the planet is so unclear and technobabble-y it just kind of lands with a thud.

It doesn't take long before we get back to Lara-Su being sad about her dad. A good little chunk of the chapter is spent with this new timeline's Lara-Su recalling moments in her life, including echoes of the original Lara-Su's memories from M25YL, which feels redundant coming hot off the heels of a straight reprint of that entire arc. And boy, for anyone who read the later Archie Sonic comics, the protagonist having vague memories of the old version of the series from before a lawsuit-related timeline reboot sure does sound familiar, huh?

The art inconsistency somehow becomes even worse in this story, with Ken flip-flopping on whether or not he wants to use outlines, with the no-outline art managing to look even worse by relying entirely on Ken's awful rendering. By this point in the book, readers are also likely to start noticing how often Ken reuses art from previous panels. This is a shortcut that tons of comic artists use, of course. Invincible famously did a joke about this. It's often understandable. But, again... it sure does stand out in a book that took 13 years to make with only 30 pages of new art. Amusingly, Ken even manages to combine his inconsistency and recycling problems by reusing the same art with and without outlines. And, of course, any time Ken tries to draw the Archie era designs it's just... the worst.

And, yes, it's in this dreamlike montage sequence of Lara-Su's life that we get...

The uncomfortable family nudity scene, followed by the dual timeline Julie-Su breastfeeding scene.

Yeah, you might have heard about this one already. If this incredibly eerie presentation of Lara-Su's hazy memories of the two different timelines make it hard to tell what's going on, don't worry. There's another, clearer version later in the book as part of Julie-Su's character profile, because I guess Ken was just so proud of it.

(I censored these myself because I'm not playing Russian roulette with Tumblr's inconsistent nudity rules and risking getting banned lmao)

Like, okay. Is a mother breastfeeding her child really that shocking of a thing to see in a story? No, not at all. But, like... when it's two characters who you previously created for an officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comic for 7-year-olds... and some of those officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comics for 7-year-olds are reprinted in the same book... and when it's drawn like this... yeah, it's kind of a shocker.

It just looks so unnatural. Julie-Su is posed very deliberately so that you'll see both of her breasts, and in the new timeline version she's barely even holding Lara-Su so you can really get a good look at her supermodel body, showing zero physical signs that she just gave birth. Most people will immediately jump to this being Ken putting his fetishes in his work (a type of criticism that I'm incredibly tired of - it's 2024, all the cool artists are blatantly putting their fetishes in their work now). And my immediate response is that, no, this is probably just Ken trying to come off as really mature on a surface level, a thing he's been obsessed with since the Archie days. Free from the shackles of writing a licensed children's comic, of course he's going to jump immediately into depicting some nonsexual, artistic nudity to try and prove he's A Real Mature Artist For Grown-Ups who just thinks the human body is beautiful and breastfeeding shouldn't be a taboo etc. etc.

But then, like. You look at some of the other character designs. Like Espio's daughter Salma, who's now this horrifying alien lizard person who's always nude, and her scale pattern puts scales exactly where her nipples should be. Or you look at his comments about the Echyd'nya age of consent. Or you look at how he keeps drawing Lara-Su in this. Like, does the shuttle really need this, like... reverse chaise lounge thing in the cockpit? So that we can keep getting these shots of the 16-year-old Lara-Su lying on her stomach and posing with one of her legs kicked up, her naked ass in plain view?

The vibe isn't great, is what I'm saying!

I'm not going to try to ascribe authorial intent here. I don't know. I'm not a psychic. Given his very blatant reliance on photo references elsewhere in the book, it's entirely possible he just referenced some figure drawing photos that were maybe just a little too sexy. And also, he's an American comic book artist, and a boomer one at that. Those guys tend to draw women a certain way, even when it's not supposed to be sexual. I don't fucking know. It just sucks. I'm not gonna make some hyperbolic statement about how this makes him a literal pedophile who should be in jail, but it is deeply offputting and objectifying.

But if you already knew about the nursing scenes and were hoping there was some other really shocking stuff in there for me to talk about in this review, sorry to disappoint, but nope. That's the only shockingly weird new thing in here. Once again, not a lot happens in this story, and what does happen is pretty boring.

Once we get past the recap stuff and the human guy, the plot developments boil down to this: The timeline was altered at the end of M25YL... but not as much as you might think. In the new timeline, Knuckles ("K'Nox"), Cobar (now looking significantly younger), and Rotor (now a rhino just called "The Emissary") still traveled via shuttle to go find a time machine in the Badlands and fix the time-space continuum, like in the climax of the original arc. This time, though, Sonic wasn't there, and Lara-Su came along without having to stow away. Lara-Su watches the ship while the grown ups go deal with the time machine, and then after a couple panels Not Rotor comes back with Cobar and is like "Hey, Cobar got hurt, we gotta leave. Dunno what happened to your dad." And then they just, like. Presume that Knuckles must have died. Even though we have no idea what happened to him. And then they just fly away. And then Lara-Su is sad that her dad died.

And that's pretty much it!

This is supposed to be a really emotional sequence - it's literally the scene where Lara-Su learns that Knuckles is dead - but instead it comes off as unintentionally funny because of how poorly it's portrayed. Not showing Knuckles' actual disappearance is a huge misstep, for one, making his uncertain fate more confusing and anticlimactic than dramatic. But also, Ken keeps just using the same two drawings of Rotor for two pages, so he doesn't really seem to be emoting at all, and he's in this spacey hazmat suit that honestly just makes him look like fucking Moltar from Space Ghost. So the whole time I'm just reading his dialogue in Moltar's deadpan voice as he's like "I dunno. We did what we could. Anyway, let's leave."

