#but. it really can not be overstated just how bad things are looking for them right now

[bookshelfdreams]

There's been some news articles here that the AfD wasn't kicked out of the ID for being too Neonazi, but by being too obvious about it. RN cut ties because while they do in fact agree on politics, RN is trying to appeal to more moderate conservatives. AfD is just being too overtly nazi, especially currently. So it isn't really that AfD was too far right-wing for the others, even though RN and others may say that for publicity reasons to save their image, but that they didn't have the forethought to hide it a bit more.

I mean, that's kind of true. Part of it is definitely that Krah couldn't just keep his big dumb mouth shut. That he had to go and be #notallSS. In an interview. With an Italian newspaper. Being "well, acshully" about the most notorious war criminals in European history still doesn't go over well with our neighbours who were the victims in said war crimes (like, say, literally erasing entire villages). Who would have thought. That's the line he crossed.

(Yes, he's an idiot of truly incomprehensible magnitude)

It is also correct that Le Pen and friends are distancing himself from him and the AfD in general more because of optics than any actual political stances. This is calculation, not the sudden emergence of a moral core, I agree with that.

However.

It really can not be overstated just how bad the optics are. This isn't just about a controversial quote.

This is also about the fact that the second in line after Krah, Petr Bystron, is accused of being entangled in the whole Voice of Europe affair - a misinformation network, revealed to have been controlled by the Russian state, and accused of having paid political actors to spread propaganda. Bystron is alleged to have taken 20,000€ from them. Supposedly, there's tapes of this. He denies it, of course, but there was enough evidence to lift his immunity and to issue a warrant to raid his office, so. (There's also reports that he initially complained about being paid in 200€ bills. Allegedly, he would have preferred smaller ones.)

Consequences from the party? He was advised by Krah to keep to the background during the election campaign. Other than this, nothing.

Then, of course there was Krah's employee Jian G., who was arrested on accusations of espionage for the Chinese government. Krah had no idea this was even happening, you guys, seriously! Taken aback he was. Shocked. Scandalized, even.

And there was the time chats came to light in which pro-Russia Ukrainian Oleg Voloshyn assured him that "problems" with "compensation" had been sovled and from May on, "everything will be as it was before February". Seems like he took money from Russia too, doesn't it? He denies it. He never answered the message, Voloshyn probably just wanted to invite him to the opera. or the message was meant for someone else. (No, really. That's what Krah said).

Again, consequences? From the party? For any of this? Nada.

This is the problem. The AfD is openly corrupt and incompetent, the chairs clearly have 0 control over their own members, and none of these absolute buffoons can behave like civilized people in public. This isn't even touching on all the many, many scandals the party had on a national level this year alone!

f course you can't be a far right populist and have manners or a modicum of decency, so the fact that even people like Marine le Pen find the AfD unbearable - honestly gives me a little hope? There's an election in my state this year, and the AfD is predicted to get about 30%. That's very bad.

I do not think any of the clowns in I&D are better people for excluding the AfD. I don't think any of them will take this as an opportunity to take a good long look in the mirror and examine all the hatred they have in their heart.

This is, however, another little act of self-destruction. Another brick crumbling from the foundation of the party. I hope it all comes crashing down.

[pocket-deer-boy]

This is just a personal pet peeve of mine but i feel like a lot of online art tutorials overstate the importance of stuff like guidelines to get “correct” anatomy every single time and while those are typically really good handgrips for beginners we should also tell beginners about gesture drawing. Like maybe i’m being too animatorbrained here but being able to pump out a pose in anywhere from 15 seconds to 2 minutes and quickly move onto the next drawing without lingering on every little mistake is a really really good way at getting good at drawing people proportions quickly. If you make mistakes fast you learn from them fast. So here’s a little exercise:

Sit down, grab some reference images, draw ten poses in twenty minutes (or do ten poses in ten minutes if you’re feeling adventurous or confident) and take a step back and look at your work after the fact. Be sure to move from drawing to drawing quickly once your timer is done. Pretend you’re in a model drawing class and the model has already changed pose whenever your timer hits - finish up whatever lines you were drawing, move on to looking at what the model is doing now.

You will make a lot of shitty drawings, of course, but that’s not so bad. You only spent a minute or two making each one. Focus on the drawings you do like, and look at them as a whole.

Look at all the drawings together and how they fit together on the page. Look at little details and lines you’re proud of. Take note of things you found difficult to get right in such a short time. Take note of the things you liked doing. Do the exercise again, and focus in on the things you want to improve or explore.

Maybe you want to focus on how the torso conveys its weight on the legs. Maybe you want to focus on how shoulders and arms bend around the neck. Maybe you want to focus on how to convey depth on the torso. Maybe you can learn something more about how to draw a body if you only draw using sharp lines and angles. Maybe you can learn something more if you only draw using squiggly, overlapping lines. Maybe you can learn more about how to draw a body if you only fill out the shadows with thick, quick lines. Congratulations! You’re not just learning how to draw a body, but you’re now also exploring your tastes!

This is a fine exercise to do alone, but it’s a lot more fun to do as an activity with a small group so you get to discuss the art you made together.

