#and i know a good amount of python

[ceratosaurtalks]

Cheap custom backgrounds?

Hi! Want to give your enclosure something like this?

Well let me help you do this in a affordable way to give your animal some new enrichment and climbing opportunities!! Theres a misconception fancy backgrounds are hard to do or are expensive to do. This is... Very much not true! So lets do the one above together! Heres an overview of the supplies you'll need: -Your Enclosure of choice -Cocofiber and Sphagnum moss(OPTIONAL, can opt to paint) -Aquarium grade Silicone -Great stuff pond and Stone -Cork bark, roots, sticks, small rocks(OPTIONAL) First things first, you're going to want an enclosure.

This is a DUBIA 4ftX2ftx2ft[LengthsXwidthXHeight), Also known as a 48"L x 24"W x 24"H(Inches) or a 120 Gallon Enclosure. This is considered the researched minimum size for common exotics like Ball pythons, Corn snakes, Bearded Dragons and the like to thrive. *Disclaimer: Im aware there is several groups and movements who are pushing for a 5x3x2(ft) minimum for Bearded dragons, I ultimately agree with them and the advancement of exotic keeping, but a Bearded won't suffer in a 4x2x2. Dubia Enclosures are some of the cheapest in the market, however they're decent for the price. They are stackable which makes it great for saving space, but please note they can NOT hold a lot of weight, so be mindful of that.

I own 3 of these. Two Version 1s and on Version 2, which is the one above. The V2s are generally nicer in design in my opinion, theyre functional more importantly. Once you have your enclosure of choice, lay it on its back as shown in in the first image. Next, you're going to want to prep your dry background. I use Organic Cocofiber and Sphagnum moss. I buy these extremely cheaply from Home depot or in bulk off Amazon. Make sure your material is COMPLETELY DRY! It will NOT stick if it has any moisture. Break apart your Cocofiber block and mix it with your dried Sphagnum moss in a container and have it ready on the side. I use the bulk Coco fiber, which costs about $23 for 5 bricks on Amazon. You can get them cheaper if you dont buy bulk, I do a lot of gardening and have a lot enclosures so its easier for me! https://www.amazon.com/Organic-Coco-Coir-Bricks-Compressed/dp/B01N1YP8O6?th=1 for a 4x2x2, I only use 2 bricks. Likewise, I buy Bulk moss for the same reason: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BK7XMNWL?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-reorder_k0_1_10&amp=&crid=1RDHFNSAUX0DF&sprefix=spaghnum%2Bm&th=1 You will only need. ONE BRICK. For the Sphagnum moss. Maybe even less than a brick. You're going to want to wet this then dry it before use. Dont be me. Dont be fooled over how small and thin those moss bricks are. I made the mistake of trying to wet an entire brick and I had to use a deep soup pot to contain it. It *explodes*. You will be buried in moss. You will scream and cry and beg for mercy as you are overwhelmed by the amount of moss Expanding from a singular brick. I am not exaggerating, I learned my lesson, please god, do not make the same mistakes I made. I still have. So, so much moss. Sometimes I still find Moss from my Mossaggeden. NOTE: Please make sure to use organic, and do not used DYED moss! Double check your ingredients, Dyed moss can be toxic to your animals! Next,

Silicone time, baby! You're going to want to use Aquarium grade Silicone from Home depot, please double check to make sure you're getting Aquarium grade! This will cost you a whopping $3 At Homedepot. The Caulking gun was an additional $12 if you dont have one already, however, it is re-usable so its a great one time purchase because I use that bad boy for a lot of my projects lmao. Once you struggle to open your stupid bottle of Silicone without exploding it like I have on several occasions; time to be silly!

We're going to Silicone this bad boy up reaaaaal good. Dont be me, USE GLOVES! It makes your life so much better I promise. So why are we doing this exactly? Its simple, this will help your background last! It gives it texture and helps the spray foam stay in place. It also keeps your background from peeling so easily, texture matters! Your hands going to be very tired after this. Youre going to want to leave this alone for the next 24-48 hours. Minimum. You want your silicone to dry and want to make sure the smell is gone before continuing to the next step!

This is the funnest part. Spray foam time! For the 4x2x2, I use about 3 Bottles of this stuff. Make sure you're using NON-TOXIC Spray foam! Pond and Stone is my favorite to work with. When I add things into the background, I make sure to have a 4th can of this stuff on me. This will be the most pricey part about it. Lowes has it for $12-14 a can, but its $15 a can on Amazon. This is really the only big 'expense' when it comes to backgrounding. Smaller enclosures use less, but bigger enclosures will need more. !!!!!!!THE NEXT STEPS NEED TO BE DONE TOGETHER!!!!!!!! Youre going to want to be fast about it if youre using my method. Start spraying random patterns into the background. Youre going to want to make sure youre covering every inch of the enclosure, you can do zigzags, cut it into triangles, squares, it doesnt matter. Different shapes give you different background textures, so go nuts!!! Dont leave space between the foam, and go ham. Theres no wrong way to do this. Once thats done though, you're going to want to do the next step IMMEDIATELY:

Adding your background texture and features!! This step MUST be done while the spray foam is still wet. First, take any rocks, cork, sticks, ext if youre adding them and shove them into the background. Dont have money to pay for expensive Reptile decor? You can sanitize your own rocks and sticks from outside yourself for free. I will make a guide about how I do that soon ahah. Press any features you want into the spray foam background nice and firm, then use the extra to spray around the items to secure them in place. Once you got your features in, its time to take your pre-prepped background and begin pouring it in! Spread it evenly across the enclosure. Do NOT worry if you have excess, poor it in anyway. Once you've poured the background in. GENTLY pat it over the sprayfoam. Next, you'll want to leave this to dry for the next 24 hours minimum. Leave it laying on its back so nothing drips or sags where you dont want it to!!! After 24hours, lift the enclosure and gently tap the back of it to knock off your excess background to reveal your background!

Annnnnnd you're done!!! Now you're free to add your lighting, real or fake plants, heating, substrate and other decor as you please! This can add so much more enrichment to your animal and give them so much more room to utalize their space. My individual personally loves his background and utilizes it all of the time! Contrary to belief, a lot of snakes aren't 'pet rocks' if you give them stuff to explore and climb. My guys out pretty often! Of course it comes down to personality too ahah.

Heres some pics of him using his climbing features! He prefers the middle climbing feature here and the one off to the right, where he uses to bask when he doesnt want to be seen and hangs out the top of it, or his bird perch when he doesn't mind being right there out in the open. c:

[phantomrose96]

Hey not to go all "tumblr is a professional networking site" on you, but how did you get to work for Microsoft??? I'm a recent grad and I'm being eviscerated out here trying to apply for industry jobs & your liveblogging about your job sounds so much less evil than Data Entry IT Job #43461

This place is basically LinkedIn to me.

I'm gonna start by saying I am so so very sorry you're a recent grad in the year 2024... Tech job market is complete ass right now and it is not just you. I started fulltime in 2018, and for 2018-2022 it was completely normal to see a yearly outflow of people hopping to new jobs and a yearly inflow of new hires. Then sometime around late-spring/early-summer of 2022 Wallstreet sneezed the word "recession" and every tech company simultaneously shit themselves.

Tons of layoffs happened, meaning you're competing not just with new grads but with thousands of experienced workers who got shafted by their company. My org squeaked by with a small amount of layoffs (3 people among ~100), but it also means we have not hired anyone new since mid-2022. And where I used to see maybe 4-8 people yearly leave in order to hop to a new job, I think I've seen 1 person do that in the whole last year and a half.

All this to say it's rough and I can't just say "send applications and believe in yourself :)".

I have done interviews though. (I'm not involved in resume screening though, just the interviews of candidates who made it past the screening phase.) So I have at least some relevant advice, as well as second-hand knowledge from other people I know who've had to hop jobs or get hired recently.

If you have friends already in industry who you feel comfortable asking, reach out to them. Most companies have a recommendation process where a current employee fills out a little form that says "yeah I'd recommend such-and-such for this job." These do seem to carry weight, since it's coming from a trusted internal person and isn't just one of the hundreds of cold-call applications they've received.

A lot of tech companies--whether for truly well-intentioned reasons or to just check a checkbox--are on the lookout for increasing employee diversity. If you happen to have anything like, for example, "member of my college Latino society", it's worth including on your resume among your technical skills and technical projects.

I would add "you're probably gonna have to send a lot of applications" as a bullet point but I'm sure you're already doing that. But here it is as a bullet point anyway.

(This is kind of a guess, since it's part of the resume screening) but if you can dedicate some time to getting at least passingly familiar with popular tech/stacks for the positions you're looking into, try doing that in your free time so you can list it on your resume. Even better if you make a project you can point to. Like if you're aiming for webdev, get familiar with React and probably NodeJS. On top of being comfortable in one of the all-purpose languages like C(++) or Java or Python.

If you get to the interview phase - a company that is good to work for WILL care that you're someone who's good to work with. A tech-genius who's a coworker-hating egotistical snob is a nuisance at best and a liability at worst for companies with even a half-decent culture. When I do interviews, "Is this someone who's a good culture fit?" is as important as the technical skills. You'll want to show you'll be a perfectly pleasant, helpful, collaborative coworker. If the company DOESN'T care about that... bullet dodged.

For the technical questions, I care more about the thought process than I do the right answer, especially for entry-level. If you show a capacity for asking good, insightful clarifying questions, an ability to break down the problem, explain your thought process, and backtrack&alter your approach upon realizing something won't work, that's all more important than just being able to spit out a memorized leetcode answer. (I kinda hate leetcode for this reason, and therefore I only ask homebrewed questions, because I don't want the technical portion to hinge at all on whether someone managed to memorize the first 47 pages of leetcode problems). For a new hire, the most important impression you can give me is that you have a technical grasp and that you're capable of learning. Because a new hire isn't going to be an expert in anything, but they're someone who's capable of learning the ropes.

That's everything I have off the top of my head. Good luck anon. I'm very sorry you were born during a specific range of years that made you a new grad in 2024 and I hope it gets better.