After this, we get a two-page spread previewing the rest of the story from Shattered Tomorrows. It's basically like a trailer in comic form. It has one of the most mystifying layouts I've ever seen in a comic book. I have no idea what order I'm supposed to read this in.

Yeah, I kinda have a feeling this is the full extent of what Ken has drawn for the rest of that book. I'd love to be wrong, but I fear that I'm right.

Bonus material: Data files

These are mostly very dull, recapping a lot of events shared between Ken's Archie run and the new Lara-Su Chronicles timeline. It seems like almost his entire run is still considered canon to the backstory of the new timeline, just with some names changed, and things only really diverge at the climax of M25YL. But I'll share the interesting stuff here.

Lara-Su

The main thing you'll notice in Lara-Su's profile is the massive, unreadable wall of text where Ken felt the need to list the entire Knuckles family tree, split across both pages.

This is literally so long that Lara-Su's personal history has to awkwardly cut off mid-sentence and be continued on the final page of the book, after the rest of the data files.

Also, please note that this list gives Julie-Su's mom's full name as Mari-Su of the House of Atrades. Incredible on all levels.

There's also a reference to the dark timeline Lara-Su was originally supposed to come from. You know, the one where Julie-Su is the leader of a rebel movement fighting against a Knuckles who had gone mad with power? The timeline that would have been way more interesting than the one in M25YL? Here it seems to have been written off as the result of another "timeline disruption." Lara-Su allegedly has vague memories of this timeline, in the same way that she has vague memories of the M25YL timeline.

Geoffrey

Geoffrey's bio mostly recaps events from the Archie comics, which means the Sonic/Sally/Geoffrey love triangle has to be alluded to. His rivalry with Sonic is described like this:

"He would later resurface when Kintobor was transporting his latest hi-tech weapon, the Dynamac-3000. It was during that mission he discovered a rival for the Princess' affections. Whereas the Princess would be one of a line of conquests where St. John was concerned, the blue-spined Erinaceinae who protested doth a bit too much regarding his affections for the Princess for St. John's taste would prove to be a source of great sport and amusement."

Yes. It's gross. Saying that Geoffrey saw Sally as "one of a line of conquests" is gross. Ken writing this and then still treating Geoffrey as the coolest badass ever is gross. The "Princess Acorn" is also first on the list of Geoffrey's "female relationships" elsewhere in his bio, though I suppose how much of a "relationship" they had is left vague. Honestly, at this point the fact that Ken didn't explicitly confirm that Geoffrey took the underage Sally's virginity in the book comes off as a display of restraint. The bar couldn't be any lower, I know.

Remington

His bio is, frankly, shockingly long for such a minor character, though I guess he does get a large portion of the word salad dialogue in "The Storm." There's a lot of stuff here about how the identities of his biological parents are shrouded in mystery, a plot point that fans have long speculated Ken just straight up forgot about in his time at Archie. (Ian confirmed that Kragok from the Dark Legion was Remington's dad, though, so this isn't really much of a mystery.)

Lien-Da

She gets a bio even though she's not present in the two new stories, just so we get to look at her awful new design and compare it to how Steven Butler drew her earlier in the book:

Commander Taelor

We get to see two drawings of him with the same exact Ernie Hudson face side by side! That's fun.

Julie-Su

She gets a list of "known friends," but the only character listed is Knuckles' mom. Poor Julie-Su.

Also, Ken feels the need to reiterate that Knuckles and Julie-Su are still distant cousins. He made a whole new timeline where he can change whatever details he wants, but THAT had to remain canon. Thanks, Ken.

And then after the data files we get the special thanks page, listing everyone who preordered the book and/or bought TLSC merch from Ken.

With my name on the list. Because I had to buy a copy to cover it for the blog.

My name is on the very next page right after the breastfeeding panel in Julie-Su's data file.

Yep. He got me.

Is it at least a well put together book? Like, in terms of manufacturing quality?

Its physical quality is... fine. It's a nice, sturdy hardcover. The print quality seems fine, though mine does have a bit of smudging from some sort of printing error on one page. The pages don't seem like they'll fall out on me. The image quality is crisp. The colors are vibrant. This is a low bar, but this is one of the few places where I'm able to give this book anything resembling praise.

The formatting and graphic design work, on the other hand...

(I didn't crumple those page corners, it came like that.)

For one, the placement and sizes of the M25YL pages is inconsistent, largely due to the fact that the book doesn't actually match the proportions of a comic. A lot of pages aren't properly centered vertically. Some pages go all the way up to the top edge of the paper, while others leave a visible gap of about half a centimeter. Every page has a 1cm gap to its left and right, which is sometimes filled in with a solid color or gradient that doesn't quite match the page it's surrounding. I have to assume Ken didn't have any sort of source files or original artwork to work off of, as those ideally would've had more generous bleed to account for slight shifts in printing. It kind of seems like he just got the highest resolution versions he could find of the digital releases online and printed those. The colors are a dead ringer for the digital versions, which have always looked slightly more saturated and pastel than they did in print.

I can't say this bodes well for his further plans for Archie Sonic reprints - sorry, Mobian Line reprints. If they ever come out, please, for the love of god, do not buy those. I don't care how much you love Archie Sonic, they aren't going to be good reprints. For comparison, IDW's similarly priced hardcover Sonic collections have none of these formatting problems, because they're made by people who know what they're doing with access to the actual source files.