[lost-in-fandoms]

Daniel is stuck in a time loop.

cw: somewhat sexual content (the first sentence is how explicit it gets)

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. This part never gets old. He listens to Max's moan, half lost in the pillow pressed against his face, looks at his broad back covered in sweat. No matter how many times they do it, this is always good.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. His legs and back are sore from the crash, but he doesn't let it stop him. Max's skin is pink and soft below him, and for a second Daniel wants to lean forward and bite, hard enough to leave a mark. It wouldn't matter anyway. It would be gone when he wakes up today again.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. Max's face is angled slightly away from the pillow today, and Daniel can hear him moan his name more clearly. It makes him want to push the pillow back into place.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He hasn't stopped thinking about how Max had moaned his name, however many repetitions ago. D-ah!-niel. In this version of today, he couldn't stop thinking about it for even a second. Waking up alone. Going to the track. Driving and driving and driving. Oversteering in turn 8, crashing in the barriers. D-ah!-niel. He pulls the pillow away, wants to hear it again and again.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. Today's crash had been different. For once, it had been the car failing him, not him failing the car. The crash hadn't been quite a crash, just a slow stop. Nothing hurts today. He still feels like crying.

Daniel pushes into Max, a sharp snap of hips. Max scrambles for something to hold onto. After the crash, the thoughts of the team had been clear during the debrief. One more race like this, and he was out of a seat. And if he was out of a seat, he was going to lose Max too, this fuck buddies thing they have going on too fragile to survive the distance. Everything seems to hurt double.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He doesn't know how many times he's done this anymore, but he knows that he can get tired of everything else, but doesn't get tired of this. A part of him wants to pull out, to curl up in Max's arms and just ask to be held. He knows Max would do it, but if he has to relive this day over and over, he can at least get some good sex out of it.

Daniel doesn't push into Max. He lays on his chest and sobs, knowing the tears will never have existed tomorrow.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He doesn't know if he wants to get out of the loop anymore. Sure, crashing every day is exhausting, and having to go to the subsequent debrief is horrible, but how will he be able to go back to his life after this? How will he go back to being friends with Max, to only touching him from time to time, when every day one more piece of his heart gets stuck to him?

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He tries to be aware of every twitch of Max's muscles, every sound he makes, every shift in his half hidden expression. Just in case he never gets to see it again, just in case he wakes up tomorrow. He doesn't believe in it anymore, knows he'll wake up today again, but one never knows. Or maybe he just wants to have it all. He's getting really bad at lying to himself.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He still wants to make it good, just like the first day. He's no longer thinking what if this one is the one that sticks, he just wants Max to feel good, in every iteration of today. If it was possible, he'd want it in every tomorrow too.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. He doesn't stop himself from letting all the words fall from his lips, doesn't dare looking at Max's reaction to them. He doesn't want to know if Max will say them back. They will be gone in the morning.

Daniel pushes into Max, slow and steady. The air feels different, not quite as stale. He finished p11 today, not quite points, but the first time in a hundred and more races he finished at all. He didn't wait for Max to come to him, walked to his room himself. He's looking down into his blue eyes, open, soft. Trusting. He knows he'd look the same in Max's place, but he's had hundreds of night to work up to it. He understands now that if this had been the first and only night, Max would have looked at him the same, it had been just Daniel who had never wanted to see. Now he can't stop looking. He leans down to kiss him, just barely stops himself from saying the words he's not hiding from himself anymore.

He'll say them tomorrow.

[dukeofankh]

Almost everybody has at least a *little* bit of a point.

Yeah. Even them. And being wrong about everything else doesn't actually change that. They might not know how that point should actually be interpreted, they might come to foolish or even actively harmful conclusions from that point. They might radically overstate how prevalent or important the point is. But don't fall into the trap of refusing to acknowledge things that are true just because a bad person says them.

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen someone from a group I belong to dunking on someone from some outgroup, even a very harmful outgroup, and in doing so, denying basically true things that we would absolutely agree with if we were talking about them in private.

I dunno. Maybe it bugs me for neurodivergent reasons. Maybe I'm a pedantic ass.

The other day I got into a massive fight online with a guy in a feminist group because he was squabbling with a bit of a dipshit who pointed out that men are under a lot of pressure to become financially successful, and that's why they do stupid shit like get into crypto.

And like... rather than say "yeah, men are still expected under hegemonic masculinity to be breadwinners, despite the advances of women into the workforce, the economy being in shambles and the middle class having been whittled to a toothpick at this point. We need to work as feminists to challenge that gendered expectation, and as leftists to rebuild the power of labour to allow everyone, both men and women, to have a living wage that can allow for a family and a dignified life." This other feminist guy decided instead that, since the concept of men being pressured to be economic providers was being used in a way that sounded like it was suggesting that women only want to date rich men, it was redpill propaganda and, therefore, fascist misinformation. He went with, "what are you talking about, Gen X killed the concept of corporate success as marker of personal worth, everyone agrees that being a workaholic is bad and unattractive now. The idea that you think you'll be judged for being poor is a lie spread by the right to radicalize you into hating women." He did not react well when I pointed out that he was just as wrong as the other guy was. More wrong, actually.

And like...you can build multiple arguments from the same data point. Some are well reasoned, some aren't. Someone can feel pressure and assume it's much more widespread than it is, or that it takes a much more extreme form than it really does. But if you're going to coherently argue against an idea, you have to honestly appraise the situation and figure out what grains of truth it has in it. You have to acknowledge that core root of truth and show them how it means something else.

If, instead of doing that, you just deny the true thing because the other person's argument is built on it and you want to stamp it out? Because, hey, they interpreted it wrong, it's not like they really believe something true? You act as though a fact used to support a lie is also a lie. And if you do that, and argue against the facts because their conclusions are stupid, you construct a little world where, in refusing to accept both their flawed argument AND the fact it's based on, you become more wrong than they are. And you make the deeply foolish choice of picking a fight in that world. And if it's on the internet, that little world can become pretty big. Tactically, it's about the dumbest thing you could do. It ensures that they will keep fighting you because...you're fucking obviously wrong? It radicalizes people, because suddenly the only people who will acknowledge the truth on this thing they care about are other terrible people. It makes your side look dogmatic and ignorant. And apart from all of that...it gets things completely backwards.

