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[stoically]

I’d love to see this as a series of short stories. Each one ending with the main protag dying in the woods from various causes. Or even a ‘choose your own adventure’ book and all the options seem benign but highlight how knowing nothing about wilderness survival is a bad match for surviving being in the wilderness.

***

“The sun sinks slowly towards the horizon. At home you’d be lighting the candles and readying for bed. You’re sure it’s just another few miles to the nearest town.”

Continue toward town (page 57)

Stop and set up shelter (page 43)

“You choose to push on to town and the promise of safety. A wise choice, you are sure, given the pressing nature of your quest. The world depends on you. You cannot falter. The sun glows orange where it kisses the land. Shadows stretch ever deeper. You shiver in the chill of darkness thinking it funny how you’d never noticed how much the sun warmed you before. The shawl you’d grabbed for the walk seems to open to the wind’s touch.

The ever present sound of insects fade. Dying with the light of day. The trees creak and your head snaps to every groan of complaints. It is quieter in the dark and so all things speak louder. You can’t quite remember if wolves hunt at night. The fast beat of your heart betrays the worry that they do.

The light has faded now. Only stars and the faded glimmer of the hidden moon still let you see. You squint at the deceptive ground in hopes of spotting where it flees from you. A few stumbles are a small price to pay in order to save the world.

Your ankle, still sore from the last stumble, lands wrong on a rock and twists. Your body twists with it and you find yourself falling down a small ditch. Likely the drainage ditch you think in the barest second of free fall. You hit something thin and solid before plunging into cold wet muck. It coats you from thigh to shoulder. The coldness steals your breath. Thankfully, your ankle feels fine.

You’d chosen to push on and now, covered in mud, you have no choice. Movement should keep you warm and you’re wearing a shawl, albeit one still damp from the drainage. Stopping now to make a fire might take hours anyway. You don’t know how to make one, after all. You decide to keep walking.

And walking.

Your shivers stopped a while ago but your hands feel oddly numb. Distant. The world feels distant from you. Your thoughts slow and placid. You keep walking. Until you fall. You think to get up. But you do not. You are very tired. Perhaps. Just a small nap. Before yo-“

Your character dies in the woods.

I want to write a book called “your character dies in the woods” that details all the pitfalls and dangers of being out on the road & in the wild for people without outdoors/wilderness experience bc I cannot keep reading narratives brush over life threatening conditions like nothing is happening.

I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.

Then she had a “miserable” 3 more miles to walk to the inn.

Babes she would not MAKE it to that inn.

[stoically]

Tiffany couldn't quite work out how Miss Level got paid. Certainly the basket she carried filled up more than it emptied. They'd walk past a cottage and a woman would come scurrying out with a fresh-baked loaf or a jar of pickles, even though Miss Level hadn't stopped there. But they'd spend an hour somewhere else, stitching up the leg of a farmer who'd been careless with an axe, and get a cup of tea and a stale biscuit. 

It didn't seem fair.

“Oh, it evens out,” said Miss Level, as they walked on through the woods. 

“You do what you can. People give what they can, when they can. Old Slapwick there, with the leg, he's as mean as a cat, but there'll be a big cut of beef on my doorstep before the week's end, you can bet on it. His wife will see to it. And pretty soon people will be killing their pigs for the winter, and I'll get more brawn, ham, bacon and sausages turning up than a family could eat in a year.”

“You do? What do you do with all that food?”

“Store it,” said Miss Level. 

“But you-”

“I store it in other people. It's amazing what you can store in other people.” Miss Level laughed at Tiffany's expression. “I mean, I take what I don't need round to those who don't have a pig, or who're going through a bad patch, or who don't have anyone to remember them.”

“But that means they'll owe you a favour!”

“Right! And so it just keeps on going round. It all works out.”

“I bet some people are too mean to pay-”

“Not pay,” said Miss Level, severely. “A witch never expects payment and never asks for it and just hopes she never needs to. But, sadly, you are right.”

“And then what happens?"

“What do you mean?”

“You stop helping them, do you?”

“Oh, no,” said Miss Level, genuinely shocked. “You can't not help people just because they're stupid or forgetful or unpleasant. Everyone's poor round here. If I don't help them, who will?”