The book also has its fair share of text-focused pages, split between the data files and messages directly from Ken about the history of his career and this project, and these are formatted in the most amateurish way possible. Just massive walls of Arial text over either plain white backgrounds, simple gradients, or faded photos. I've seen school yearbooks with better graphic design. Even ignoring my subjective feelings about the art and stories within, this book does not feel like it's worth $36 USD.

It's frankly shocking how shabby he let this thing look considering it's supposed to be his baby. And doesn't that really sum it all up?

Closing thoughts

Obviously, I did not expect this to be any good. But I'm still left kind of dumbfounded by it.

I think what really strikes me about it is that Ken had a blank check to do whatever he wanted here. He got an opportunity many writers would kill for when he gained complete ownership of his most famous work. He's free from the limitations of a monthly licensed comic book for children, free to make whatever creative decisions he wants without editors or other writers or Sega to worry about, free to completely reinvent the series to his heart's content and finally tell the story of his dreams. And with that opportunity and 13 years of his time, he made... this. A direct continuation of "Mobius: 25 Years Later" that barely changes anything about the characters or world beyond their awful new designs, even though much of the word count is spent rambling about how the timeline has changed. A story that makes zero concessions for new readers, or even returning readers who don't already have the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets explaining his creative decisions burned into their memory. 30 pages where nothing really happens and the story barely moves forward an inch despite the decades-long wait - but maybe something will happen if you buy the next book!

Who is this for? Maybe this really is a project for no one but Ken. Maybe he just really, really wants to finish the story he started, a story that's personal to him due to the family history it evokes, and the number of people who enjoy it or buy it beyond that is irrelevant. I think that many of the best artists are incredibly self-indulgent ones working with that exact mindset, artists whose enthusiasm for their own work jumps off the page or screen. So, if that's the case, then why the fuck isn't he telling the damn story? What's stopping him? Why is he still spinning his wheels? Where is that passion for his own work? Because it sure as hell isn't there on the page. There's a huge part of me that really wishes I could say "Man, what a weirdo, but you do you, Ken. You tell your weird little story." But there's barely any story here. It's like he loves styling himself as a storyteller, but he's terrified of finally having to actually tell a story after all this time. He's still stuck in the exact same mode of writing he was in almost 30 years ago when he was doing 6-page backup stories about Knuckles, just killing time and stringing readers along until he's eventually able to truly realize his vision. If not now, then when, Ken?

Even the back cover blurb is mostly just a dry recap of the history of this thing. It was a Sonic comic, the original arc was published in these issues, it went unfinished, Ken left Archie, the lawsuits happened, now he's continuing the story. There's nothing about why anyone should give a shit about this as its own story, even though Ken has spent years trying in vain to convince people TLSC is its own beast that shouldn't be judged as a Sonic story. I think deep down he knows that there's no pitch for this beyond the novelty of it originating from Sonic. And that's why, despite declaring that he'd leave the site, he's still on Twitter riling up Sonic fans. It's the only attention he gets at this point.

Maybe this is too harsh when those 30 pages of new comics are just intended as a preview for the "real" book. But the elephant in the room is that we have no idea if that "real" book will ever actually come out, let alone the entire series of seven graphic novels that will supposedly complete this saga.

Ken is undeniably a complete jackass and all around unpleasant, vindictive person who's rightly become an industry pariah. He's a self-proclaimed paragon of progressive values who'll send Comicsgaters after his successors for the crime of not worshiping the ground he walks on, and then turn around and announce he's going to reprint their work without even consulting them. He's a sore winner who already won his copyright battle on a level most comic writers would never dare to dream of, and yet still won't truly be satisfied until he sees an entire major comic publisher go out of business, putting god knows how many people out of work, because he thinks this would get him back the license to a video game franchise he doesn't even like.

But I still have to pity him.

As an artist, the trajectory of his life is my nightmare. I think all of us fear dying before we can tell all the stories we want to tell. There's simply never enough time to do everything. And here's Ken in his 60s, talking about how he's still planning on making his magnum opus all by himself out of stubbornness and pride, despite demonstrably proving he can't handle the workload, and also talking about how if he dies before the project can be finished he'll have to pass the torch on to his kids and get them to finish it for him. It's so grim. Even just typing that sends a shiver down my spine. It took nine years of his limited time on Earth to finish and release an 11-page comic about Geoffrey St. John sitting backwards in a chair.

This is a purgatory of his own creation. And yet... I'm not sure he's ever been prouder. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I guess if I want people to take anything away from this review, it's this:

Lesson one: If you're an artist or writer of some kind, or an aspiring creator, don't wait around. No one else is going to tell your story for you. Start writing that novel. Start drawing that webcomic. Start making that game. If Penders can put out this damn book that no one asked for after 13 years of work, then proudly proclaim that he's still going to make six or seven more books and also reprint hundreds of comics he doesn't have all of the rights to, then show up to cons with that foul Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows banner and sit in front of it beaming with pride, fully aware of his critics but saying "fuck 'em, I know I'm hot shit," then you can do fucking anything. Tell the weird, sincere, cringe story of your dreams. If Ken Penders doesn't have imposter syndrome, then nobody should.

And lesson two: Don't buy Ken's books.

[cuntyji]

PANT0NE 6969 ❤︎‬ VARIOUS JJK MEN X FEMALE READER

Synopsis: A bold color choice, a little too much free time, and way too much devotion. One question: is that really the shade they think it is?