Your principles are what you want to use to change the world for the better. You believe them because you honestly believe that following your principles improves things, because they are based on a solid grasp of how the world works. Your beliefs follow from what is true. If you flip it so that whether something is true is based on whether it supports your beliefs...that's a bad road to go down.

[qsycomplainsalot]

Re: Pervertin or how German Supersoldiers High on Crack travelled through Space and Time Buy my Book

I came across a post on the bird site yesterday calling into attention the use of pervitin, more or less adderall, among German troops during WW2. For context pervitin tablets were indeed issued to a lot of military personnel back in those days, specifically to aircraft pilot and sometimes tank crews on long missions. The drug as some of you may have heard keeps you awake and alert, along with a slew of side effects and a non negligible chance of addiction. In a discussion that brought to view just how willing people are to buy into Nazi propaganda in the year of our f*cking lord 2023, I pointed out a few things, uphill and having to indulge a lot of sidetracking. The use of pervitin has always been a little overstated ever since it came to the internet's attention, and I certainly would never call it a key component of the Blitzkrieg when, in the theaters of war where actual Blitzkrieg was employed, its success was more due to a combination of innovative doctrines, intact fuel supplies and a big fat helping of dumb luck. It was a bold move highly relying on capturing enemy fuel depots with fast, surprise deep strikes supported by a lot of armored and air forces, and it was only sustainable in neighboring, industrialized countries. One can argue if the USSR was industrialized at the time, but it stopped mattering when the Russians removed their entire industry from the West to beyond the Ural mountains. The Blitz stalled there.

"But if it didn't work, then why did the Nazis do it so often ?" Well the answer to that is twofold. The first, longer answer is that Nazis were a bunch of f*cking morons. Maybe not one by one, but as a government in charge of military procurement, they were one bunch of goofy motherf*ckers. Gaggle of functional shit-for-brains really. The Nazis gave every one of their tanks in the middle of the war two coats of anti-magnetic paint, which took almost a full day to cure, despite being the only major nation to use magnetic antitank mines. The Nazis kept using slave labor drawn from their prisoners of war, including in the manufacturing of their overengineered armored vehicles, resulting in poor quality products or, you know, a few rivets in your magnificent Tiger tank being replaced by a cigarette butt. The Nazis spent more than half the cost of a strategic bomber on every V2 rocket, not including design costs, for less than half the payload. It ended up killing more Germans and slave workers than British people in London, for literally no strategic or tactical result with 0.4 person killed per every rocket. The second, shorter answer is that pervitin was not used that much. A lot of the arguments trying to boost its importance come from a single book, "Blitzed" by Norman Ohler, now available in twenty languages apparently, where grand claims are made by a historian who was probably more than a little tired of seeing Buzzfeed rack in the big bucks instead of him.

End note; I was called out by a bird siter after the conversation that inspired this post for even beginning to fact-check this, which they considered, and I quote, "fangirling over nazi stats". I cannot stress this enough, learning the 'bad' parts of history does not make you bad person, it is how you interact with the resulting knowledge. Unlike what they implied, I had to look for those supporting evidence. I had a hunch that such a grabbing headline about super-drugs would be fake, I knew offhand that V2 rockets killed more blues than reds, but when I had to research all that jazz about Nazis and their superweapons it was to dunk on them, not make another History Channel documentary about a time-travelling bell. Stay critical, fascists can eat shit.

[asksythe]

I want to write an LB6 Oberon x Gudako x PHH Vortigern story.

The other day, I told @erimies that I wanted to try my hand at writing a dark romance story.

I don't often write romance, and even when I do, I view it less as shipping and romance and more as the continuation of characterization. So, if I feel this is how this character would behave or potentially change in a certain direction, I would follow that logic to its conclusion no matter how I personally feel about it.

But the thing is... despite how Oberon Vortigern would like to portray himself, I don't personally think of him as a truly evil kind of character. You see it in the way he conducts himself in canon LB6. There was a lot of things he didn't have to do, but he did (like teaching young Castoria and giving her a short time of respite from her loneliness and ostracization).

There were also a lot of things he could have done were he truly evil, but he never did. I'm talking about his relationship with Riri during the early part of the Lostbelt. Almost every night in the early part of the story, they were alone with each other. Almost every night. Whether it was him climbing in through the window of her room in Mike's tavern, or when he sent Castoria away to gather woods or create a bounded field, leaving him to sit alone with Riri by the fireside. They didn't do anything. They just talked.

I don't think it's possible to overstate how emotionally vulnerable Riri was at that time before she met Mash again in Norwich. Someone as smart and socially savvy as Oberon should have been able to twist Riri's heart and mind like a pretzel in that situation. He might not have been able to pull the wools over her eyes for long, but he absolutely could have done devastating damage or primed her in a way that would benefit him more. I'm fairly sure there are some kinky hentai doujins out there that explored this very scenario. But the fact that Oberon never even tried spoke volume.

Then there's his wet sock of a fight at the end of LB6. Like, sir, can you be more half-assed in your big villain speech and fight?

Summer 2023 on JP server more or less cinched the deal. Oberon is just... a wet cat... and really really really (embarrassingly) down bad for Riri.

Hah!

My point is, I don't think regular Oberon cuts it for a truly dark romance kind of story. Not against someone whose heart is so resilient like Riri. So I thought of exploring the Vortigern side.

As it so happened, I acquired the novella Garden of Avalon, in which PHH Vortigern is featured as the villain.