[its-all-clouds-in-this-noggin]

TOA related animatic ideas

so yeah, animatic ideas. Anyone who knows me knows I've reached the highest tier of brain rot when I start attributing songs and planning animatics (the layer below that is writing fanfics and one below that reading an egregious amount of em)

Anyway I have 3 of em rn

Gladiator by Jann

The whole of toa, literally perfect. I can literally imagine the council looking down with the line 'Show us something we ain't never seen before'/'Show us some good entertainment', There are so many lines and imagery in the song that would be perfect for toa like, ughhhhh.

Will You Fall In Love With Me Again by Anna Lea and Jorge Rivera-Herrans

The Epic song but it's about Artemis and Apollo post toa (siblings...). Basically this would take place instead of the conversation the two had after Apollo fights Python but before he answers (and meets again) the rest of the council. it's about Apollo recounting his experience as a mortal and in a sense worrying that he has changed too much for Artemis to still love him as before, but still asking his twin to love him (he dosen't regret how he's changed but, there's something to be said about the fear of falling out of step with someone you've always been in step with before).

Artemis just goes 'you idiot' on him, as she should. A lot of the lyric would be changed to fit (better), I'm thinking the wedding bed replaced by a bow, the first one the twins made together as kids.

They're so sibling

You’ll be back by Jonathan Groff and Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton

Commodus (no explanation needed)

Idk if I'm actually going to develop these into full animatics or not, depends on motivation and time I have lol. But they do rotate around in my head like all the other things, so the possibility is not 0.li

[anheliotrope]

Rambling About C# Being Alright

I think C# is an alright language. This is one of the highest distinctions I can give to a language.