Warnings: 18+ sexual content, MDNI. Smut & crack. Established Relationship. Geto has not deflected, Toji is a DILF/older than reader (can be just by a couple of years, but feel free to read it how you'd like), Sukuna true-form is not implied since he only has one cock, but feel free to read it as such. Reader has a vagina + bush/fem-bodied. Hair pulling, doggy-style, P in V, dirty talk, creampies [implied], oral (seperate f. and m. receiving), riding, 😺 referred to as "her", dom! Nanami, top! Toji and Geto (seperate), sub! Choso, power bottom/switch! Sukuna

Note: From @nkopurin and I with love 😍 Thank you for helping me brainstorm this idea hehe <3

✶⋆.˚ Ao3  

GOJO SATORU

It started with a need.

Not a hair-related one, not initially. It began with something far more sacred and carnal. You were in bed one night, Gojo passed out like a very tall, very dumb angel after an equally dumb but impressively athletic session of “babe, let’s try standing up this time” — and your eyes, glazed but focused, landed on the thing.

Not the thing. His thing. Your phone, really, but more specifically, a photo of his dick. It wasn't anything risqué; in fact, it was borderline artistic. Backlit like a renaissance painting, his hand casually wrapped around the base like he was offering it to a museum. It was… majestic.

And pink.

Not an obnoxious pink. Not bubblegum, not fuchsia. It was a warm, flushed, expensive pink. Like blushing porcelain. The kind of pink that made you understand why entire cultures assigned gender to colors. This one? This was the tip of Gojo Satoru pink. A pink that made you feel cherished, cursed, and absolutely deranged all at once.

So you screen-shot it.

Uploaded it to a color picker site. 

Hex code #F7A5B3. 

Suspiciously gentle. Suspiciously perfect. Definitely suspicious, considering the site immediately tried to sell you 400 crypto coins and an NFT of someone else's nipple. But you took that code and ran.

Now, you couldn’t just buy that color in a bottle. No one in the hair dye industry had taken the noble, godly risk of bottling Gojo Satoru's dickhead hue. Cowards. And so, Saturday morning, armed with seven different pinks from a local store, a bowl, and a wildly misplaced sense of purpose, you began to mix.

“This is what God made me for,” you whispered, wrist-deep in dye, adding a smidge more ‘peach dazzle’ to your cauldron of horny alchemy.

The end result? Perfection. If a cherry blossom had an orgasm, this would be the aftermath. You smoothed it into your scalp, grinning like a lunatic as your bathroom mirror caught the glint in your eye—the kind of glint that only comes from knowing your hair now looked like your husband’s dick tip.

When Gojo walked through the door that evening, adjusting his blindfold with one hand and tossing his bag with the other, the first thing he did was stop. Blink. 

And then blink again, which was impressive, considering he was blindfolded.

“Oh?” he said, already walking toward you with the cautious reverence of a man approaching a shrine. “New hair?”

You didn’t say anything. Just angled your head in the light so it caught that very specific pink, glowing like divine foreskin in the golden hour. Gojo's brows lifted, then furrowed, then lifted again. 

He leaned in.

“Is this… me?”

You nodded solemnly. “Tip-inspired,” you clarified. “I color-matched.”

He said nothing for a long moment. Just took your chin gently in his hand and peered at your hair like he was identifying a long-lost artifact.

“…Baby, that’s so fucking hot.”

You snorted. “I figured you’d like it.”

“Like it? I feel seen. My dick feels celebrated.”

He kissed you hard, and somewhere between the makeout session and him half-carrying you to the bed, he muttered:

“I should return the favor.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding seriously. “Solidarity. Pubes.”

“No.”

“C’mon, I could go pastel! Lavender balls! Romantic!”

“Satoru, no.”

He was already halfway to the bathroom. You heard drawers opening. Things crashing. You had to throw a towel at him to stop the chaos. He caught it, grinning.

“You’re no fun,” he pouted, clearly half a second from ordering glitter dye off the internet.

“You’re not dying your happy trail. That’s the hill I'll die on.”

“Fine. But next time you do highlights… might I suggest the undertones of my shaft?”

You slapped him with the towel.

Your hair, though? Flawless. Divine. Blessed. And every time Gojo kissed the top of your head afterward, you could tell he knew exactly what he was kissing.

TOJI FUSHIGURO

It started with the nails.

Well—technically, it started with Toji giving you a lazy grunt of “go treat yourself or whatever” and sliding over a thick roll of cash like he was paying off a hit. And you did treat yourself. Just not in the way he expected.

Toji didn’t ask many questions when you came home, freshly manicured, tapping your newly adorned fingers against the countertop just loud enough for him to notice. You watched him squint, suspicious already. “The fuck’s that color?” he muttered.

You gave a tiny smile, tapping the pad of your thumb against your ring finger for emphasis—the ring finger that had his initials done in dark, bold lettering, sharp and crisp over the muted pink polish. “Oh, this?” you said sweetly. “Just something inspired by you.”

He blinked. Then looked again. His brow creased. 

“That’s my—wait. That’s my fuckin’ d—”

“Tip,” you offered helpfully. “Yup.”

Toji clapped a hand over his face and groaned like he’d aged ten years in a second.

“You’re despicable,” he mumbled through his palm. “Absolutely insane.”

And you just shrugged. because he hadn’t not given you the money for it. And anyway, it was a lovely color—rich, dusky, masculine in that very specific flushed way. The shade that only existed when he was half hard and half annoyed and half threatening to fuck your brains out for misbehaving, which was often. But then, of course, the nails weren’t enough. Because what’s a set without a matching main event?