Having read it, I... have thoughts. PHH Vortigern seems to exhibit the same kind of put-upon, enforced evil as LB Oberon. Again, his actions gave him away. He usurped his brother Uther's throne via violence... and yet let Uther go with his life and limbs fully in tact. And that's how we arrived at the canon Artoria, who is a dragon in human form... because Uther took one look at Vortigern's dragon aspect and thought. I would like me a big freakin gun just like that and he went on to do really skeevy-sounding human experimentation (via way of Merlin), resulting in Arotia....

...Bruh...

And people wonder why Artoria felt so inhuman as king... Well, if her purpose of existence was only to defeat Vortigern and never to succeed Uther as King, then it kinda makes sense, doesn't it?

Even when he was defeated, Vortigern still worried about the fate of the world and his own niece (in the usual tsundere snarky way).

Well, I guess Oberon really is an alternate version of PHH Vortigern. There's a good bit of similarities between them. Implied and not. In any case, that's where the PHH Vortigern x Riri comes in. Because I thought, there are things worth exploring here.

....

Nineveh 2461

... is the name I gave this story idea.

...

On the eve when the two brothers, splintered now in blood and heart, part from one another, the aggrieved people of Albion proclaim. 

We do not want to be fought over by either dragons or wyrms, for whichever one prevails, the little men will lose regardless. 

And so a plan is hatched alongside Uther’s dream to birth a dragon in human form. Is it not customary to proffer a greedy dragon with a virgin? A tribute shall be gifted to Vile King Vortigern, so that he would be sufficiently distracted and thus turn the worst of his evils from them. This shall be no ordinary virgin. Nothing that the Vile King himself could clutch from the populace. 

No. 

This one shall be crafted to specifications. A vessel shall be made. A ritual shall be enacted to call forth that which he desires but may not touch. 

One who can withstand his savagery. One whose burning hurt will endure even the Vile King’s frozen embrace. 

...

Ritsuka is summoned into a ‘vessel’ during the Arthurian cycle in PHH, singularity style!

Core story is a flip on the classical wicked dragon and imprisoned princess tale. 

An exploration of what book Vortigern means by a ‘dark paradise where humans cannot step foot on.’

It’s less that Ritsuka is imprisoned and more that she’s enjoying domestic life, taking care of cantankerous dragon man Vortigern.

This tragic, weirdly domestic romance is doomed because, regardless of how she feels, she has to resolve this singularity and return to Chaldea.

The climax is Ritsuka’s servants aiding the local Artoria and coming to her rescue. 

Oberon Vortigern is among the rescue team, spearheading it. 

Final battle involves Oberon Vortigern against himself. PHH Vortigern against a version of himself. 

[dozyisdead]

Low downforce isn't necessarily a bad thing! Teams are constantly adjusting their levels based on tracks (ex. McLaren last year during Las Vegas), but Williams does seem car more suited for low downforce tracks. The thing I find kinda interesting, is that in theory a low downforce setup would actually be better for Alex who prefers oversteer--- which also means that Max could probably do very well in that Williams if they shave off the extra weights that's quite literally weighing them down. Carlos is almost notorious throughout the Ferrari fans for liking understeer better than oversteer (because Charles is wildly known as preferring a car on the nose, or more oversteer like Max and Alex). This kinda makes you wonder what that will entail for Carlos' run in William's! So to me, Carlos and Alex will be essentially like Carlos and Charles where they both prefer different things which could end up being a slight issue for Williams. I'm also pretty sure that the Williams past few cars have been oversteery, which brings me to Logan!

On Logan's end, I honesty don't know what he prefers? I've watched Prema videos of him explicitly answering it as he prefers oversteer in general ( he also said he'd rather have understeer during an actual race, but turns back on that statement later saying he prefers over). I get confused though, when some people are saying that he looks like he prefers understeering now though! So, Logan's situation is a bit funky to me. In the Prema video though, Oscar basically says that Logan likes to "send the car" which to me, sounds like he would perform well in a oversteery/low downforce car? Keep in mind, that this is from F3 and around 4 years ago, so Logan's preferences could definitely have changed by now.

I honestly don't really know which teams are more low/high downforce prone, but I do know the extremes of the two which are Williams (low) and Aston Martin (high). Just in Silverstone, Aston Martin had the highest downforce configuration out of all the teams! Which is wild compared to the other lead contender's (Ferrari, McLaren, Red bull, Mercedes) who chose to go more neutral to even low downforce set ups!

Oh great! Thank you again for more information!

So, you mentioned that Carlos prefers an understeer set up, which is kind of the opposite of what Williams has right now? I agree that it's going to be interesting to see what happens if the car is still on the oversteer heavy side, like it seems to be this year. I'm not sure if it's been like this in the past, but that is really interesting to know! I think with Logan's situation it is really tricky, but I believe someone mentioned that he goes over how the car feels and the data a lot, so maybe he's slowly been finding his balance? I can't imagine that it's been very easy to do so in the Williams, but if we look at his progress this year, I feel like he's been getting there. Like I said before, if they had a better car to figure out which why they prefeed, I think it would be a good view of their skills and abilities as drivers. Alex has his set up figured out it feels like, and the good thing is that the Williams car is really suited for him, being low downforce and somewhat oversteer. if we also take into account that Max like the car oversteer, I feel like that means Alex was doing a lot better at Red Bull than people think. Again, I despise the teams, love the drivers, yk?