"A Hat full of Sky" - Terry Pratchett

[stoically]

Alright, but I feel we’re all sleeping on cultural miscommunication (but not the way you think). Lena creates something to help Kara against kryptonite in an emergency but for science reasons it can only be either a necklace or a bracelet. Given bracelet’s are easier to hide as Kara she makes it that. Lena knows about the Kryptonian marriage customs so double checks it’s okay before gifting it to Kara. Happiness.

Fast forward a few months and Supergirl uses her new protective bracelet publicly. The public collectively gasps. They know as much as they could learn about Kryptonian culture including about marriage bracelet’s. Assumptions are made and one bold reporter asks where Supergirl got the life saving bling. Kara’s always happy to talk about her bestie and goes into a loving rant about Lena’s awesome design skills and isn’t it cool how she’s keeping Supergirl safe. It’s very *hint-hint* *nudge-nudge*. Kara thinks she’s subtly saying Lena is good, not bad, and please stop saying bad things about her. What the public hears is ‘doesn’t my wife love me so much’.

The cultural miscommunication was ‘actually, that is my culture but we were going by yours’.

So now everyone and their dog assume Lena Luthor is married to Supergirl and has been for months. Which Lena is fine with but she’d really like to know how Mrs. Morrision’s dog can talk. The news has said much worse things about her after all. Kara’s all “oh no! I caused this, I’ll fix it!” And proceeds to do everything to make it worse.

Including denying very vocally they aren’t together and when asked if she doesn’t find Lena attractive turning into a beat red stumbling mess and accidentally breaking the studio. Explaining the Kryptonian marriage customs they did not do (because they are not married) and causing a public outcry about how Supergirl and her wife are being prevented from honouring her cultural customs. There’s a vote to turn the sun red for a day. Lena’s vastly amused about how people are petitioning to let her do what Lex is in prison for.

Kara’s increasingly flustered leading to even more horrible attempts to fix things. Lena’s just going with the flow and living the dream. Culminating in Supergirl giving Lena a cheek kiss goodbye absentmindedly (because Lena’s been teasing her about how wives say goodbye) and it getting caught on camera. Alex starts dropping ‘subtle’ hints about how it’s be okay if Kara and Lena were actually together. (Kara may have learned her subtly from Alex).

Then the envoy from the galactic counsel arrives to congratulate Kara Zor-el for wedding into the ruling House of Earth. Kara’s all ‘just shoot me now’ because this means her mother knows. Alex’s all ‘why, you wouldn’t even feel it?’ Lena steps up to correct the assumption finally (but she really is kinda the ruling House of Earth). Kara’s mom immediately goes “but would you like to?” And proceeds to attempt negotiating the marriage between Kara and Lena. Only for Lillian to rush out of where she’d been watching with a counter offer.

The betrayal! But really, exactly who they’d want for their beloved daughter completely with sound business reasons for a merger. Plus they adore each other. Kara and Lena share a look because they know they just went from ‘fake’ married to accidentally courting/married in two seconds flat.

i would kill for a supercorp fake dating/married fic but like, not an au. canon compliant. like can you imagine

[stoically]

nobuddy feels like they have a sharp attention span these days, right? and we all just click “agree on terms of service” because its hard to love yourself sometimes, well

enter Terms of Service, Didn’t Read: a website and a browser addon that streamlines the terms of service of many popular web services to be read by the tech sunday drivers.

It’s graded from A (great) to E (awful) and if you have the addon you have access to the info about the website on your bar

[stoically]

Lois: Consider, I give you Clark. You give me the Lasso. Fair trade.

Diana: *sigh* Lois, no. For the last time I can’t give you the Lasso of Hestia. I can only let you borrow it.

Lois: Alright. Let me think. Ah! You let me borrow the Lasso for the next sixty- no, seventy years. 😁

Headcanon

Things Lois Lane does not envy Wonder Woman:

Her friendship with Superman. Lois knows that they’re close friends and nothing more, and that her own relationship with Clark is deep and pure.

Her power and respect. Wonder Woman has earned that and more.