Warning: This post is verbose and rambly and probably only good at telling you why someone might like C# and not much else.

~~~

There's something I hate about every other language. Worst, there's things I hate about other languages that I know will never get better. Even worse, some of those things ALSO feel like unforced errors.

With C# there's a few things I dislike or that are missing. C#'s feature set does not obviously excel at anything, but it avoids making any huge misstep in things I care about. Nothing in C# makes me feel like the language designer has personally harmed me.

C# is a very tolerable language.

C# is multi-paradigm.

C# is the Full Middle Malcomist language.

C# will try to not hurt you.

A good way to describe C# is "what if Java sucked less". This, of course, already sounds unappealing to many, but that's alright. I'm not trying to gas it up too much here.

C# has sins, but let's try to put them into some context here and perhaps the reason why I'm posting will become more obvious:

C# didn't try to avoid generics and then implement them in a way that is very limiting (cough Go).

C# doesn't hamstring your ability to have statement lambdas because the language designer dislikes them and also because the language designer decided to have semantic whitespace making statement lambdas harder to deal with (cough Python).

C# doesn't require you to explicitly wrap value types into reference types so you can put value types into collections (cough Java).

C# doesn't ruin your ability to interact with memory efficiently because it forbids you from creating custom value types, ergo everything goes to the heap (cough cough Java, Minecraft).

C# doesn't have insane implicit type coercions that have become the subject of language design comedy (cough JavaScript).

C# doesn't keep privacy accessors as a suggestion and has the developers pinkie swear about it instead of actually enforcing it (cough cough Python).

Plainly put, a lot of the time I find C# to be alright by process of elimination. I'm not trying to shit on your favorite language. Everyone has different things they find tolerable. I have the Buddha nature so I wish for all things to find their tolerable language.

I do also think that C# is notable for being a mainstream language (aka not Haskell) that has a smaller amount of egregious mistakes, quirks and Faustian bargains.

The Typerrrrr

C# is statically typed, but the typing is largely effortless to navigate unlike something like Rust, and the GC gives a greater degree of safety than something like C++.

Of course, the typing being easy to work it also makes it less safe than Rust. But this is an appropriate trade-off for certain kinds of applications, especially considering that C# is memory safe by virtue of running on a VM. Don't come at me, I'm a Rust respecter!!

You know how some people talk about Python being amazing for prototyping? That's how I feel about C#. No matter how much time I would dedicate to Python, C# would still be a more productive language for me. The type system would genuinely make me faster for the vast majority of cases. Of course Python has gradual typing now, so any comparison gets more difficult when you consider that. But what I'm trying to say is that I never understood the idea that doing away entirely with static typing is good for fast iteration.

Also yes, C# can be used as a repl. Leave me alone with your repls. Also, while the debugger is active you can also evaluate arbitrary code within the current scope.

I think that going full dynamic typing is a mistake in almost every situation. The fact that C# doesn't do that already puts it above other languages for me. This stance on typing is controversial, but it's my opinion that is really shouldn't be. And the wind has constantly been blowing towards adding gradual typing to dynamic languages.

The modest typing capabilities C# coupled with OOP and inheritance lets you create pretty awful OOP slop. But that's whatever. At work we use inheritance in very few places where it results in neat code reuse, and then it's just mostly interfaces getting implemented.

C#'s typing and generic system is powerful enough to offer you a plethora of super-ergonomic collection transformation methods via the LINQ library. There's a lot of functional-style programming you can do with that. You know, map, filter, reduce, that stuff?

Even if you make a completely new collection type, if it implements IEnumerable<T> it will benefit from LINQ automatically. Every language these days has something like this, but it's so ridiculously easy to use in C#. Coupled with how C# lets you (1) easily define immutable data types, (2) explicitly control access to struct or class members, (3) do pattern matching, you can end up with code that flows really well.

A Friendly Kitchen Sink

Some people have described C#'s feature set as bloated. It is getting some syntactic diversity which makes it a bit harder to read someone else's code. But it doesn't make C# harder to learn, since it takes roughly the same amount of effort to get to a point where you can be effective in it.

Most of the more specific features can be effortlessly ignored. The ones that can't be effortlessly ignored tend to bring something genuinely useful to the language -- such as tuples and destructuring. Tuples have their own syntax, the syntax is pretty intuitive, but the first time you run into it, you will have to do a bit of learning.

C# has an immense amount of small features meant to make the language more ergonomic. They're too numerous to mention and they just keep getting added.

I'd like to draw attention to some features not because they're the most important but rather because it feels like they communicate the "personality" of C#. Not sure what level of detail was appropriate, so feel free to skim.

Stricter Null Handling. If you think not having to explicitly deal with null is the billion dollar mistake, then C# tries to fix a bit of the problem by allowing you to enable a strict context where you have to explicitly tell it that something can be null, otherwise it will assume that the possibility of a reference type being null is an error. It's a bit more complicated than that, but it definitely helps with safety around nullability.

Default Interface Implementation. A problem in C# which drives usage of inheritance is that with just interfaces there is no way to reuse code outside of passing function pointers. A lot of people don't get this and think that inheritance is just used because other people are stupid or something. If you have a couple of methods that would be implemented exactly the same for classes 1 through 99, but somewhat differently for classes 100 through 110, then without inheritance you're fucked. A much better way would be Rust's trait system, but for that to work you need really powerful generics, so it's too different of a path for C# to trod it. Instead what C# did was make it so that you can write an implementation for methods declared in an interface, as long as that implementation only uses members defined in the interface (this makes sense, why would it have access to anything else?). So now you can have a default implementation for the 1 through 99 case and save some of your sanity. Of course, it's not a panacea, if the implementation of the method requires access to the internal state of the 1 through 99 case, default interface implementation won't save you. But it can still make it easier via some techniques I won't get into. The important part is that default interface implementation allows code reuse and reduces reasons to use inheritance.

Performance Optimization. C# has a plethora of features regarding that. Most of which will never be encountered by the average programmer. Examples: (1) stackalloc - forcibly allocate reference types to the stack if you know they won't outlive the current scope. (2) Specialized APIs for avoiding memory allocations in happy paths. (3) Lazy initialization APIs. (4) APIs for dealing with memory more directly that allow high performance when interoping with C/C++ while still keeping a degree of safety.

Fine Control Over Async Runtime. C# lets you write your own... async builder and scheduler? It's a bit esoteric and hard to describe. But basically all the functionality of async/await that does magic under the hood? You can override that magic to do some very specific things that you'll rarely need. Unity3D takes advantage of this in order to allow async/await to work on WASM even though it is a single-threaded environment. It implements a cooperative scheduler so the program doesn't immediately freeze the moment you do await in a single-threaded environment. Most people don't know this capability exists and it doesn't affect them.

Tremendous Amount Of Synchronization Primitives and API. This ones does actually make multithreaded code harder to deal with, but basically C# erred a lot in favor of having many different ways to do multithreading because they wanted to suit different usecases. Most people just deal with idiomatic async/await code, but a very small minority of C# coders deal with locks, atomics, semaphores, mutex, monitors, interlocked, spin waiting etc. They knew they couldn't make this shit safe, so they tried to at least let you have ready-made options for your specific use case, even if it causes some balkanization.

Shortly Begging For Tagged Unions

What I miss from C# is more powerful generic bounds/constraints and tagged unions (or sum types or discriminated unions or type unions or any of the other 5 names this concept has).

The generic constraints you can use in C# are anemic and combined with the lack of tagged unions this is rather painful at times.

I remember seeing Microsoft devs saying they don't see enough of a usecase for tagged unions. I've at times wanted to strangle certain people. These two facts are related to one another.

My stance is that if you think your language doesn't need or benefit from tagged unions, either your language is very weird, or, more likely you're out of your goddamn mind. You are making me do really stupid things every time I need to represent a structure that can EITHER have a value of type A or a value of type B.

But I think C# will eventually get tagged unions. There's a proposal for it here. I would be overjoyed if it got implemented. It seems like it's been getting traction.

Also there was an entire section on unchecked exceptions that I removed because it wasn't interesting enough. Yes, C# could probably have checked exceptions and it didn't and it's a mistake. But ultimately it doesn't seem to have caused any make-or-break in a comparison with Java, which has them. They'd all be better off with returning an Error<T>. Short story is that the consequences of unchecked exceptions have been highly tolerable in practice.

Ecosystem State & FOSSness

C# is better than ever and the tooling ecosystem is better than ever. This is true of almost every language, but I think C# receives a rather high amount of improvements per version. Additionally the FOSS story is at its peak.

Roslyn, the bedrock of the toolchain, the compiler and analysis provider, is under MIT license. The fact that it does analysis as well is important, because this means you can use the wealth of Roslyn analyzers to do linting.

If your FOSS tooling lets you compile but you don't get any checking as you type, then your development experience is wildly substandard.

A lot of stupid crap with cross-platform compilation that used to be confusing or difficult is now rather easy to deal with. It's basically as easy as (1) use NET Core, (2) tell dotnet to build for Linux. These steps take no extra effort and the first step is the default way to write C# these days.

Dotnet is part of the SDK and contains functionality to create NET Core projects and to use other tools to build said projects. Dotnet is published under MIT, because the whole SDK and runtime are published under MIT.

Yes, the debugger situation is still bad -- there's no FOSS option for it, but this is more because nobody cares enough to go and solve it. Jetbrains proved anyone can do it if they have enough development time, since they wrote a debugger from scratch for their proprietary C# IDE Rider.

Where C# falls flat on its face is the "userspace" ecosystem. Plainly put, because C# is a Microsoft product, people with FOSS inclinations have steered clear of it to such a degree that the packages you have available are not even 10% of what packages a Python user has available, for example. People with FOSS inclinations are generally the people who write packages for your language!!

I guess if you really really hate leftpad, you might think this is a small bonus though.

Where-in I talk about Cross-Platform

The biggest thing the ecosystem has been lacking for me is a package, preferably FOSS, for developing cross-platform applications. Even if it's just cross-platform desktop applications.

Like yes, you can build C# to many platforms, no sweat. The same way you can build Rust to many platforms, some sweat. But if you can't show a good GUI on Linux, then it's not practically-speaking cross-platform for that purpose.

Microsoft has repeatedly done GUI stuff that, predictably, only works on Windows. And yes, Linux desktop is like 4%, but that 4% contains >50% of the people who create packages for your language's ecosystem, almost the exact point I made earlier. If a developer runs Linux and they can't have their app run on Linux, they are not going to touch your language with a ten foot pole for that purpose. I think this largely explains why C#'s ecosystem feels stunted.