Also, the fact that Willaims and Aston Martin are the polar extremes makes a lot of sense! I know people joke about cars being tractors or lawnmowers, but Williams really feels like an actual tractor sometimes. And I want to say that the reason Logan has been kind of switching about is maybe he is as close as we can get to a true neutral preference when it comes to over vs. under steer? I know that F1 cars are extremely customizable, for example Michael Schumacher's configuration was nearly painful for anyone else to drive because it was so tailored. I think Logan is a bit of an odd one out in that aspect, he prefers possibly a very neutral or as close to basic set up? I believe the only difference is that maybe his set up is more left handed leaning in the car? I heard something along those lines.

Thank you for all the information, it has been very fun to learn about and extremely interesting!

[importantgalaxyrunaway]

The investigation- chapter 4 Colby x y/n 🧸

CONTENTS: more y/n Lore, tw⚠️ Scratches and blood, fluff, bit of angst, implied sex, cliffhanger

AUTHOURS NOTE: ITS NOT AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS OKAY I’m definitely overstating the angst part and please like and let me know how you feel I worked hard on this. Sorry it took a while to make. I think I might put it on wattpad but if I do I won’t stop posting it here I will post it one both. Ty for reading

Skip to later in the tour

we were in the kitchen and the medium was explaining about the satanic panic that happened for a while witch I found absolutely fascinating.

“They can also form themselves are other entities, like a youthful energy” Colby said

“yes they can desguise themselves” she answered

“and one of the popular theories is that sallie is not just a little girl” Sam added

-skip a bit bc the thing didn’t go off on Colby’s forhead bc he had the necklace-

As we went up the stairs and through the rooms. I felt a strange presence like someone was watching us. They weren’t hostile but they were curious “there’s a woman’s presence here” said the medium reading my mind. Colby put his hand in mine

“is it like..hostile or?” sam asked

“ she just observeing by us” the black pendulum said waving the equipment over the closet “and tall”

“she’s like, ‘whatcha guys looking at?’” We all chuckled at sams joke

-skip to the investigation

While the others set up and checked the equipment seth pulled you out into the hallway for a conversation

“so uh..you have fun last night?” He asked jokeinly

“Uhh what” I say

“your hickeys” he said pointing at you neck

“oh OH OH. Seth I’m so sorry I didn’t even realize” I replied turning bright red with blush

“Lemme guess it was Colby?” He laughed

“how did you know?” I smiled

“y/n” he looked at me sarcastically “ I’m not blind it’s obvious to literally everyone”

(Colby’s pov)

I go over to get y/n and Seth for the investigation and see them laughing together

was Seth flirting with her! That was the first thought that crossed My mind mind. but I needed to calm myself I was jumping to conclusions.

“Time for the investigation” I said a little firm

“okay” y/n said cheerily as she walked into the investigation room but Seth stayed back and whispered in my ear

“ next time you two have ‘fun’ don’t leave such obvious marks on her”

I blushed heavily as we all went back into the investigation room. It’s funny how both Sam and Seth told me to try and keep my hands off y/n. Sam said that I should at least wait till we get back to the hotel before making out together in a haunted house. But it sure was hard she is so beautiful.

(end of Colby’s pov)

When we all got back into the room i see Sam standing over a rem pod with sallie toys all around it almost immediately the rem pod started going off in a very strange and specific pattern. It looked like the ghost was walking around the pod in circles. Obviously everyone freaked out a little bit because the rem pod had never gone off this way before.

“ wait what was that?” Sam said in a whisper we all quickly went over to see it and set up the music box. At first the music box was calibrating but then it started to go off. “Woahh” everyone reacted. For some reason I got bad chills and I was the only person who got this.

Ghosts had always been targeting me in particular more than anyone else. They would seek me out and touch me. They would say my name in the Estes method and would prefer to speak with me more than anyone else. I suppose this is because of my gifts and my connection with the afterlife. From now on I decided that I would try and honor my grandma’s legacy and tap into my abilities.

for majority the investigation went on well but I got this weird feeling as we went on. Like someone or more likely SOMETHING was trying to take hold of me. before we were about to do the Estes method I got this horrible feeling. Like my back was suddenly hot. Really hot. It felt like a burning pain

“ahh” I cried out as I fumbled from the pain

“What’s wrong?” Colby asked catching me

“y/n are you okay” sam said concerned

“ it’s - burning like — hurts so ba- cut” I stutter crying a bit into Colby’s arms.

he looked down “ oh my god” he exclaimed as he took the camera to show a long bleeding scratch all the way down my back. At this point I was crying because of the pain.

Sam and Seth went out to have a discussion about weather they should end the investigation here. They decided to leave me and Colby alone together.

And I collapsed into Colby’s arms as he comforted me “shh it’s okay baby” I cried even harder I felt weak for crying but I was so scared “I love you” I managed out in a shakeup voice he pulled me even closer. The blood had soaked through my white shirt at this point. “I love you too” he said trying to be strong for me but seeing her cry really broke his heart

little did I know thing were about to get a whole lot worse.

[xerith-42]

I decided to watch Void Paradox

I'm about five minutes into the first episode and I'm still not entirely sure if this is a good idea or not, but Laurance has already spoken like three lines of dialogue and I felt my heart wrench at just one of them, so clearly I'm in too deep now.

This post serves as my live tweeting/mental break down that I am currently having as we speak. It is very incomprehensible because it is literally just my thoughts as they happen, and given how much I have to say, I'll probably make proper posts out of a lot of these points once I finish the series.

This mess is just giving you a taste of the madness I truly posses.

I am only three minutes in before I have to pause and feel the urge to scream about how bad the dialogue in Aphmau series can be. Like this series is fairly okay, especially based on the standard set by her other shows but man... something is just not working here. The whole thing feels very clunky and while I can get the gist of what Jess is going for, the execution of said gist is leaving a lot to be desired.