The next time he saw you, it was in the evening light, your freshly dyed hair catching the low amber glow. And you swore you saw his soul leave his body.

“You didn’t,” he said flatly.

“I did,” you grinned.

He stared long and hard. The color was perfect. That dusky, raw pink, slightly darker at the roots. You’d even toned it to match that exact heat-flushed, post-shower hue he sported when he was about to fuck you against the nearest surface. He didn’t ask how you explained the shade to the ladies at the salon. He refused to. The possibilities alone were giving him a headache.

“Y’need therapy,” he grunted.

“Probably,” you chirped.

He dragged a hand down his face. Muttered, “...Fuckin’ hell,” and shook his head.

Still—when the lights were out, and your ridiculous little tribute of a hairstyle was bouncing under his hand as he pounded into you from behind like he had something to prove, he didn’t complain. 

His grip was punishing in your hair, the strands twisted tight around his fingers, just enough pressure to keep your head arched back perfectly so he could see your expression melt every time he shoved in deeper.

“Look at you,” he grunted, his voice ragged, his thrusts brutal and steady, “Wearin’ my fuckin’ cock like a badge.”

He tugged harder, yanked your head back until your mouth parted and your eyes fluttered. His hips snapped forward again, loud and wet and obscene. 

“Crazy fuckin’ woman,” he rasped, biting down on your shoulder now, lips dragging against sweaty skin, “—gettin’ salon dye to match my dick, the fuck’s wrong with you?”

“Everything,” you choked out, nearly delirious. “I’m so gone for you, baby, fuck—”

And he laughed. Full chest, low and amused, filthy even in his exasperation. His hand smoothed over your scalp for a second—like he might show you tenderness—and then he pulled again, drove in with a force that knocked the breath from your lungs.

“You’re gonna have to go back to that salon with a limp,” he growled in your ear, “Let ‘em see what happens when you walk in smellin’ like my cum.” You moaned, shuddering, knees almost giving in.

Toji was too old for this. Too grizzled, too tired to understand your generation’s brain rot. But that didn’t mean he didn’t fuck like he was born for it. Didn’t mean he didn’t leave you twitching and trembling and ruined by the end of it.

And when he finally collapsed next to you, panting, sweat-slick and sore, he rolled over just enough to look at your hair again.

“…It is a nice color,” he muttered reluctantly.

You smiled against his chest. “I'll get the matching lipstick next.”

He groaned again, reaching over to slap your ass, hard. 

“Despicable.”

“Yep.”

“…Fuck, I love you.”

“You'd better.”

CHOSO KAMO

Choso is agitated.

Not angry—no, that would’ve been easier to deal with. Choso doesn’t really do anger the way others do. He just gets… tense. Quiet. Eyes narrowed, arms crossed, head tilted slightly like he’s watching a very slow train wreck he’s emotionally invested in. He's standing at the edge of the bathroom now, shoulders stiff, gaze locked on your hair like it personally offended him. 

“You didn’t tell me it would be permanent,” he says, voice calm but too calm.

You blink. “It's not?”

His whole body jerks like you just threw a bucket of ice water at him.

“...What?”

You laugh, a little confused, a little charmed. “Baby. It’s not permanent. It's semi-permanent. It’ll fade in, like, six weeks.”

He's silent. Comically silent. His eyes dart back to your hair. 

Then to your face. 

Then to your hair again.

“…Oh,” he says softly.

And then—

“Oh.”

He sounds heartbroken.

You watch him slowly sit down on the edge of the tub like you just told him you were dying.

“It’ll… fade?”

You nod.

“But—" he gestures vaguely at your head. “You did it for me.”

“I can touch it up,” you assure him, walking over, hands light on his shoulders. “You can even help.”

He brightens subtly. Barely. But it’s there.

“…Okay. Okay. But I wanna be there when you do it.”

You raise an eyebrow. “To help?”

“To supervise.”

“Supervise what?”

His voice drops to a mutter. “The accuracy.”

Which is how you end up here, two weeks later, with a towel around your neck, gloves on, dye ready—and Choso already pantless, sitting obediently on the closed toilet seat with his dick in his lap like a willing participant in some sort of medical study.

“You sure you’re okay like that?” you ask, flicking open the dye tube.

He nods. Quickly. “I don't wanna interfere with the process.”

He's already a little hard. You try not to giggle. Try.

You crouch, squinting, face inches away from his flushed, semi-erect cock. 

“Hmm. Looks a little warmer in tone today.”

He shivers.

“C-could be the lighting,” he says, voice pitched slightly higher than normal.

You tilt your head. “Or blood flow.”

He inhales through his nose, thighs twitching. “Possible,” he says weakly.

You bring your face even closer, inspecting from another angle. Your breath ghosts over the tip and he whimpers, hands flying to his thighs like he’s trying to pin them down from shaking.

“Stop me if this is too much,” you murmur, not moving away at all. He nods quickly. Too quickly. “No, n-no, ’m good. I'm—I'm fine. I wanna help.”

You hum, pressing a kiss to the underside, featherlight. Then lick a slooow, curious stripe up the length.

He chokes. “N-not during the dye,” he says, voice paper-thin and trembling. “I-it’s not safe—what if the chemicals—”

“I'm careful,” you murmur, already taking him in. He breaks. Visibly. One hand reaches for your shoulder, but he doesn’t push, doesn’t pull—just holds, clinging like he’s about to float away.