The thing is, I'm not actually sure how bad or good the situation is, since most people just don't even try using C# for this usecase. There's a general... ecosystem malaise where few care to use the language for this, chiefly because of the tone that Microsoft set a decade ago. It's sad.

HOWEVER.

Avalonia, A New Hope?

Today we have Avalonia. Avalonia is an open-source framework that lets you build cross-platform applications in C#. It's MIT licensed. It will work on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and also somehow in the browser. It seems to this by actually drawing pixels via SkiaSharp (or optionally Direct2D on Windows).

They make money by offering migration services from WPF app to Avalonia. Plus general support.

I can't say how good Avalonia is yet. I've researched a bit and it's not obviously bad, which is distinct from being good. But if it's actually good, this would be a holy grail for the ecosystem:

You could use a statically typed language that is productive for this type of software development to create cross-platform applications that have higher performance than the Electron slop. That's valuable!

This possibility warrants a much higher level of enthusiasm than I've seen, especially within the ecosystem itself. This is an ecosystem that was, for a while, entirely landlocked, only able to make Windows desktop applications.

I cannot overstate how important it is for a language's ecosystem to have a package like this and have it be good. Rust is still missing a good option. Gnome is unpleasant to use and buggy. Falling back to using Electron while writing Rust just seems like a bad joke. A lot of the Rust crates that are neither Electron nor Gnome tend to be really really undercooked.

And now I've actually talked myself into checking out Avalonia... I mean after writing all of that I feel like a charlatan for not having investigated it already.

[silentglassbreak]

delulu fan fantasy, not even my delulu.. just looking over bad omens photos and home country thoughts lol

Any name, any description lol but the boys never guy koala shots when they were in Australia last time.. soo so a scenario where they return an it involves some sort of trip to an animal rescue of some kind? OR some thing... and Noah having to lean down so the handler can help him DE-CLING the koala from his arms and shoulder, their claws can get you, the guys all joking about his new girlfriend maybe... but he'd rather the handler... -- up to you if you go on to make it smutty after the cute meet, maybe invite for drinks.. OR just an intense flirt... but...

Yep... koala flirting delulu lol, sorry, for, the ramble.

Fully understand if this is a no can do, I know specific place requests can be difficult, but I thought there was no harm in asking, thank you for reading just the same.

The amount of research I just did on Koalas is wild 🤣 I’m hoping this does your ask some justice!

After Writing Notes: This was cute, and fun to write. It's shorter than some of my others, and truly just fluffy, early stages, flirtations. I enjoyed this! I hope you do too!

Rating: Mature (language)

Warnings: Nuffin but good ol' fashioned fluff.

Please Please Please

“Now, let’s see if the little man likes you or not, shall we?”

Mira, our veteran Koala, who was used to our regular visitation schedule was lazily clung to my shirt, as she was most days. Her jaws crunched on a Eucalyptus leaf, not minding all of the sweet attention she was getting. The bright-eyed boy standing in front of me beamed at her, but I could tell he was nervous.

“Alright, now we’re going to just gently place her on your chest, and if she likes you, she’ll cling!” I carefully handed Mira over to the boy, no older than twelve, who shakily held her up. Mira’s claws grabbed onto his shirt, and she tucked her head into his neck lovingly.

She truly was a great performer.

“Oh my God, she’s holding me!” He exclaimed, excited, but still hushed as not to startle her.

“Look at that, mate! She’s very loving, isn’t she?” I held up another leaf in front of her, one of her small hands latching on and holding it up to her mouth.

The mother of the young boy looked absolutely horrified. “How long does he hold her for?”

“Ah, just a minute or two. I’ve got a few other folks waiting to get to say hello.” I stuffed my hands in my pants pockets, smiling while watching Mira tickle the young man’s neck with her ear hairs.

“Are all Koalas this friendly?” He asked as his hand gently stroked the plush hair on her back.

“Actually, no. Koalas can be quite territorial, especially around their young. They bite and scratch just like any other beast you’d come across.” I could see his mom beginning to sweat. “Mira here is very accustomed to human beings. She’s one of our rehabilitated patients who was not eligible for release.”

“Why not?” The worrisome woman eyed me.

“Poor thing got caught in the wildfires a few years ago, and she’s almost completely blind now due to the smoke. She’d never survive in the wild.” I placed a hand on her head, smiling sweetly at her. “So, instead, she’s our designated education Koala!”

The boy smiled, and moved toward me to begin removing her from his chest. “I think she’s amazing.”

“That, she is.” I graciously took my girl, and turned to place her back on her tree. I could tell she was in need of a bit of a break.

Noticing more patrons had not arrived quite yet for their experiences, I closed the door behind my guests of the enclosure, and set up a ‘Be Back in 30’ sign.

Once in the break room, I sat at the table, running fingers through my hair that was tangled where it ended on the back of my neck. Kylie, who had been working the python exhibit all morning, came bounding in, sitting next to me heavily.

“Eh, Charlie. You alright?”

I was chewing the end of a peanut butter sandwich and zoning out, trying not to let my mind wander too far.

“Good here. You?”

She smiled empathetically. “That’s not convincing, babe. Still thinking about him?”

Shrugging hard, I set my sandwich back down and put my face in my palms. “Why would he ghost me?” I sighed, feeling defeated. “I really thought we were getting on, ya know?”

Placing a hand on my back, she smiled sweetly at me. “I’m sure you were! Some guys are just fucking useless! He probably did you a favor, really.”

I laid my chin down on my hands on the table. “Maybe. It still blows. I feel like dating is just pointless these days.”

Kylie laughed at that. “Nah, not true.” Sitting back in her chair, she reached to interlock her hands behind her head. “Remember that Roy guy I went out with a few weeks back?” I just nodded. “Best lay I’ve had, hands down.”

My eyes blew out wide before my stomach began rolling with laughter. She joined me, clapping a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t give up on dating, babe. There’s a guy out there for you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, not likely.”

-

The day was passing so slow, it almost made my eyes roll back. By the time my watch told me it was close to the end, only half hour till, I was exhausted. So was Mira. My eyes scanned the passers by, wondering how many I’d be able to fit in before the end of the day, as I saw a group of guys reading the information plaque on the glass just outside.

One of the guys, a lanky boy with tattoos shadowing the length of his arms, was the only one of them looking into the exhibit, instead of at the description. If I hadn’t known better, I’d say he was looking at me.

That couldn’t be right, though. I was holding Mira, so he was probably looking at her.

“Excuse me?” One of them had broken off from the pack and stepped inside the door. “It says on there to come in to see the Koalas?”

He was a shorter gentleman with long, black hair tied back in a bun on the back of his head. I noticed his accent, and internally groaned. Americans.

“Yeah!” I smiled at him brightly. “Come on in!”

He motioned for his friends, the other three trailing behind. The last one to come in was the tall guy with hair only slightly shorter than mine. His eyes wandered around the trees and the pond behind me.

“Oh my gosh!” The shortest one was grinning ear to ear, staring directly at Mira. “They’re so cute!”

I looked down at the gray baby on my chest, and pet her lovingly. “They are. They’re my favorite creatures here at the preserve.”

“Do they bite?” A taller man, who had a slightly different accent that I couldn’t place, asked.

“They sure can.” I nodded, and waved a hand. “But Mira here never has. She’s an absolute gem.”

Looking between them all, I noticed they were all wearing various band t-shirts, with the exception of our large friend, who only wore a black beater. He stood the most reserved, hands in his pockets.

“Anyone want to hold her?”

“Serious?!” The shortest bloke perked up first, stepping toward me cautiously. “Can I, please?”

I chuckled. “Of course! I’ll hand her to you,” I began peeling Mira from me. “and if she latches, she likes you!”

Almost vibrating with excitement, the man took her gently, and Mira wrapped her short arms around his neck, seeming to take to him exceptionally.

“Excellent!” I clapped. “You’re a natural!”

He smiled brightly at his friends. “Check it out, guys!” They all took turns looking at Mira up close, a couple reaching out to touch her head.

“You want a photo?” I asked and the tallest one nodded, slipping a cell out of his pocket and handing it to me.

The four boys posed, all smiling and wrapping arms around each other.

“Alright, one…two…three.” I snapped a picture, but noticed a couple of them blinking. I pursed my lips. “Let me get a few, alright?”

They nodded and held their spots. As I was preparing to snap another, I saw a look of panic flash over the boy holding Mira.

“She’s letting go! I don’t want to drop her!”

“Oh!” Instinctively, I slipped the mobile into my vest pocket and reached out to grab Mira.

For whatever reason, she had become startled, and wanted out of the grip. It had been a long day, and she was likely over all of the attention. When I pulled her from the guy’s arms, her nails scratched across the side of his neck.

“Ouch!” He exclaimed, holding a hand up. All of his friends were looking at him.

“I’m so sorry about that, mate! It’s been quite the day for our girl here.” He moved his hand and was bleeding ever so slightly.

Seemingly rebounded, he shook his head and grinned at me. “No, I totally get it. I appreciate her letting me hold her at all.”

I set Mira on her tree, plucking her a leaf and handing it to her before turning back to the bunch. “There’s a med room on your way out the exit. They can give you a swab to clean that with.” I smiled apologetically at them.

“Thanks again…Charlie?” The boy checked my name tag. I nodded. He stuck his hand out for me to shake. “I’m Nick.”

I nodded. “Pleasure to meet you guys.”

They filed out one by one, giving small waves. The tall boy’s eyes carried mine just a little longer than the rest, and it gave me a warm feeling in my stomach.

What a cutie.

-

“So how’d the rest of the day go, Char?”

Unpinning my tag and putting it in my locker, I nodded before sitting down to slip my runners off.

“Not terrible. Mira scratched someone, though.”

She frowned. “Oh no. Are they alright?”

Sighing, I began unbuttoning my vest. “Yeah, he was just happy to get to see her. Group of American guys.”

When I shrugged off my best, I noticed it felt heavy, which was odd. Slipping my fingers in the pockets, I felt the flat, cool screen, and let my head fall back.

“Fuck.”

“What’s that?” Kylie had turned her head to look at me.

“I snatched one of their phones on accident. Shit.”

She giggled. “Well, damn. Did you catch his name?”

I shook my head. “No. Just his friend who got hurt, and not even a last name.”

“Mm, better put it in lost and found then.”

I stood, reaching to set down the phone. Before I could, it began vibrating in my hand, and I turned it over. The face of the boy I had interacted with earlier popped on the screen with the name ‘Folio’ on it.

I bit my lip, and Kylie noticed. “Going to answer it?”

“Should I?”

She just gestured toward me in a ‘duh’ fashion.

I swiped open the call, and put it up to my ear.

“Hello?”

“So, you have my phone.” A smooth, baritone voice came through the speaker.

I smiled, sitting on the bench behind me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think about it.”

There was a soft chuckle on the other end. “No problem. Can I come get it?”

I looked up at Kylie, who was watching me expectedly. “Well, the preserve is closed for the night. I can leave it at the lost and found and you can grab it in the morning?”

“Hmm,” I heard him thinking. “I kind of can’t wait that long to get it back. Plus, I fly out in the morning.”

“Ah,” I sighed. “well, are you staying nearby? I can probably drop it off on my way home.”

“Well, the guys and I are going to Faldry’s for dinner. Could you meet me there?”

“Sure, that’s on my way.”

I heard a sigh of relief. “I really appreciate it, uh,” There was a beat of silence. “what was your name, again?”

I smiled. “Charlie.”

“That’s right.” I swore I could hear a smile in his voice. “I’m Noah.”

“Alright Noah, I can be there in half?”

“Sure, I’ll be there.”

-

The drive to the restaurant was quick, and for some reason, I felt nervous? I guess that made sense, given it was embarrassing that I managed to take this random stranger’s phone without even trying. I had a great gift for being an absolute moron. The parking lot was relatively full, so I pulled into a space toward the back. Unsure of how to let him know how I was here, I walked into the building, taking a breath and glancing around the room for the person I was trying to find.