Things Lois Lane does envy Wonder Woman:

That goddamn lasso

Why do you even need a truth lasso Diana

Think of all the stories she could get with that thing goddammit

[stoically]

[Image ID: The poem “One Source of Bad Information”, by Robert Bly.  There’s a boy in you about three years old who hasn’t learned a thing for thirty Thousand Years. Sometime it’s a girl.  The child had to make up its mind How to save you from death. He said things like:  “Stay home. Avoid elevators. Eat only elk.”  You live with this child, but you don’t know it.  You’re in the office, yes, but live with this boy  At night. He’s uninformed, but he does want To save your life. And he has. Because of this boy  You survived a lot. He’s got six big ideas.  Five don’t work. Right now he’s repeating them to you. 

/end id]

[stoically]

For anyone who hasn't seen them before, Hidden Search Operators are handy tricks you can use when you're either searching or filtering AO3.

summary: string is a generic way of explaining that you can search AO3 for a specific word that appears in a summary. You can do this from the search bar in the header, from the Any Field box at the top of the Advanced Search form, or from the Search Within Results box at the bottom of the filter menu.

Examples:

summary: Bruce

summary: "Bruce Banner"

summary: Bruce OR summary: Banner OR summary: Hulk

You need to put quotation marks around your search term if it is more than one word. The quotes make sure that the site searches for those two words together.

The other two operators listed work best in the Search Within Results box.

expected_number_of_chapters: 1 will return results where every fic has only 1 chapter currently posted.

You can use expected_number_of_chapters: -1 if you want results where every fic has more than 1 chapter currently posted.

otp:true will return results where there is only 1 relationship tag on the fic. If you want results where there are 2+ relationship tags (and no fics with only 1 relationship tag) then you can use otp:false

[stoically]

via indiarosecrawford

Frog Paints a Water Lily Pond 🪷🎨🐸

𝑓ₒᵣ ⲕᵢ𝑛𝑔 ₐ𝑛𝑑 𝑐ₒ𝑡𝑡ₐ𝑔ₑ

[stoically]

Roses are red, that much is true, but violets are purple, not fucking blue.

[stoically]

Another point for why it’s important to own your own copies of music and media, and not use streaming services, is because the copy you own can’t be taken back.

(This is also a good time to remind people that yout*be to mp3 converters still exist).

[stoically]

[stoically]

In response to Slate's article on the possibility having non-heteromative team in figure skating (particularly, ice dance and pairs), Oniceperspective shared a glimpse of Gabriella Papadakis (FRA) and Madison Hubbell (USA) working on their same-sex program. You can see how they switch the leading figure between them.

You can see them trying out lifts in this video.

The rest is on Instagram here:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by On Ice Perspectives ❄️🎥 (@oniceperspectives)

[stoically]

“You watched my video?”

“I always watch your videos.”

“… you know that’s a little creepy, right?”

“Bro,” *deep sigh*, “you only post videos at 2 am after you leave Arby’s having fed your munchies and being sufficiently high not to care about the fact your ex, who cheated on you with your best friend, in still your Facebook friend.”

“… it’s even creepier you know that.”

“I work at Arby’s. At 2:15 am there’s pretty much nothing to do but watch your videos or my great aunt Mrytle’s cat birthday party video. And while Mittens gets banger presents she doesn’t share all her deepest secrets to the random Arby’s employee like you do.”

“Oh.” “Is that why you tripped Kevin?”

“Absolutely. Your life is better than reality TV. I’m invested.”

“… sorry about the whole ‘trapping you in a death labyrinth thing.”

“Sorry about finding out your ex and your best friend are now engaged in the worst way possible.”

“Ugh, why do they even watch my videos?”

Horror isekai where Perceiving the Weird Eldritch Thing gets you catapulted into a nightmare labyrinth of puzzle-solving.

I.e Those Who Perceive The Hunt of the Goblin King Must Partake In The Labyrinth and Can Only Be Freed If They Complete It In One Day and One Night. By Fae Law. For Reasons.

But the definition of “perception” clearly needs to be updated because some normal guy simply films the Hunt of the Goblin King Behind Arby’s, and puts it on Facebook -

No, not instagram or TikTok, it’s important that it be Facebook -

Because the rules are pretty clear, “the rules are the rules” as is carved ominously in elvish runes above the grim gate, and the Contract is Sealed. and so therefore the guy and 25 of their most random real-life acquaintances must run the gauntlet together. It’s Some Guy, their immediate neighbors, their first partner’s mom, their friends from hobby Facebook groups (oh this poor guy and their hobbies; the elderly birdwatchers from Facebook and the young up-and-coming drag king community), their random teen kid niece, college friends, a dog who also watched the video, a couple consisting of a woman who is the guy’s Facebook friend and showed her husband the video, and the husband doesn’t even know Some Guy, so he’s in the labyrinth and absolutely furious about being forced to be involved, and they proceed to break up over the course of the puzzle.