“Oh—fuck,” he breathes, already leaking, already shaking. “Fuck, you can’t—you c-can’t focus on the color like this—”

“I don't have to,” you whisper against the head, lips slick with him now. “I already got it memorized.”

He lets out a noise so soft, so pathetic, it makes you suck harder just to hear it again.

By the time the dye’s halfway through processing in your hair, he’s slumped back, completely undone, flushed all over and breathing like he just got resuscitated. His thighs are twitching, his hands are useless, and his eyes are glassy, blinking at you like you just changed his worldview.

“That wasn’t supervising,” he mumbles, dazed.

“It was quality control,” you reply, deadpan.

He groans.

“...When’s the next touch-up?”

You grin, leaning forward to press a sloppy kiss to his lips.

“Four weeks. Mark your calendar.”

RYOMEN SUKUNA

Sukuna is, at first, appreciative.

He’s lounging on his throne, fingers lazily tapping against the armrest as he watches you strut in with that smug look on your face and new hair on your head. The color hits him first. Soft, almost sugary—like the inside of a bleeding peach. Not quite natural, not quite real. A pink that seems too whimsical to exist in his world of blood and ash. He hums, raising an eyebrow as he gestures vaguely in your direction. 

“An offering, is it?”

You grin. “More like a tribute.”

“Hmm,” he muses, and you can see the faintest curve of amusement on his lips. “A show of worship. How very devoted of you.”

But then he really looks at it, tilting his head as he squints. 

“…What the fuck kind of color is that.”

You blink.

“It’s the color of your cock.”

The silence is immediate and violently loud. Sukuna stares at you like you just announced your intention to marry Gojo Satoru instead of him. His eye twitches, something deep and ancient inside him glitching. And then:

“What the everloving fuck does that mean, you insolent little—”

“You’re loud for someone whose tip looks like a cherry blossom, Suku.”

“It does NOT—”

He's on his feet now, pacing, hands in his hair, swearing in languages the Earth has long since forgotten. The sheer rageful fluster radiating off him is so intense, the walls tremble. He points at you, points at your hair, then points at his own crotch like he’s about to hold it up as exhibit A.

“What part of me—what part of that—makes you think it looks like that color?! Have you lost your mind?! Are you blind? Are you mocking me?!”

You’re nearly doubled over, wheezing with laughter, half in awe and half terrified that you’ve managed to turn the King of Curses into an angry little ball of embarrassment. He growls, bare-chested and barefoot and furious, stomping back to his throne with his arms crossed.

“You’re never allowed to speak again,” he grumbles, sulking. “Blasphemy. Absolute heresy. You should be punished—”

“Say less,” you chirp, tossing him a wink.

He sputters.

Later that night, the punishment is you straddling him on his throne, bouncing on his cock with your pink-stained hair swinging wildly around your face—and it turns out, for all his complaints, he has not stopped staring at it. His head’s tipped back against the throne, jaw clenched, trying to focus on anything else but the way your hair bounces perfectly with each slam of your hips.

“Fuck—quit movin’ like that,” he rasps, voice strained.

“You mean riding you?” you ask sweetly, snapping your hips a little harder, watching his hands twitch at his sides like he’s barely holding back.

“No—the hair. Your fucking hair.”

You grin.

He grabs your waist suddenly, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and slams up into you, making you squeal.

“You gonna do it again?” he huffs against your throat, panting. “You gonna keep it that color just to drive me mad, you little slut?”

“Yup,” you whisper, biting your lip, rolling your hips just right. His hands shake as his head drops to your shoulder. You feel the smallest, most pitiful groan leave his chest.

He’s losing it. Completely. Eyes hazy, body shuddering under yours, trying desperately to focus on the feel of your cunt and not the goddamn glow of your cursed hair in the dark.

“Never been more disrespected in my life,” he groans, dragging his tongue across your throat. “I hate you. Fuck, I hate you—”

“You’re gonna cum inside me again, aren’t you?”

He whimpers.

And it’s the prettiest little sound you’ve ever heard him make.

NANAMI KENTO

Nanami is speechless.

Not the stunned, dazed, jaw-dropped kind. No—this is the quietly judging, emotionally restrained, deep sigh echoing from the depths of his tired soul kind of speechless. Glasses pushed up the bridge of his nose, brow twitching, card bill in hand.

“You spent how much on what?”

You sit innocently on the couch, hair freshly dyed and glowing with that faded, strangely warm blush-pink hue, scrolling on your phone with the nonchalance of a criminal who thinks they've pulled off the perfect heist.

“...I had to match it perfectly.”

He rubs his temples. 

“With my—?”

“Yup.”

He closes his eyes, breathing through his nose as he reconsiders every life decision that led him to this moment. Not that it’s entirely surprising. You’ve always had the most questionable taste in financially irresponsible love languages. This isn’t even the worst of it. 

No, the worst was that one time you used the card to commission a hand-stitched, button-eyed plushie of him from a niche artist in another country. He found it tucked under your pillow one night, arms outstretched like it missed him. He didn’t say a word. Just...sat down and took a long sip of his whiskey.

But this? This has his hands in your hair more often than he consciously intends. Long fingers carding through it when you're curled up in bed beside him. Resting on your shoulders while he's driving, letting his knuckles brush the strands of your hair absently as he shifts gears. Sometimes even during mundane moments—while you’re reading, eating, brushing your teeth. He's obsessed in spite of himself.

The problem is, he notices the fading.

“Have you not been using the sulfate-free shampoo I bought you?”

You pause mid-bite of your snack. 