The host approached the stand, flashing his teeth at me. "Evening. Do you have a reservation?"

Gripping the strap of my bag, I let my face fall. "Uh, no," My head whipped around more, still no luck in finding the party. "I'm here to see someone?"

He nodded tapping his computer screen. "Name?"

I closed my eyes, realizing I didn't know his surname. "Noah..." My stare pleaded with him. "He's uh, tall? Dark hair? Tattooed?"

He stared at me, clearly not following.

"He's American? With a group?"

This seemed to spark his memory, a flash of recognition crossing his features.

"Ah, I know who you mean. They're toward the back, table sixteen."

Smiling apologetically, I moved around the booth toward the other side of the dining room. Once I rounded the corner around the bar, I could see the table, more people than I recognized sitting around it.

Noah was sat, ball cap on his head, laughing at something with everyone else at the table. My chest stuttered for a moment. Now, instead of a casual tank top, he wore a plain white t-shirt. His hair peaked out from under his hat. Most noticeable was his smile, so bright and stunning. I hadn't had the chance to catch that earlier...

I gripped the phone in my hand, and swallowed before making my way over to the table. The boy I had spoken with earlier in the day - Nick - noticed me first.

"Hey!" All eyes lifted to me, and I felt more nervous than I had previously.

I gave a small wave, tucking some of my hair behind my ear. "Hello, everyone."

Noah stood, walking around the table. I handed him the phone, and he smirked at me. "Thank you so much for bringing this. I can't tell you how screwed I would've been if you hadn't."

I nodded, feeling so small stood next to him. "Of course. It was my fault, anyway."

His hand dismissed me. "It happens."

A strange, awkward silence fell over us, so I turned to the rest of the group, giving a timid grin. "Well, I'll be off, then."

"Wait," I felt fingers grab my forearm, gently pulling my attention. I looked up at Noah again, his face soft. "can I maybe," He glanced back at his friends for...something? Approval, maybe? "buy you a drink or something?"

I was caught off guard, and my face must've shown it, because his hand fell from my arm.

"Oh, uh," My eyes bounced off of the other faces at the table, who were still mostly looking right at me. "I shouldn't. I don't want to intrude."

He shook his head. "You're not! I want to do something to thank you for this." He held his phone up for reference.

I smiled, finding it exceptionally difficult to turn him down. "I mean, I suppose I could go for a cold one."

Something pulled the corners of his lips up at me.

"Great!" He turned back to his mates. "I'll be back?"

They all nodded, Nick giving him a brotherly slap on the arm. He lead me over to the bar, and pulled a stool out for me before taking the one to my right.

The bartender took our order, both of us settling on some ale before he turned his face to look at me.

"So," The drinks were placed in front of us, and I took a pull from my pint. "you like animals, huh?"

This made me laugh. What a generic conversation starter. He didn't have a lot to go on, and it was funny.

"I do. Always have."

He took a drink, and set his glass down hard on the bar. "That's really cool."

He was trying, but that topic could only get us so far.

"Do you?" I decided to venture.

"As much as the next person, I guess? I have a dog at home."

I smiled, wiping my upper lip on the napkin under my glass. "Back in the States?"

He nodded. "In California."

"Ah, what's that like?"

"You've never been over there?"

I shook my head, swallowing my beer. "Never been across the pond. Only time I left Straya was when my family would go to New Zealand on vacation. It's been a long time, though."

"New Zealand? Wow, that sounds amazing."

"It really is. It's beautiful there. And safe."

He took a big gulp of his beer, and began folding his own napkin over itself. "Well, California isn't." He said with a laugh.

I quirked an eyebrow. "I've heard." I turned my body to look at him better, studying the tattoos on his skin. "So what brings you here?"

He smiled to himself then, chewing on his thumbnail. "We had a concert."

"A concert? You flew all this way to see a band?"

He finished his drink, and signaled to the barkeep for another. "We are the band."

This made me pause. That made sense, now didn't it?

"Oh. Very nice!" The bartender brought us two fresh drinks. "What kind of music?"

"Rock music. Metal-ish?"

"What do you call yourselves?"

He smirked, staring at me from his peripherals. "Bad Omens."

"Hmm," I took a drink of my fresh beer. "that's interesting."

He snickered. "Interesting? How do you mean?"

"Sounds kind of dark."

"That's the point, honestly."

I traced the rim of the glass with my index finger, looking at him as he spoke. His lips were so pretty. And his eyes were so dark that they were almost enticing.

"I see." I finally looked away from him, down at the bubbles in my drink. "So, how do you like it here?"

He leaned forward, pressing his elbows onto the bar. "It's not my first time. It's been a while, though. I like it."

"But...?" I could tell he wasn't sold.

His cheeks tinted. "It's really hot. And the spiders are fucking crazy."

This caused a deep belly laugh to pull out of me. "That's too funny."

"Why is that funny?" He cackled with me, and I wiped a tear from my eyes.

"Ah, I don't know. A big tough guy like you being afraid of spiders? It's just funny."

He looked at me curiously. "Hey, I'm not afraid of them. I just prefer not to find giant ones in my hotel bathroom."

This only made me laugh harder, and his elbow bumped my arm playfully.

"You've got a good laugh."

This brought me back to Earth for a second, now feeling self-conscious. I contained my giggles and looked back at him.

"What?"

His smirk was silly when he brought his glass to his lips. "I like your laugh."

I shook my head. "Thank you?"

He giggled into his cup. "You're welcome."

We sat this way for a while. He continued to drink beer, but I ordered a soda after my second drink. Continuing to laugh about various different subjects, and telling stories, we then noticed the restaurant beginning to thin.

"Well then, we've been here a while, haven't we?" I mentioned as I glanced around.

"Yeah, I guess so." His eyes were sparkling when they looked at me, which made something in my stomach flip. "I've had a good time talking to you."

Returning the sentiment, I leaned against his arm. "Me too."

His mouth pouted for a second. "I'm pretty bummed I'm leaving tomorrow, or I'd offer to take you on an actual date."

This made me nearly choke on the Cola I was sucking through my straw.

"Oh yeah?" Was all I could manage.

"Well, sure. Why not?"

I raised a brow at him. "Rockstar like yourself? You've got to have a lady at home waiting, don't you?"

He huffed out a sigh, staring down at his hands. "Nah, not lately."

Chewing on my lip, I shrugged. "Then I guess," I leaned in so he could hear me clearly. "it is a shame you have to leave tomorrow."

I could feel his breath on my face, and his brow furrowed, studying me.

"I'll just have to come back soon, huh?"

Smiling, I let my stare fall on his lips. "I guess you will."

His face came closer to mine, the proximity making the air thick. I could smell the alcohol on his breath, and his nose brushed against mine. Letting my eyes fall closed, I waited for him to close the gap.

"Can I walk you to your car?"

My eyes snapped open, noticing he hadn't moved, but also hadn't moved.

A shred of disappointment filled me, but I pulled back, gathering my thoughts.

"Uh," I shouldered my purse, a bewildered look on my face. "sure."

I slipped off of the barstool, and walked past him, noticing his palm finding the small of my back to guide me toward the door.

Once outside, the crisp summer evening bit at my skin. I pulled the sleeves of my sweatshirt over my hands as we walked to my car, far in the back of the, now mostly empty, parking lot.

I turned around once I had reached the driver's door, intending to bid him a good night and a safe flight home, but - for the second time - was caught off guard.

His chest pressed against mine, pinning me against the side of my car, and his lips crashed into mine. He was gentle, but still forceful enough to make my knees goes weak.

His hands held the roof of my car on either side of my head, and my eyes rolled back as I molded into him, my hands reaching up to grasp the sides of his neck. He breathed into me, sparking something hot in my chest, and made me press my body closer against his.

One of his arms circled around my waist, lifting me up on my tip-toes to reach his face easier. Our lips fought for leverage, tongues swiping over each other. My brain was buzzing with the intensity of it.

When he finally pulled away from me, bringing me back down on the ground, I was breathing heavily, and staring up at him hungrily. He smiled, a sheen of moisture on his swollen bottom lip.

"Thank you, Charlie, for a great evening."

My pupils were dilated wide, and my hands were gripping his shirt, still.

"Thank you for the drinks, Noah."

Letting him go, my hands falling loose at my sides, he took a step back, looking down at the ground where he kicked at the asphalt.

"Could I, maybe..." He was hesitating, which was funny, given he was so confident not a moment before. "Can we exchange numbers?"

My eyebrows shot up at the absurdity of it. He lived thousands of miles away.

"You're serious?"

He just looked at me, pleading. "I am."

I scoffed, holding a hand out. "Let me see your cell."

This brought a grin to his face, his hand slipping his phone out of his pocket. "You're going to give it back this time?"

I rolled my eyes playfully. "Maybe."

He unlocked the screen, and I opened a new contact. Quickly adding myself, I handed it back to him. He looked over the screen, and nodded, satisfied.

He huffed out a sigh, and then held his arms open. I pulled into them, the abnormally long limbs wrapping around me easily.

"Be safe getting home?"

He nodded when he pulled away. "Of course."

I could see his regard, trying to decide if he should. Deciding for him, I careened up as tall as I could, and placed one last soft kiss on his lips.

"Goodnight, Noah."

I opened my door, and sat down in the driver's seat.

"Goodnight, Charlie."

The entire drive home, all I could see in my mind's eye was deep brown eyes and tattoos. Long fingers and even longer arms. Short, straight black hair. An annoyingly adorable smile.

What were the odds? I finally meet a guy, and I will likely will never see him again...

I pulled into my drive, leaning my head against the steering wheel. I'm just so lucky.

My phone lit up in my console, and I grabbed it hastily. The unknown number flashed on my screen.

Noah: Hey beautiful. ;)

[fandom-is-my-drug]

I’ve read a lot of fanfics in my time, but it’s been a while since I’ve done a full read through of Uncle Rick’s series, and the only book I don’t have is The Sun and Star (I think) so if I leave anything out let me know.

One of the most interesting things I noticed in Uncle Rick’s stories is the power levels of different demigods. Most demigods in old myths never stepped foot in the Underworld, much less hoped to survive it, beyond a few who had pretty massive amounts of godly help (Hermes with Orpheus, Herakles with Hera, etc.) to get through the journey.

And yet multiple people not only survived the journey, but also did it multiple times, including but not limited to:

Percy (twice, once with pearls and once with Nico)

Grover (with pearls)

Annabeth (with pearls)

Nico (an undisclosed amount of time including with a ghostly half-sister in tow)

Hazel (with help as one of the undead)

Sally (as a kidnapping victim)

A good list of demigods who likely died and came back all on their own while Thanatos was chained

Thalia (while with Nico and Percy)

And while, yes, all of these examples are either because of massive problems on the godly side, or because they are/were accompanied by a Big Three kid (which is BS that Hestia, Hera, and Demeter aren’t included in “they have super crazy powerful kids” despite only Demeter having kids), it doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s happening more often.

“But Nick, like you said, those are major influences that’s helping these guys get out of the Underworld. It’s just relevant to the plot!”

Fair enough, but now here’s the next point: Tartarus.

Basically, Rick’s Greek world essentially functions as such:

While I don’t think Eris is confirmed to exist in Tartarus (again I haven’t read The Sun and Star), Nyx is, and since Nyx is darkness and Eris is light, it makes sense they exist on the same plane (either beneath Tartarus or coexisting with it) despite both being a concept for all planes except arguably Chaos, which is why I put it on the same level as well.

There are various creation myths, but the overarching plot is: There is Something, that Something creates Others, and this Others become known as Primordials, which make their own Others, such as Titans, Giants, Gods, etc. The creations make essentially layers on Earth, similar to the actual layers of the Earth.

Think of it like this:

And when new beings are made that take over for the last generation (like Helios and Apollo), then those layers get kinda funky.

So, back to Tartarus. Obviously you have 3 separate “Underworlds”, one for deities (like with Python in Trials of Apollo), one for monsters, and one for mortals. Each of these places is built to recycle beings, similar to the idea of Conservation of Energy and Conservation of Matter. Not only that, but upper level beings can’t (or at least shouldn’t) go below their respective underworld, but lower level beings can’t go up, which is why monsters can go up to the Underworld and Gaea but a human can’t go down into the Underworld or Tartarus without dying.