[Laurance shows up]

nevermind Laurance is on screen and fully voice acted everything is better

Literally nobody talk to me I need to scream about Laurance Zvahl because he is EVERYTHING in this series. The way he very softly says Aph's name when he sees her, the immediate instinct to hug her because he's so relieved to see her, the fact that you can hear the smile in his voice the minute he registers that she's there and alive!! AUGH I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!

And I literally screamed when he revealed that he was transported to this AU right at the end of season 1. Oh my Irene, I screamed. I collapsed. I was truly defeated by a single line of dialogue. I don't know where this series is going to go but I am here for it. And the fact that he knows Garroth did it and hid it from her???

I can't overstate how genuinely healing it is to hear Laurance fully voice acted. I know Sebastian Todd is retired from voice acting, but when he retired, he took down all his posts, including what I considered to be a comfort video. That video of him reading iconic Laurance lines from before he was in mcd/lines he just didn't act? That video was my everything when I was trying to hold onto this version of the character I knew I loved who was different to what Jess made him. When that video got taken down it was a major cowabummer bc there's so little properly voice acted Laurance content that isn't mcd Season 3 or My Street stuff (and I can't stand My Street like 80% of the time)

Hearing his voice, hearing him get to be properly expressive, it's just doing things to me man. I missed this character a lot. I've mostly been enjoying him through fan content or my own work. It's nice to say I enjoy a piece of canon content involving him, at least so far.

Still not sure how I feel about literally anything else. The whole relationship between Aph and Tommy feels very... weird. She describes herself as "basically his mother" after she's left with him, and treats him like it in the opening scene. But then when he's mocking her for being attracted to Laurance (so relatable), it seems really weird for a [checks wiki] 14 year old kid to be calling out his mom for finding someone hot. Feels a lot more like sibling dialogue to me? Which I guess they could be seen as siblings, but the series explicitly stated that she views it like motherhood??? But I don't think Jess is even thinking that deeply about it, I just over analyze her work for fun at this point.

Okay what the actual fuck is going on with the inside of this house???

Why is the color scheme purple and yellow? And not in any kind of flattering way which is possible with opposite colors, it just has both of them. The wallpaper changes when you get into the living room except not entirely on the windows, and in an earlier scene it looked like it wasn't even put onto all of the walls. And the wood that she used as supports just does not compliment either of these colors as they are. Just make it all purple, you know you want to Jess.

Also is the texture on the table and the glass the same??? I don't know a damn thing about modding or making texture/data packs for minecraft but that just seems. odd.

Laurance: mentions the nether Me: [screams just a little]

Tommy: shows up and gives a random ass lore dump Aph: Kay thanks go back to your room

"I don't know what I can do to help."

"Just be there for me. I just need someone to ground me right now."

I literally want to shake Laurance around like a rag doll and give him a stupid kiss on his stupid fucking face UGH why can't I be normal about this block man and his stupid feelings?!?! The way his voice breaks as despair sets in?? The fact that he's no doubt pieced together that Garroth probably stole the amulet and plans to use it to hurt Aph and he can't do anything about it?? I'm literally losing it.

How did I not watch this series before.

Literally about to cry over him just calling Aph "M'lady" out of pure instinct. He didn't consciously do that. He just misses her that much.

oh no spooky evil alternate Laurance or whatever--

MAN I'm so happy I decided to watch this series. This was probably a mistake though :)

[verdemoun]

hi!!! i absolutely adore the rdr2 timewarp au. it is EVERYTHING

so if i remember correctly you had a post a while back where you mentioned that arthur is super paranoid about his health in the modern era which is so real after everything. but it got me thinking, he can’t stay perfectly healthy 100% of the time, that’s not how the world works. so like, how does he (and everyone else) handle the first time he gets ill post warp? bc i’m guessing not well 😭😭😭

also i’d just love to hear more about how everyone’s deaths affected them, if you’re willing, bc most of them were obviously incredibly traumatic 💔

i apologize if someone’s asked this already 😫

thank you!! 🫶

hello hello and thank you so much!! and yes indeed i did and i love a chance to talk some angst: to the second point first! most of the gang had relatively quick deaths.

dutch gets vertigo. maybe it's the meds, maybe it's the distant memory of plummeting to his death

lenny gets really bad heartburn/phantom chest pains. sometimes it's just uncomfortably close to the pain and shortness of breath of being shot in the chest, and he will need someone to sit with him until it passes.

cannot overstate how much trauma kieran has related to his death. one thing that the gang would absolutely bully him for IF they didn't know why, is that Kieran sleeps with a nightlight. if he wakes up in the dark he will panic. Kieran remembers having his eyes gouged out: passing out because of the pain only to wake up to darkness. So he gets a nightlight because waking up to Kieran Duffy screaming is not good for anyone's mental health.

but arthur morgan hypochondriac queen

being that he lives with hosea, bessie, kieran, lenny and sean: none of them saw arthur get sick. sure, arthur can tell them he died of tb, but after timewarping the ravages of tb have simply been erased. he looks as healthy as chapter 2 arthur. so the fact he coughs, something as innocent as a cough, and gets a wild, terrified look in his eyes, throws all of them off

bessie just sighs because despite her best efforts and getting them all vaccinated asap and seen by a gp, the fact is viruses have evolved a lot faster than humanity in 100 years and they almost all end up with at least the common cold shortly after they timewarp. part of not leaving the house too much at first is as much about their immune system adapting as it is about learning modern era slowly.