It’s important that the narrative keeps trying to be a sexy dark horror isekai! but within this the comedic reality of Catherine, 52, the guy’s horse-riding instructor, being passionately involved in escape-room-style puzzle solving and grappling with minor goblins. They are in fact speedrunning the gauntlet.

The Goblin King finally has to say: all right, actually, I only really set all this up to fuck with one (1) guy at a time, thanks for your willingness to participate, but I think all 25 of you can consider the gauntlet fully run.

And the group would be quite hurt by that. The rules are the rules. We have a contract, actually. Let Catherine cook.

[stoically]

I got a laptop with Windows 11 for an IT course so I can get certified, and doing the first time device set-up for it made me want to commit unspeakable violence

Windows 11 should not exist, no one should use it for any reason, it puts ads in the file explorer and has made it so file searches are also web searches and this cannot be turned off except through registry editing. Whoever is responsible for those decisions should be killed, full stop.

Switch to linux, it's free and it's good.

[stoically]

Wish (2023) dir. Fawn Veerasunthorn, Chris Buck

hey do you think the overworked creatives about to go on strike are trying to tell us something

article sources under the cut

Mattson, Kelcie. "How Disney Almost Killed 'Nimona.'" Collider, January 2 2024.

Earl, William. "Shelving Batgirl Was the Right Decision, Says New DC Studios Head Peter Safran: 'It Would Have Hurt DC.'" Variety, January 31 2023

Couch, Aaron. "Warner Bros. Reverses Course on 'Coyote vs. Acme' After Filmmakers Rebel." The Hollywood Reporter, November 13 2023.

Ridgely, Charlie. "Scoob! Sequel Director Revealed Film Was 'Very Close' to Completion Before HBO Max Cancellation." comicbook.com, August 2 2022.

Clark, Travis. "Staffers at the animation studio Blue Sky say it's 'heartbreaking' that Disney canceled its final movie, 'Nimona.'" Business Insider, February 18, 2021.

Harrison, Mark. "Why was the Batgirl movie cancelled?" Yahoo! Entertainment, January 31 2024.

Amidi, Amid. "Warner Bros. Shelves Fully-Completed 'Coyote Vs. Acme' For Tax Write-Off." Cartoon Brew, November 9 2023.

Lee, Alex. "Why Netflix keeps cancelling your favourite shows after two seasons." Wired UK, September 28 2020.

Tyrrell, Gary. "We All Knew It Was Coming." fleen.com, February 10 2021.

"Warner Bros. Reverses Course on ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ After Filmmakers Rebel." see: 3.

Bergeson, Samantha. "Warner Bros. Will Let 'Coyote Vs. Acme' Filmmakers Shop Movie to Other Distributors." IndieWire, November 13 2023.

Strapagiel, Lauren. "Disney's First Feature Animated Movie With Queer Leads May Never Be Released." BuzzfeedNews, February 24 2021.

"We All Knew It Was Coming." see: 9

@/scottderrickson. "I think it’s absolute bullshit that a studio can and does shelve the creative work of hundreds of people for a fucking tax break." Twitter, 10 Nov. 2023, 4:52 p.m..

[stoically]

Can't afford art school?

After seeing post like this 👇

And this gem 👇

As well as countless of others from the AI generator community. Just talking about how "inaccessible art" is, I decided why not show how wrong these guys are while also helping anyone who actually wants to learn.

Here is the first one ART TEACHERS! There are plenty online and in places like youtube.