“...There’s special shampoo?”

His eye twitches.

And now you’re here—kneeling on the bedroom floor, blinking up at him as he stands tall, sleeves rolled, belt long forgotten somewhere on the bed. His cock is heavy in his palm, leaking against the curve of your cheek, and he’s dragging the tip slowly across your flushed skin like he’s painting strokes on a blank canvas.

“Hm,” he muses, low and annoyed. “The pink’s uneven.”

You whine, shifting closer, trying to suck him in—but his other hand tightens in your hair and pulls.

“Ah-ah. Not yet. I'm still inspecting.”

“‘Nami,” you whimper, thighs pressed together. “Please—”

He swipes the tip across your cheek again, purposefully slow. “I give you a card. I tell you to be responsible. And you blow hundreds on a dye job you didn’t even bother maintaining.”

You’re panting now, needy, humiliated, as you try to squirm closer for a taste. But he’s holding you exactly where he wants you—on your knees, burning up, mouth open and empty.

“You know,” he mutters, voice dropping lower, “Maybe if you showed me how sorry you are… I'd consider booking the touch-up appointment myself.”

Your eyes sparkle. He scoffs. “Not for free, sweetheart.”

And then finally, finally, he slides the head past your lips, slow and deliberate, watching your lashes flutter and jaw slacken like you’ve just taken communion. He doesn’t fuck your mouth—no, not yet. He holds you there, just the tip resting on your tongue, sighing deeply like he's indulging your little obsession only out of obligation.

“If the color’s still uneven tomorrow,” he mutters, stroking the crown of your head with firm, possessive care, “We're going back to the salon.”

His hips shift just enough to press deeper, and you moan around him.

“After you shampoo. Twice. With what I tell you to use.”

He smiles faintly as your eyes roll back.

Finally. Some accountability.

GETO SUGURU

Geto is trying. Really, truly trying not to laugh.

He walks in, drops his keys in the bowl by the door like always, and greets you with that same low, warm “I’m home” he always does—but then he sees you. Sees the way you’re standing there, all proud and glowing, doing a little turn in your socks like you’re unveiling a whole new self.

And then he sees the hair.

He freezes.

You beam. “Surprise!”

He stares, tilting his head a little as he walks a bit closer, slow and deliberate, like he’s analyzing a cursed object.

“…You dyed your hair,” he says eventually, in that careful, measured tone he uses when he’s trying to piece together a truly confusing curse puzzle.

You nod enthusiastically. “Guess what the color is?”

He squints. Then he blinks.

Then he looks you straight in the eye and says, completely flat:

“My dick?”

Your smile turns so wide that he groans immediately and drags a hand down his face.

“Baby…”

“Don’t you love it?”

“It’s not that I don’t—I mean, the color’s nice, but… that’s what you chose to color-match?”

You puff your cheeks out. “It’s a soft, warm tone with pink undertones! It's romantic!”

“It's the color of my tip.”

“Yes!!”

And that’s when it hits him—just how absurdly hilarious this is. And how absolutely you. He tries to keep it together, he really does, but a smile breaks across his face, tired but amused, and he’s shaking his head like he’s going to lose it. “Oh my god,” he mumbles, wiping at his eyes. “I can't believe you spent money on this. I can't believe I'm involved.”

“You’re the inspiration!” you say defensively, fisting your hands by your sides like you’re presenting a noble act of sacrifice.

He loses it again.

But hours later, when he’s on his knees between your legs, the teasing is far from over. His tongue drags up your thigh slow and indulgent, and he hums like he’s appraising a piece of art. “So... she got the full treatment, huh?”

You moan softly, head falling back. “Mhmm.”

But then he pauses, finger resting just above your mound as he raises a single brow.

“Then why was she left out?”

You blink, dazed. “...What?”

He leans in closer, kisses just above your clit, right at the edge of your bush, and whispers, “She didn’t get a dye job too.”

You slap his shoulder.

“Stop calling it that!”

“Why not? She’s the one who got snubbed,” he says with an exaggerated pout, kissing lower now, slow and taunting. “All that love for my tip, and poor baby down here didn’t get a single brush of attention.”

Your thighs twitch as your face burns. You’re whining now, hips shifting, trying to chase his mouth, but he pulls back just enough to keep you squirming.

“Don’t worry, baby,” he coos, dragging a finger along your slit. “I'll make sure she gets a little pampering tonight.”

“Sugu—”

But you’re cut off by your own gasp when he licks a stripe up your folds, groaning like he’s tasting a five-star meal. His grip tightens around your thighs, spreading you wide, burying himself between your legs like he’s trying to eat the embarrassment right off of you. You’re squealing now, every moan mixed with some mortified whimper as he talks to your pussy like she’s got her own name, her own needs, her own complex about being left out.

“Mmm, she’s being shy,” he murmurs, flicking his tongue with practiced precision, “but I know what she needs.”

You buck against his face, legs shaking, trying and failing to close them around his head.

“Stop making me blush you—fuck—”

“You’re the one who dyed your whole head the color of my cock,” he says, eyes glinting as he looks up, mouth shiny and smug. “You don’t get to be shy now.”

And that’s how your plan to be sweet and romantic ends with your legs thrown over his shoulders, his tongue fucking you open while you babble apologies and try not to die from the sheer secondhand shame of being verbally roasted by your own pussy. And Geto? He’s never been more in love.

a/n: hello !! it has been many a moon since i have written smut....i even pulled out the fancy layout i used to use back in the day :PP (i post smut panels/headers on @cuntpress if you're a writer btw <3) be nice please

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

So I waste a lot of time watching youtube videos about shitty cryptogames. For those who have better uses of their time than I do and don't understand how cryptogames work and why there's six billion of them, let me explain.