and it's really hard to watch because as the cough worsens and a low fever takes hold, arthur is a wreck. coughs hard, pauses, only to turn pale and sprint to the bathroom before throwing up more in distress than illness. it just doesn't seem like arthur morgan, the invincible enforcer and boogeyman of the VDL gang.

hosea has seen arthur through many a cold, so he knows arthur isn't usually like this. usually it's a mission in itself to get arthur to lay down when he's sick. instead, arthur is completely fixed to the bed, shaking more violently than his temperature would suggest. his eyes squeeze shut at the mention of food, panting like the room's running out of air. confesses late into the second night of that he thinks he's dying.

hosea would've believed it if he hadn't seen sean macguire through food poisoning already. tries to assure him he's fine, it's just a cold. he'll be over it in a few days. it has been a long time since he's seen arthur this - needy. he really is more like that young boy he and dutch found cowering on the streets than the man he raised. which hosea doesn't entirely mind, even if it just seems dramatic

arthur proceeded to recover and act like nothing weird happened at all and he was fine the entire time. the whole gang side-eyed this response, and the side-eye suspicion next time arthur got a cold and once again became terrified - convinced he was dying.

when arthur moved out, hosea would still need to stay several nights whenever arthur got a cold because he will get trauma-justified man flu. this later becomes charles's job to take care of when he timewarps and becomes arthur's u-haul lesbian speed husband. admittedly sometimes charles has to call hosea because as someone who did see arthur get tb, he also gets upset seeing arthur sick

if you have had a cold in the past 48 hours arthur morgan will not go near you. he starts his morning with every immunity-boosting over the counter pill he can find and always starts the morning with a disgusting glass of homemade orange ginger turmeric juice he swears by.

[woozapooza]

ridiculously long Sopranos post I swear I tried to keep it concise but this is as short as it's going to get

One pattern among Sopranos viewers that I find baffling is the veneration of Dr. Krakower, the therapist in “Second Opinion” who tells Carmela flat-out that she’s obligated to leave Tony and refuses to take her “blood money.” I’ve seen him described as one of the only truly moral characters in the whole show, if not the only one. I agree that his integrity is truly admirable, but I think a lot of viewers overstate the value of that integrity. Granted, this is partly just me being the biggest Melfi apologist imaginable (I’ll get to that in a second), but I also think that I have an objectively valid point to make. One of the biggest themes of The Sopranos is how difficult it is to make a substantive change in one’s life, and that’s partly a matter of human frailty, but it’s also a matter of circumstances and environment. The Sopranos understands that, for most people, willpower will only take them so far because people don’t exist in isolation. To take an example from the last episode I watched (6x17, “Walk Like a Man”), Christopher has been trying so, so hard to stay sober, but he ends up getting drunk and murdering a guy, and while that is ultimately on him, it might never have happened if he hadn’t endured years of mockery from the very people who insisted that he get sober in the first place. It’s this interconnectedness, this imbrication of people, that makes morality so complicated—and so insufficient. Virtue and vice are unfortunately never the only factors at play in human behavior.

Bringing this back to Krakower: his integrity is undeniably admirable, but what good does it do? Carmela doesn’t take his advice! I saw a YouTube comment that said that the best thing Dr. Melfi ever did for the Soprano family was to refer Carmela to Krakower, but how can that be, when the net impact of that referral was nothing at all? Is throwing moral clarity at a morally murky situation really the objectively right thing to do, when it’s so unlikely to accomplish anything material? Not to mention Carmela's religion teaches her that she’s obligated to stay in this marriage, which is an absurd belief IMO, but it is her belief nonetheless. Of course he’s not going to get through to her if he doesn’t meet her where she’s at. I’m not saying integrity doesn’t matter. I’m just saying that in Sopranos World, as in the real world, you don’t have a good/bad effect on the world just by having good/bad morals. I think it’s best to have one foot firmly planted in morality while also being willing to engage with immorality, but even that approach to life isn’t guaranteed to do good, because sometimes, no matter how hard you try, it’s out of your hands. The world is just too complicated.

One of countless things I love about Melfi is that she’s one of the few characters who I see making a fairly consistent effort to walk the line between principles and pragmatism. Obviously she makes mistakes, she’s as human as the rest of them, but damn it, at least she’s trying! I think a lot of viewers don’t give her enough credit for that. If Krakower deserves credit for his moral intransigence (and he does!), surely Melfi deserves credit for trying to strike an effective balance. I just don’t understand how viewers of this show, which takes such a realistic look at the limits of how far an innate sense of right and wrong can take you, can see one therapist who tells his patient that she has to do something she’s almost guaranteed not to do because it would be enormously difficult both psychologically and logistically (he tells her to “take the children” and go—how’s that supposed to work? They’re not toddlers who she can just scoop up and carry away!) and then sends her away, and one therapist who tries to build a relationship with her patient through which they could theoretically work together on shaping him into a more functional person, and declare that the former is doing it right and the latter is doing it wrong. Sure, her strategy ultimately fails, but so does his, and I think hers was a lot more pragmatic! It would have worked with a patient who was more willing to try. Like me, for example. I would be the best patient she ever had and I would never let her down and she would be so proud of me.

Okay, I had written some additional paragraphs switching gears and focusing on Melfi’s approach to treating Tony and explaining some of the reasons that I will always stan her, but this post is so long already I think I’m going to end it here. Sometime soon I’ll make a separate post with the Melfi paragraphs. She deserves her own post anyway. Have I mentioned that I love her? Have I ever mentioned that???