So this is why demigods surviving Tartarus is crazy work. Sure, there are demigods that can become monsters or gods and survive the trip, but just your average demigod? They’re dead on sight. Between the poison air, the aggressive terrain, no food, no water, monsters being reborn in every direction, etc., survival is slim to none.

Except now we have instances of people surviving the fall and the climb back up, with a questionable amount of sanity intact. Will, Nico (twice), Annabeth, and Percy (you can include Apollo if you like) all survived the fall and came back still kicking, and noticeably not monsters.

So what’s my point?

There’s a common repetition of myth for the Greeks, and that’s the death of the father by their son. Ouranos was killed by Kronos and his siblings. Kronos was killed by Zeus and his siblings. The point is that Rick’s version of the Greeks is approaching the death of Zeus, and the crowning of a new King (if we’re following by patriarchal standards). It’s definitely not going to happen anytime soon, but Big Three kids like Percy and Nico and just your average demigod like the Seven is proof of this. And do you want to know WHY demigods are only going to get more powerful from here?

Because the gods are slowly and indirectly creating their own demise, as had their predecessors. But unlike their predecessors, their downfall will come from not looking in the right direction, instead of thinking they have complete control. Zeus isn’t stupid, and he knows his shit. He’s well aware that he only survived being swallowed because Rhea gave Kronos a rock, because he wasn’t paying attention. Kronos was prideful and believed that he was loved enough that no one would dare defy him, because he wasn’t paying attention the one who saved them. Zeus knows that being ignorant of who is and isn’t against him would be his downfall, so he locks the fuck in. Kronos, while well known for his ability to control time, ruled over the Harvest as well, making him a more Gaea-bound deity. So Zeus chooses the sky. Instead of simply believing in people, he overlooks them, watching them, judging them. He is the God of Justice, after all, so the job title includes the role of “Judge, Jury, and Executioner”.

“But isn’t Olympus a democracy, Nick? Athens was a democracy too, so Zeus wouldn’t be the one in sole power!”

Nope! Well, yes, it is a democracy, but just not a democracy in the way it’s supposed to be. In Athens, they were technically a democracy, but only for those who were rich, powerful, and close to the inner circle of politicians. The building that housed the voting in Athens let people in on a first-come-first-serve basis, so only people who had the time to include themselves and the money to live so close to the place where votes are casted had the power, and on top of that, their politics were wild. One person got a vote, obviously, but it’s like goddamn Survival over there. They made groups and all discussed what went down and who to fucking vote off the island. I’m not joking, they actually did that.

So Zeus consolidated power into a small group of 12, playing it as a “democracy” when in reality those who do not follow him are punished or replaced. Hestia was kicked out for Dionysus, for example, and Apollo was made human, for another. So yeah, it’s a “democracy” in the same way someone gets cohersed into giving consent: it’s not actually real, just driven by fear.

On top of that, they literally have Hephestus TV! They watch their subjects for fun. You cannot tell me Zeus didn’t set up that particularly entertaining baby cam for no reason. He ate Leto! He’s not above being the magical version of the Chaos Council from Sonic Prime.

So in order to create a being capable of overthrowing Zeus, you have to do it slowly, subtly, and have his gaze averted. He has to be focusing on something else. That’s how Luke managed to nearly overthrow him, because he was so focused on 12-year-old Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon, then someone so minuscule as Luke Castellan, Son of Hermes. He likes to think he’s got it all figured out, thinking that the one who chooses whether Olympus is going to survive or fall must be one of the Big Three’s children. He ignores bigger details and problems in favor of focusing on one small thing. Percy’s birthday was a prophecized stopwatch, and really nothing more.

How would the gods be able to manufacture such a danger to Zeus’s reign when he supervises everything? They don’t manufacture anything at all, at least not on purpose.

“Nick, what the fuck? You’re making no sense.”

HEAR ME OUT.

Our first example of this is our lovely Frank Zhang. Both a demigod and a Legacy, he has power like we haven’t seen unless provided by a shape-shifting god (such as Loki with Alex). Despite being a Son of Mars, who, alongside Ares, have children who’s main god-given skill is “fights good”, he has the ability to shapeshifting and keep up with powerhouses like Percy, Hazel, and Jason. Sure, you could argue that Clarisse can keep up with Percy well enough, but not to the extent of Frank. He has the blood of multiple gods stacked onto one another, helping him have the power to survive the quest to stop Gaea.

Another is Leo Valdez. Poor boy got the attention of a literal Primordal being at a young age, and also managed to kill said Primordal being with his own fire powers, and lived to tell the tale. In the past, that required an elaborate plot to lure the Primordal away from their domain and slice them to pieces, but Leo just did it with a dragon and two other demigods, and incinerated Gaea. Please tell me you understand how absolutely insane that is!

Piper McClean managed to break down Charmspeak into its basic concepts, and understood how it worked well enough to gaslight a Primordal, and before that she had the strongest charmspeak in the room alongside her siblings.

Jason Grace took down a Giant more or less on his own with little to no help from a god, and can take control of wind spirits that don’t even belong to his father’s domain. He’s Hera’s (or Juno, I guess) champion, and she could have chosen Thalia, but she didn’t. She chose Jason. Jason is a full-sibling to Thalia, only divided by pantheons. Having full-siblings is almost entirely unheard of, with only a handful of mortals able to seduce powerful gods not once, but twice, like with Bianca and Nico. That takes INSANE work.

Hazel has the power not only detect precious metals, but also curse them, and channel that power into raising a whole Giant, something that can only happen in Tartarus. She escaped the Underworld after having already died and lost her memories.

Percy is, I’m just going to say it, absolutely insane. He beat The God of WAR in a fight. At 12. He set off a volcano summoning water out of seashells and a stupid idea. He held up the Sky, something that was purposely held up by 4 pillars and later the Titan of Strength for a reason. He survived Tartarus and Polybotes and stole the domain of another goddess. It’s one thing to utilize the abilities bestowed on you by your parent and make them your own, but he stole another bitch’s domain! And used it against her! And probably would have killed her too if Annabeth hadn’t snapped him out of it! You CAN’T tell me that this man isn’t the beginning of the end for the gods.

And my MOST POWERFUL POINT HERE: goddamn Annabeth Chase. Yeah, you know all that batshit insane stuff Percy did? Annabeth was right there next to him. Holding the sky, Tartarus, the Athena Parthenos (which is known to be killing off Athena kids since forever) etc. What’s even more insane is that Athena doesn’t give her kids powers. Athena kids’ abilities are “smart”, and wtf does that mean??? It makes everything Annabeth does all the more impressive and terrifying. The rest of the Seven are powerhouses so strong they can take on Giants, and then you have Annabeth with her knife and spite, and she not only keeps up, but she’s a role model. The other demigods look to her for guidance!

But it gets crazier. You know how I said the gods are creating their own demise hidden in plain sight? Yeah, Annabeth is that “plain sight”. Percy, for all his power and abilities, is the distraction. People like Annabeth are who Zeus really has to look out for. Remember how I said that full-blooded siblings are rare and crazy to even fathom? The Chase Family makes it worse.

How the flying fuck did they manage to bag not one, not two, but three different deities attentions?! What are those Chases on to get so much godly attention?! Not to mention it’s cross pantheon! Frey, Loki, and Athena, we’re drawn in by something, and it’s not your normal godly infatuation.

In a small blurb of a story, Percy and Annabeth meet the Kanes, and while I haven’t read Kane Chronicles (I have the series just haven’t gotten to it yet), they say that cross-pantheon magic is quite literally the strongest way to K.O. your enemies. So the four of them swap items, with Percy getting possessed by a vulture goddess. Why am I bring this up? Because these very points are why the Chases are terrifying.

They’re an active site of cross-pantheon activity, which is why Magnus and Annabeth are so powerful all on their own. Magnus has been watched over for years because of his role in Ragnarok, and was specifically requested by Odin himself to be taken to Valhalla despite being a nature demigod. And not only does Magnus survive there as a nature demigod in an entire afterlife full of war demigods, he thrives. He’s never held a sword in his life, and his main powers are healing and trying to convince plants to grow, and yet he manages to delay Ragnarok for a long, long time.

People like Annabeth, Magnus, and Frank are obvious points in this evolution of power, and they fly under Zeus’s radar almost entirely.

So that’s my Rant. Something that’s been bubbling in my head for a long time really, but I never had a place for it until now. It’s likely that we have such powerful demigods now compared to the old myths because of godly blood mixing in with humans after so long, and then that godly blood, especially when enhanced by other pantheons, starts to draw deities in more and more. So that’s how Zeus gets his ass kicked.

[thefreakandthehair]

@eddiemonth prompt, oct 4th: Rejection | Arsonist’s Lullaby - Hozier | Lost a/n: pre-steddie post-s4, angst with soft, happy ending because I'm a marshmallow. un-betaed because I'm challenging myself to write these in under an hour. read on ao3 | link to series on ao3

All Eddie Munson has ever wanted to do is play music. 

That’s it. There are other hobbies, of course, other things that bring him joy– D&D, fantasy novels, art– but ever since he was a kid, whenever a teacher would ask what he wants to be when he grows up, it’s always the same answer. 

I wanna play music. 

As a kid, it seems less daunting. He just has to practice, he just has to play, he just has to have the passion to make it big. To be the next Kirk Hammett, or Eddie Van Halen, or Ozzy Osbourne if he can teach himself to carry a tune. 

Making friends is hard, but he manages to find a few in middle school who can play the instruments he can’t– drums, bass. Eddie takes the role of frontman, not exactly a singer still but he’s charismatic enough to get away with it at their school talent show.

High school comes, and Corroded Coffin is revamped. New vibe, new members. He’s older now, a little more jaded with each rejection. 

No one wants their EP, recorded by hand in Gareth’s garage onto cheap cassette tapes. 

No venue will let them play, and Eddie knows that it’s probably because they’re in high school but hadn’t The Cure started in high school? 

No one believes in them, trying to push them– especially Eddie– to consider more successful careers, safer paths. 

But eventually, they book a regular gig at The Hideout and Eddie’s certain this is it. This is their big break. Until they play week after week, staring at the same five plastered faces every Tuesday. If they can prove themselves though, the owner will have to let them play on a Friday or Saturday.

He never does. 

The final nail in the proverbial coffin comes after Eddie’s final senior year. Being accused of murder should have beefed up his credibility if nothing else– he’s already been traumatized, terrorized, and hunted like a goddamn dog, nevermind almost killed via hoard of angry mutant bats. Surely, he’ll catch at least one break. 

And then the owner at The Hideout tells him he can’t play there anymore. 

The hoards of people who still blame him for Chrissy Cunningham’s death are too much for him to manage himself and, in his words, Eddie’s driving away good business. His heart shatters, his breath catches, and Eddie leaves without a word because if he were to try to speak, all that would come out is either an enraged scream or a choked sob and Eddie doesn’t want to risk either. 

He drives around aimlessly for an unknown amount of time, just circles around the outskirts of Hawkins. Maybe I’ll just leave, he thinks. Indianapolis might be far enough. Maybe Chicago. Fuck it, maybe Argyle and Jonathan can put me up for awhile in California. Eddie wants to go somewhere that makes him forget just how lost he is, how unwanted and forgotten he’s become. Being the social pariah is only fun when he’s making speeches on cafeteria tables, not when it boots him out of his one and only career path. 