The idea behind your standard cryptogame is that you cobble together some bare-bones crafting game or rpg or something, and you sell the players virtual real estate for real money. It doesn't *have* to be real estate -- sometimes it's NFTs that give you a play advantage or creatures the players use to fight or something -- but it's usually real estate. Cryptobros get in early and buy the virtual real estate while it's 'cheap', with the expectation that when the game really takes off, they can sell it for tons of money to other players. The real estate usually offers some in-game advantage (you can build on it, or you get voting rights, or you can tax shop owners on it, or something), but some games don't even bother with that and rely purely on "you bought it so other players will want to buy it from you".

Why does this fail, constantly? Because nobody cares about the actual game. Other games *have* successfully monetised this stuff, but cryptogames never succeed, because almost everyone in these communities are people who are just there to buy crypto stuff with the sole goal of selling that crypto stuff to someone else in the community. The games are never fun enough (or frequently, even playable enough) to bring in a real player base. They serve no purpose, fill no need, and bring in nothing except more cryptobros easily duped out of their money in the hopes of duping someone else out of their money. Asking "so why will players be interested in coming to our Virtual Libertarian Empire and making us any money?" or "how will this game make anyone money anyway?" or "when will this game become a game?" gets you kicked from their discords for spreading fear. Of course this game is gonna take off, bro. If it wasn't, would it be expanding so fast at this early stage? Would so many people be eager to buy virtual real estate in it? This is the next big thing in gaming. (Then the creators take the cryptobros' money and ghost them.)

Why am I bringing all this up? I dunno. Every time I see them putting a new AI Virtual Assistant in something I get weirdly reminded of cryptogaming. For... some reason.

[skshorts]

How To Buy, Sell, and Earn Crypto Income With Cryptocurrency, NFTs, and Nodes

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum present new opportunities to generate income beyond just investing in the assets. With the right strategies, you can buy, sell, and establish passive crypto cash flow using cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and nodes. Buying Your First Cryptocurrency The first step is acquiring digital currency to begin crypto money-making: Use exchanges – Platforms like Coinbase…

[jypsyvloggin]

NFTs: The Next Big Thing in the Crypto World?

NFTs: The Next Big Thing in the Crypto World? What is an NFT? NFT stands for non-fungible token. A non-fungible token is a unique digital asset that cannot be replaced by another asset. Each NFT has its own unique identifier and metadata, which makes it impossible to counterfeit or duplicate. NFTs are stored on a blockchain, which is a distributed ledger that records transactions in a secure…

[n-lesnikova]

MASK GAME 🖤 #NFTcollection

#ArtSTORE_NL on OpenSea 👉🏻 NatalyaLesnikova

[iihih]

Those Fun Furry Replica Artworks Are Now Actual Wall Art

You might have seen what look like fun, furry replica artworks of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, van Gogh‘s Starry Night and other masterworks advertised as wall art on certain social media platforms and sites. These invitingly tactile versions of classic art are being sold currently as “Fluffy Wall Art” by UK company Kahove, who describe their design directive as “recreating historical masterpieces in…

[bennetsbonnet]

I know I turned this scene into a joke about how gorgeous Colin Firth is... but the pineapple that lurks in the background of the Netherfield ball when Mr Collins is yapping to Mr Darcy is such a subtle detail that I really appreciate!

The wealthy at this time in Britain were a little bit obsessed with pineapples. Depictions of them featured as decoration in country homes, in political cartoons, paintings and crockery (warning: Margaret Thatcher jumpscare🥴 but you can read more about that here and here).

But to have an actual pineapple on display during a large social gathering such as a ball? That was really showing off.

Especially when you consider it cost £150 (or approx. £28,000 today) to buy the initial plant, build a hothouse to grow them in and run it... with no guarantees they'd grow given the climate was not exactly suited for growing pineapples! It was a huge risk.

All this meant that pineapples were so scarce that they became incredibly sought after. Naturally, rich people did silly rich people things to acquire them and show them off... perhaps they were the NFTs of their day?

A single pineapple was valued at £60 (approx. £11,000 today). Given the cost and effort of acquiring one, you'd think people would be keen to tuck in and sample this exotic fruit? Nope. Pineapples were not eaten! Of course not! They were displayed on plates surrounded by other less prestigious fruit during dinner parties and other social occasions, usually until they rotted. They could be rented for special occasions too. Such was their value that naturally they became the target of thieves and some pineapples even had their own security guards!

In the end, colonialism (because all British history eventually returns to that) meant that pineapples could be imported cheaply and their status was devalued when the working classes could afford to buy them.

But next time you watch Pride and Prejudice (1995), pay attention the scenes in the dining room at the Netherfield ball and look out for the pineapple... which is the second prickliest thing in shot (behind Mr Darcy). 🍍

Also... just to throw in a little etymological rant... as a treat: I know most of the rest of the world calls them ananas... but in English (and other languages) all fruit used to be called an apple of some sort. We just never got around to changing pineapple.

The humble potato has some peculiar names in other languages... looking at you, French and Dutch with your pommes de terre (apples of the earth) and aardappels (earth apples)... and then there is also the Italian for tomato... pomodoro... (golden apple) when most the rest of the world call them some version of the Nahuatl 'tomatl'.

Languages are just funny like that and that's why I find them fascinating!