📺Here is my list:

Proko (Free)

Marc Brunet (Free but he does have other classes for a cheap price. Use to work for Blizzard)

Aaron Rutten (free)

BoroCG (free)

Jesse J. Jones (free, talks about animating)

Jesus Conde (free)

Mohammed Agbadi (free, he gives some advice in some videos and talks about art)

Ross Draws (free, he does have other classes for a good price)

SamDoesArts (free, gives good advice and critiques)

Drawfee Show (free, they do give some good advice and great inspiration)

The Art of Aaron Blaise ( useful tips for digital art and animation. Was an animator for Disney)

Bobby Chiu ( useful tips and interviews with artist who are in the industry or making a living as artist)

Second part BOOKS, I have collected some books that have helped me and might help others.

📚Here is my list:

The "how to draw manga" series produced by Graphic-sha. These are for manga artist but they give great advice and information.

"Creating characters with personality" by Tom Bancroft. A great book that can help not just people who draw cartoons but also realistic ones. As it helps you with facial ques and how to make a character interesting.

"Albinus on anatomy" by Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Coyle. Great book to help someone learn basic anatomy.

"Artistic Anatomy" by Dr. Paul Richer and Robert Beverly Hale. A good book if you want to go further in-depth with anatomy.

"Directing the story" by Francis Glebas. A good book if you want to Story board or make comics.

"Animal Anatomy for Artists" by Eliot Goldfinger. A good book for if you want to draw animals or creatures.

"Constructive Anatomy: with almost 500 illustrations" by George B. Bridgman. A great book to help you block out shadows in your figures and see them in a more 3 diamantine way.

"Dynamic Anatomy: Revised and expand" by Burne Hogarth. A book that shows how to block out shapes and easily understand what you are looking out. When it comes to human subjects.

"An Atlas of animal anatomy for artist" by W. Ellenberger and H. Dittrich and H. Baum. This is another good one for people who want to draw animals or creatures.

Etherington Brothers, they make books and have a free blog with art tips.

As for Supplies, I recommend starting out cheap, buying Pencils and art paper at dollar tree or 5 below. For digital art, I recommend not starting with a screen art drawing tablet as they are more expensive.

For the Best art Tablet I recommend either Xp-pen, Bamboo or Huion. Some can range from about 40$ to the thousands.

💻As for art programs here is a list of Free to pay.

Clip Studio paint ( you can choose to pay once or sub and get updates)

Procreate ( pay once for $9.99)

Blender (for 3D modules/sculpting, ect Free)

PaintTool SAI (pay but has a 31 day free trail)

Krita (Free)

mypaint (free)

FireAlpaca (free)

Libresprite (free, for pixel art)

Those are the ones I can recall.

So do with this information as you will but as you can tell there are ways to learn how to become an artist, without breaking the bank. The only thing that might be stopping YOU from using any of these things, is YOU.

I have made time to learn to draw and many artist have too. Either in-between working two jobs or taking care of your family and a job or regular school and chores. YOU just have to take the time or use some time management, it really doesn't take long to practice for like an hour or less. YOU also don't have to do it every day, just once or three times a week is fine.

Hope this was helpful and have a great day.

[stoically]

In the spirit of encouraging people to comment on fanfics while also making it easier to do so, I feel obliged to share a browser extension for ao3 that has quite literally revolutionized the comment game for me.

I present to you: the floating ao3 comment box!

From what I've seen, a big problem for many people is that once you reach the comments at the bottom of a fic, your memory of it miraculously disappears. Anything you wanted to say is stuck ten paragraphs ago, and you barely remember what you thought while reading. This fixes that!

I'll give a little explanation on the features and how it works, but if you want to skip all that, here's the link.

The extension is visible as a small blue box in the upper left corner.

(Side note: The green colouring is not from the extension, that's me.)

If you click on it, you open a comment box window at the bottom of your screen but not at the bottom of the fic. I opened my own fic for demonstrative purposes.

The website also gives explanations on how exactly it functions, but I'll summarize regardless.

insert selection -> if you highlight a sentence in the fic it will be added in italics to the comment box

add to comment box -> once you're done writing your comment, you click this button and the entire thing will automatically copied to the ao3 comment box

delete -> self explanatory

on mulitchapter fics, you will be given the option to either add the comment to just the current chapter or the entire fic

The best part? You can simply close the window the same way you opened it and your progress will automatically be saved. So you can open it, comment on a paragraph, and then close it and keep reading without having the box in your face.

Comments are what keep writers going, and as both a writer and a reader, I think it's such an easy way of showing support and enthusiasm.