Somehow, he ends up in Loch Nora. He can’t face Wayne right now, he doesn’t want to bother Robin or Nancy, he’s already let Jeff, Gareth, and Freak down in the worst way imaginable, and if he goes to his mom’s or Chrissy’s tombstones with one more sob story, he’s afraid they’ll start haunting him. Steve’s become a friend over the last year or so it makes sense. Process of elimination and all of that. 

He doesn’t have the mental bandwidth to realize that he’d started driving that way before he ruled everyone else out. 

Steve welcomes him like he always does and offers him a beer, sitting with him in companionable silence on the couch as they watch Monty Python and The Holy Grail and laugh at the same parts. Eddie knows Steve can see that he’s upset but instead of asking questions Eddie isn’t ready to answer, he just sits a little closer with their thighs touching and one arm strewn over the back of the couch, just barely grazing Eddie’s shoulder. 

The movie ends and Steve moves to switch the tape when Eddie finally speaks up. 

“The Hideout kicked us out. Can’t play there anymore.” 

Eddie sees Steve freeze from behind before turning, his eyebrows knitted together above his nose. “Are you fucking serious?” 

He nods and sighs, lifting one hand to chew on this thumbnail as he looks at the wall beyond Steve. 

“That’s bullshit, dude. Why? Because of the protestors or whatever?” 

He nods again. 

“Want me to go down there? I’ve still got my bat around here somewhere. It might be nice to swing at something that’s not trying to like, eat me.” 

Eddie huffs a small laugh through his nose and meets Steve’s eyes, their righteous anger blending with his own as he sees Steve cross his arms over his chest. It’s hard not to stare. 

 “Well, then at least I wouldn’t be the only guy in this town wanted for murder.” 

Steve shakes his head and just chooses another movie, Howard the Duck this time, before returning to his spot on the couch. It’s one of Eddie’s favorite movies but he can’t focus to save his life because Steve is even closer now, his arm draped fully across Eddie’s shoulders and creating a space for Eddie to easily just… rest. So he does. 

The title sequence starts and Eddie’s head drops to the side, resting on Steve’s shoulder. It’s one of his favorites but he can’t follow the plot to save his life. All he can focus on is the way Steve’s fingers trace symptoms and shapes against the cotton of his tee shirt, and the steady rise and fall of his chest, and the feeling of Steve’s head leaning against the top of his. 

“I had a new song and everything,” Eddie whispers, surprising both himself and Steve. 

Steve hums and tightens his arm around Eddie’s shoulders, a ghost of a hug. “Play it for me sometime?”

All Eddie Munson has ever wanted to do is play music. And maybe he still can.

[thelampisaflashlight]

An Empty Throne

[The girls are fighting. Something, something, I was bored and made RainDrop fight. Feat. prince of Hell Rain.]

"So... When were you gonna tell me?" Dew asks, taking out a box of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, tapping the cardboard in an effort to calm himself, "That you're a prince?"

Rain sighs, leaning against the wall of the stairwell, "I-"

"Is this," Dew interrupts, breaking the plastic seal, "is being topside like this just a vacation to you? Or what? You on the run from an arranged marriage or something?"

"It's not like that at all." Rain waves his hand dismissively, pulling his lighter from his jeans and offering it to Dew, who takes it with a not unnoticed amount of hesitation, "Being a 'prince' is like being a 'ghoul' up here, it's... a broad term. But, the long and short of it is that I have some of Lucifer's blood in my veins; I'm not a direct line, but it's there."

"It means my magic is a bit more potent, and there's more... rules, I suppose." he continues, watching Dew take a drag from his newly lit cigarette, sighing as he inhales the first, peppery waft of lingering smoke in through his gills, "About carrying on the bloodline and such."

"Oh, so the arranged marriage part wasn't far off then." Dew chuckles nervously, "Don't you want... huge tracts of land, Rainy?"

Rain rolls his eyes.

"Not a Monty Python fan?"

"Dew, I'm being serious right now."

"I know, I just... Fuuuck, Rain." Dew mumbles, pressing the butt of his palm into his forehead and grinding slightly, "I... Fuck."

"Guess that explains it though," he sniffs, the cold making his nose run a bit, "why the others treat you that way."

"What way?"

"You cannot be... Like that, ya know? Like you're so..." Dew's thoughts trail off and he shakes his head, dropping his cigarette onto the ground and snuffing it out under his boot, "I dunno..."

Rain furrows his brows, "What's on your mind?"

"I think..." Dew blinks, then runs his hand over his face, taking a deep breath, "You and me, I just... I can't, Rain. I don't... I don't wanna get tangled up in any of... any of that kinda stuff. I don't want the drama. I... For a while now, ya know, I've been wondering why people have been whispering things under their breath when I'm with you, and I just thought it was because you're, well, you're you and I'm... me... and I was thinking I was just regular not good enough, but whoo boy!"

"Dew, you're-"

"And, like, you just let me think that!" He laughs bitterly, "I gave you my-"

Dew snaps his mouth shut before he finishes his sentence, straightening up his stance before jabbing a finger into Rain's chest, looking like he's about to yell at him, but, much more painfully so... his voice comes out as a whisper.

A wobbly, strained whisper from the way he's holding back his tears.

"You. Stay. The... Fuck... Away. From. M-Me." he manages, punctuating each word with a halfhearted poke that slowly gets rougher until Dew is pushing him away.

"Dew, please, I... You never told me you felt that way!" Rain tries, but Dew fully shoves him away this time, and he staggers backwards on his feet, "Dew!"

"You and me promised no secrets between us... I told you fucking everything, and you..." Dew's eyes water, "You fuckin' lied to me."

"I didn't lie, it just never came up!"

"...What else are you not telling me then?"

"What?"

Dew closes his eyes, shaking his head again.

"I'm going inside."

"Dew, come on, please, we can talk about this!"

"Maybe." Dew says, "But not now, not when I'm... I can't. I just can't."

"...I can make it up to you." Rain offers, "Anything. Anything you want, I-"

And, perhaps, that was the wrong thing to say, because the feeling of Dew's hand slapping across his face comes in an instant.

"How about a boyfriend who doesn't lie to my face and then try to buy me when he realizes he messed up?" Dew scoffs, "How about that?"

[queer-ragnelle]

Just for fun: I find myself falling into a well of obsession with Grail encounters. There are about a thousand books about Grail quests, all of which I am lovingly downloading with many thanks to The Lit Preserver, but do you have any favorite grail-centric stories or moments?

Hello!

Good thing I enjoy the Grail Quest a normal amount and didn't overreact while sneak reading it at work then drove home crying. :,^)

I’m going to give you all examples of Grail Quests I liked, which can also be found on Medieval Literature list, Modern Retellings list, Films list, and TV Shows list!

Medieval:

Vulgate Grail Quest

Perlesvaus

Perceval: The Story of The Grail (+ all 4 Continuations) by Chrétien de Troyes

The Crown by Heinrich von dem Türlin

Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach

Peredur

Retellings:

Sir Galahad: A Christmas Mystery by William Morris

The Story of The Grail and The Passing of Arthur by Howard Pyle

Galahad by John Erskine

The Legend of King Arthur by Andrew Davies

Guinevere Evermore by Sharan Newman

Blessed Bastard by Ruth P. M. Lehmann

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Films:

Monty Python and The Holy Grail (1975)

Perceval (1978)

Excalibur (1981)

TV Shows:

BBC The Legend of King Arthur (1979)

Let me know what you think of these when you get to read/watch them. Enjoy!

[pinkkop]

I've now posted my second weekly QL recap post and I'm honestly just really proud of myself. Not just that I've stuck to doing it but also that I've managed to make it something I might actually be able to keep doing because I've made it as easy as possible for myself. That way it's less likely that it'll start feeling like a chore or that it'll take up a lot of my time when I'd rather be talking about the shows than formatting a post.

So because I'm a nerd and I kinda wanna show off a little bit because I'm proud of what I've managed to make, let me tell you exactly what I've set up to make my weekly recap post.

The basis for the post is simple enough: an excel spreadsheet and a python script.

My Spreadsheet of BLs

The spreadsheet is based on My Watchlist on MyDramaList which I literally just do ctrl+A and copypaste into a sheet. This is then automatically compiled into a different sheet where I've made a better overview of all the shows I'm watching and have watched in the past.

Based on this I've set up the weekly overview in a separate sheet shown below

When I'm compiling my weekly recap I can then easily add any new information here.

For new shows I add the information below to the sheet

- MD Title (copied from MyDramaList overview sheet)

- Title (usually copy of MD title with minor edits)

- Site I'm watching the show on

- Tags I want to use for the show

- Episode nr. I'm starting the show on

I also make a banner for the show but I've found a good source for images so it doesn't take long most of the time.

I have to manually upload the banner for the first week but then for the second week a show is in the recap, I can add the HTML for the banner from the previous week's post to the sheet. That way the banner will just be automatically be added to the post every week after that.

Throughout the week I then write notes on each episode I watch into the sheet and before I make the actual post I add the order I want the shows to appear in on the post.

The Script is Where the Magic Happens

When I've finished filling out the spreadsheet for the week I go to my python script, change the week number in the script and run the script.

In the script I've taken the HTML code from my original recap post and set it up so the script fills the information from my spreadsheet for each show into the right places in the HTML code. Since I doubt you guys would find it riveting to look at my full script, here's a little snippet!

When I run the script it then prints out the HTML for the post which I can insert into a new post on tumblr and voila, a weekly recap!!!

I do then have to go through the text for each show and add breaks and spellcheck because that's easier to do here than in the excel cell where I write the notes to begin with. If I have any overall notes or any new banners I have to add, then this is also when I'd do it.

I'm sure there are things you could set up in a better way but this works for me and reduces the amount of time I have to set aside every week for creating the post by a lot. It just makes it easier for me to share my thoughts in a way that's nice to look at without having to spend a ton of time formatting a post each week.

Hope this didn't take away any of the magic behind my posts but just gave a cool insight into the things you can do to make recurring posts easier to make.

Any questions or comments are welcome!

Side note: if you use tumblr on the mobile app and notice that any of the lines with "Episode x of x || Watching on:[site]" are split into two lines, let me know!

That line was surprisingly the hardest to make look the way I wanted because the width of posts and look of text types change depending on whether you're on desktop or the mobile app.

[tangledinink]

your art and design(s) of donnie has inspired me to give my donnie a long fluffy tail.

and like i headcanon donnie as trans, and i know that female turtles have little short tails but my excuse is that something just went a little weird with his mutation so he has a long tail. that also goes for the fluffy part of the tail, since turtles don't have fur whatsoever

sorry this was random I just wanted to say- also i LOVE YOUR ART!!! ITS SO PRETTY

hell yeah! long tail donnie supremacy!!! go off!!! chase your bliss!!! give him a long fluffy tail! my favorite way to 'justify' donnie's long tail (not that you need a justification) is a headcanon that I 1000% stole from @spectralsleuth that the mad dogz got more than just turtle/human DNA in there...

i mean, they're baron draxum's masterwork! unstoppable super soldiers! the answer to the prophecy! if you wanna make an incredible dish, you don't just use two ingredients, right? so i like to imagine it being, like, mostly turtle and lou jitsu dna, sure, but with, like... a dash of dna from a dozen or so other animals, too. just for good measure. you gotta season the dish, right?

it's fun because it just opens so many doors in my mind. oh, donnie's long tail? yeah, that's the water monitor dna. the way the gemini wag their tails? oh, there's some doberman in there. the sharp teeth? python genes making an appearance! they purr because of the trace amounts of wildcat heritage they have--

[carlyraejepsans]

If you are going to make a game here’s some things that might be helpful!

Game engines:

Godot: very new dev friendly and it’s free. Has its own programming language (GDscript) but also supports C#. It’s best for 2D games but it can do 3D also.

Unity: I don’t even know if I should be recommending Unity. It has caused me much pain and the suffering. But Unity has an incredible amount of guides and tutorials. And once you get the hang of something it’s hard to get caught on the same thing again. It also has a great Visual Studio integration and uses C#. I will warn you the unity animator is where all dreams go to die. It’s a tedious process but you can probably get some plugins to help with that.

Unreal: Don’t use it unless you’re building a very large or very detailed 3D game. It also uses C++ which is hell.

Renpy: Made for visual novels but has support for small mini games. It only supports Python iirc. Basically if you’re making a VN it’s renpy all the way otherwise you should look elsewhere.

What to learn: Game design and how to act as your own game designer. As a designer you need to know if a part of your game isn’t meshing with the rest of it and be willing to give up that part if needed. Also sound design is very important as well. If you want to make your own sounds audacity is perfect for recording and cutting up your clips. If you want to find sound effects I recommend freesound.org and the YouTube royalty free music database.

Sadly I can’t recommend a lot of places to learn this stuff because I’m taking Game Development in Uni. So most of my info comes from my lectures and stuff. One of my game design textbooks is pretty good but it’s around $40 CAD. It’s called the game designers playbook by Samantha Stahlke and Pejman Mirza-Babaei if you’re interested (fun fact there’s a photo of Toriel in there)

Anyway sorry for dumping this large ask on you I’m just really passionate about game design and I like to see other people get into it.

please do not apologize I'd never heard half of this stuff so this is super useful!! I've seen some godot tutorials on YouTube although so far I've played around with RPG maker MV (it was on sale. very very fiddly interface, i had trouble getting around it) and gamemaker, which recently became free for non-commercial use (a lot more approachable on first impact but like i said, haven't really done anything substantial in either yet).

mostly, I'm still in the super vague stage. I've got an idea for the main story conflict, the protagonist and their foil, the general aesthetic i want to go for (likely 2D graphics, but it would be cool to make like. small cutscenes in low-poly 3D) but not much else. haven't exactly decided on the gameplay either! it's gonna necessarily be rpg-esque, but I'm not much of a fan of classic turn-based combat so. I'm gonna check out other games and see if i can frankenstein anything cooler :P

[naffeclipse]

It is I.

Snake Nerd, here to tell you more about snakes. This one is gona be a bit more scientificly dense, but very interessting.

Today’s fact, Snake teeth and Fangs.

There are four different types of teeth/ fangs. Or better like one type of teeth and three types of fangs.

Frist are the non-venomous snakes. These are called aglypen snakes. These snakes have no fangs, just normal teeth. See your Pythons, Colubridae, Boa and every other non-venomous snake.

Next are solenoglyph snakes, these are the snakes that come to mined when thinking about snake fangs. The Fangs of these snakes can rotate by 90 degrees, when their mouth is closed the fangs are nicely tucked in the mouth. If they open their mouth their fangs jut out by a pretty good amount.

These are your Vipeirdae and Crotalinae. Depending on the species of snakes the fangs can be 2cm to 5cm long (google won’t cooperate so I don’t know what it is in inch)

Third are proteroglyph snakes. Here the fangs are fixed in their position in the mouth, only able to move a little bit. This is why these fangs aren’t as long as the fangs of solenoglyph snakes. Snakes that fall in this category are cobras, Elapidae and Hydrophiinae.

Now this one, if you know this one I’m going to be very impressed. This is the secret third type of venomous snake that’s not very well known. Opistoglyph snakes. They’re venomous snakes who’s fangs are located further back in of their mouth, right under their eyes. Also, the fangs are in pairs.

God examples for this type of snake are hognose snakes and False water cobra. (one day, one day I will have false water cobra, and I’ll love it)

As you can see, you have quite the choise when it comes to your Naga!boys. Plus depending on the fangs it could make for some cool characterization, potentialy.

I am absolutely making notes about teeth and how they could translate to the naga boys! Not to mention a good host of snakes that can be used as bases for such creatures hehe I'm also fascinated with the fangs that can be tucked away before springing back out—imagine a wide grin framed by two wicked fangs!

Augh, eats all these facts like desert

[archiveyourblog]

How to back up your Tumblr blog

Not sure if all of you heard the news, but Wordpress laid off 16% of its staff, which happened to include senior tumblr staff like cyle. According to 3liza, the amount of staff running tumblr is about 25.

Welp. Will Tumblr finally die? I don't know. It's pretty likely, since this site costs millions to run and to host all this content, but I'll stay till the end. But I backed up my blog, with the help of a post that can't be reblogged rn.

you can reblog this one though.

Quoth butchlinkle: "In your blog settings you have the ability to initiate a blog export, and this will generate a backup for your blog.

Fair warning though, if you’ve been on the platform for a long time this archive is likely to be quite hefty in file size. This blog I have had for 5 years with 22k posts, and the export from tumblr came to be 48GB. My previous blog I made in 2011 and has 95k posts, so needless to say I did not use tumblr’s built in export to back that one up.

If you want more control over exactly what you back up from your blog, I recommend that you use tumblr-utils instead. It allows you to backup specific tags, post types, and to ignore posts that you did not create (reblogs where you’ve added a comment count unfortunately do not count unless you use the older version of the script made with python 2.7).

To use it:

download and install python

create an application on tumblr to get an api key

create a folder where you would like to save your backups and right click to open it in the terminal/command prompt, or type cmd.exe in the address bar from inside that folder

Backing up just my original posts from this blog with this command came to 632MB rather than 48GB, and also gave me the option to save my posts in JSON format which will be useful for converting my posts to a new format for self hosting.

On that note I’m currently looking into figuring out a simple (and ideally free) way of self hosting a static site blog that utilises activitypub, and also converting my old posts to re-host on said blog.

This post series by maho.dev on implementing activitypub with any static site is my primary source of guidance atm if you also want to try figure that out yourself, as well as having an explanation for why you’d even want to do this if you don’t already know

but if tumblr goes down before I get things sorted and write up a post about it then i’ll be reporting back on it via my bsky, mastodon, and toyhouse accounts

if you dont have an account on any of these I’ll also be sharing an update via my personal site’s RSS feed, link of which includes an explanation of what RSS is and some feed readers you can use, I highly recommend checking it out as getting a feed reader is going to be the best way you can stay connected with people if they scatter across the internet!

tldr: download tumblr-utils to backup your blog more efficiently, introduce yourself to RSS and get a feed reader to stay connected with people, consider saving mine so you can find out how to self host your blog later if tumblr goes down."

here's a guide from the notes: https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1yBWlk-yEgpSoEh3c9oLhz_kbLtUGqbqzOpCtJsvQgjI/mobilebasic?pli=1#h.u9vj7pezwpcy

Back up those blogs. This was way faster than trying to use Webarchive, and webarchive seems to be only good for saving text, audio, and video, because it saved none of the images. And remember: I did not write this guide, and I do not know a thing about coding or fixing bugs.

[trustross2]

Thinking more (spoilers for dungeon meshi manga).

Fuck, what a literally perfect execution of a “devil” in fiction. Like I thoroughly enjoyed the way Kui played with western fantasy tropes in order to ground them in reality and make them ecologically feasible. Stuff like the dragons using everything they can’t digest as food, or the succubi functioning as mosquitos. Plus the Monty python rabbit bit caught me way off guard in the best way!

But MAN, the demon were just *chefs kiss*. I play a lot of dnd, and absolutely adore monsters that can play with the mind of a player. Yeah sure a big demon getting summoned can hurt a lot of people, but the mind games you that are played when you are dealing with these hyper intelligent, hyper persuasive types of devils who desire something less gruesome, but more horrific than just endless blood and death.

A few things that I loved in the character of the winged lion. First is that it had contingencies out the ass, it had a contingency for when it first got sealed by thistle. It initially set its eyes on laios and began to worm into his mind, setting the seeds for a greater desire than to just save his sister, which wouldn’t help the demon much. Then, noticing this weak link in marcille, it decided to invest a bit of time in exploring that option too. Then even when that FAILs the demon is like “actually laios you were who I wanted all long!” Like this dude had PLANS, and that’s exactly how a hyper intelligent, essentially immortal, ageless creature has to function.

I also enjoyed the sheer amount of gaslighting homeboy did, alongside the other indirect methods of harming the dungeon master. It’s not too dissimilar to the parasites, but on one’s mind, overwhelming it with knowledge IT can handle, but KNOWS you can’t. Toying with its victims sense of truth, attempting to distort every fact around it to make IT seems like the most reasonable, well meaning one. And to a certain extent it IS until it eats you.

And probably the most important lie is that it can’t harm you or control you, which it can’t literally. But it is a hyper-dimensional creature older than time and you are a regular guy. So believing that is stupid! Especially when you consider its ability to eat Desires, simultaneously it’s raison d’être but one of its most powerful abilities. The way it can make you forget essentially anything it doesn’t want you to remember. A force so powerful that ability is it’s undoing in the end.

All this to say that the manga is really fuckin good honestly. It’s funny that I ran a similar creature in dnd recently, but I’m gonna be remembering this next time I do. Because probably the most clever thing that I wanna steal is how it pretends to be a good thing, setting up the slaying of ITS obstacles as good and righteous.

[txttletale]

what's up with not for broadcast? i've had it in my wishlist for a while just from the basic premise of the game seeming interesting.

first of all, its political satire is somehow both heavy handed and bafflingly confused. like the plot of the game is that Evil Socialists take over by Doing Populism (scary!) and then do Evil Socialism by taking away rich people's money and doing 1984 to everybody. and idk this could just be standard anticommunism and it'd be annoying but not confusing. but the game is also like--like, it makes a point of how the Evil Socialist Government gets sanctioned by the rest of the world causing economic crisis, and how the main anti-government rebel is a self-centred paranoid far-right podcaster clearly based off alex jones, and how the rich people were all nasty iditos who didn't deserve their money. which like. i don't know. what's the game trying to say, then?

the only possible takeaway i can take from how these two factions are presented is like 'wealth inequality and capitalism is bad but it would also be bad to do anything about it'. the only character who is presented as even remotly sympathetic is the news reader who is decidedly apolitical and only cares about Getting To Read The News With Journalistic Objectivity. so many weird and confusing and self-defeating political assumptions baked into this game.

secondly, the humour misses the mark because it just can't fucking stop. like the joke will reach its punchline but because there needs to be a set amount of footage for the core gameplay loop to work jokes just get pushed wayyy past the point of the punchline. and not in an artful way like tim robinson or aunty donna just in a very tedious way where even quite funny jokes become absolutely fucking obnoxious the more they go on for. this is subjective of course but at some point watching C-tier monty python skits stretched out to three times their natural length just became so grating.

finally, the gameplay is so close to being good but losers confidence in its main gameplay mechanic at the last moment. like most of it is deciding when to cut between several different camera feeds, like, yknow, potentially making people look bad or good, undermining or reinforcing propaganda, etc. and this is a really good core mechanic that's really good and satisfying to play with! but unfortunately they keep interrupting it with stupid gimmicks like wiggling a line about to make it match anotehr line (the TV signal is out of tune or whatever) which instead of feeling like you're making meaningful choices about the titular broadcast just feel like pointless busywork. all these little distractions really really ruined the gameplay aspect of this for me which otherwise was extremely good and intersesting.