[cuephrase]

On the subject of data crunching related to the Robins, a couple months ago I compared the numbers of people following the tumblr tag of different Batman characters to the number of ao3 works tagged with the characters, and while the ao3 results were a decently consistent slope the top tumblr tag follow characters were magnitudes larger than the rest and it was kind of wild (there are of course things the numbers don't fully capture, such as tumblr tagging not accounting for multiple tags being used for one character, and ao3 not really accounting for how central the tagged characters are to the fic, but it was still interesting to see)

omg that is INSANE.

Tim Drake feels like such a strange combination of popular and obscure at the same time and it is bizarre.

he really does and you are so right it is so bizarre. and i totally get what you mean by obscure, which at first glance sounds contradictory to popular, but like...how i do phrase this.

you hear about him/his fans a ton. (i feel like this either tends to fall into complaining or like stuff that leans more fanon.) but also i don't personally tend to see a lot of people talking about tim the way dick/jason/damian stans do, in that he is rarely the sole/primary focus of a meta dissertation/character analysis/content in that vein. which full transparency- this could be me not being super tumblr-savvy, such blogs probs exists i just have yet to stumble across a lot of them. (i cannot overstate how Bad i am at tumblr/socmed in general)

so it's kind of like, you hear that he has fans but...where are they? i even wonder if it has like some kind of correlation to like comics!tim stans being more likely to also really enjoy other characters vs. other stans being more likely to have a laser focus on a Single Blorbo. which is not a critique, by any means!!

bc like, taking myself as an example, i'd say i love all the boy robins equally, but if you put a gun to my head i will say tim is my fave. however. there is no gun to my head. so i can love freely. like if you were to just look at my ao3, you'd probs assume dick was my fave bc so far he's been in every batfam fic i've written lmao

man, the difference between tumblr and ao3 tags tho, even keeping skews in mind, is crazy. it would be so fun to go mucking around in that data

[ummick]

A Night In Tokyo With Mick Schumacher and A Mercedes 190E Evo II

Driving around Tokyo is daunting. With no centre or suburbs, its road network is huge, spiralling, occasionally latticed and sometimes subterranean. At times, even Mr Roboto in the satnav gives up and shrugs directions your way. Which has happened. Meaning I'm lost while leading Mick Schumacher (behind the wheel of a stunning Mercedes 190E 2.5-16 Evolution II) through Japan's neon-lined labyrinth. It's a hot, humid evening and Mercedes F1's reserve driver (and son of iconic seven-time Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher) is cutting the perfect shape of a 90s boyband member. Where I'm perspiring like a burst pipe, he palms back his blonde curls and looks effortlessly cool in his loose-fitting, oversized Tommy Hilfiger contractual clobber. Sartorially, it couldn't be more of a perfect fit for the car he's driving. Born out of German touring cars, the Evo II is a deeply lustworthy, boxy and bewinged sports saloon. With a revvy, induction-tastic 232bhp four-cylinder engine mated to a dog leg close-ratio five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive and aero appendages that get petrolheads salivating, it's a proper tip one's hat 'if you know, you know' car. Mercedes only built 502 of them (as per DTM's homologation rules) out of some 1.9 million W201 models that it's based on, so they're properly rare beasts. The fact we've got a quadruplet of Evos following Mick makes the situation we're in a bit more mind-blowing. But that's the plan. We wanted to give Mick an evening to remember, to take him away from the repetition and rigmarole of modern media junkets. We don't want to know where he keeps his ketchup, or when the last time he thought of the Roman Empire was. We want to indulge his love for cars.

"I went looking for an Evo II to buy but decided against it… for now," Mick says in his soft, geographically hard to place international accent. "It's a beautiful car and has huge sentimental value to me, the main reason being that my dad had one as a company car when he was a Mercedes junior. He spent a lot of time doing lots of laps on the Nordschleife with Heinz-Harald Frentzen. I remember within a month they had to change the brake pads and things with the engine. So it's an emotionally important car to me." Growing up in Gland, Switzerland, Mick struggles to pinpoint exactly when he got bitten by the road car bug. "Honestly, I don't really know where I got into them. Driving them around the property as a child was a big factor. The first time I had a steering wheel in my hand from a road car was maybe four or five years old, on my dad's lap. I got to drive very nice cars, very soon and very early. I guess it just grew naturally. Especially when I turned 18; then it really turned into an obsession." Raised on a healthy diet of racing, the Fast and Furious franchise and gaming, Mick picked up a penchant for JDM cars by proxy. "I just love how raw and simple they are," he says. "I enjoy playing around with them, changing stuff, tuning them and making them more fun to drive." Knowing this, we head out of Tokyo towards Chiba to meet Japan's most inconspicuous bad boy: Kazuhiko 'Smokey' Nagata. Tobacco and turbo enthusiast Smokey is one of Japan's legendary tuners. He and his company Top Secret have modified every generation of Nissan GT-R, including an R33 Skyline GT-R that managed 0–186mph in 17 seconds at Yatabe test track and 204mph in Tokyo's famous Aqualine tunnel. Like Smokey, Mick is also a GT-R fanboy, with some tucked away in a shed at home, including his R34 drift car.

"I've really got into drifting. As an F1 driver, drifting, or oversteer, is the opposite of what you want to do, but if you control it and have the feel for it, it can really help you. So I took the step of saying 'I want to try it' after the 2019 Race of Champions skill race. I was quite good, finishing second against rally drivers and everything, so I thought, 'Okay, maybe I should try this a bit more,' so I got my own car and started enjoying sideways. I love the sensation of connecting turns and being in a difficult situation, because obviously the car is upset, to then be able to control it. I think that's what's so intriguing. It's a good feeling." Mick's curiosity and JDM love resonates as he wanders around Smokey's GT-R littered shop. Not being able to speak Japanese, Mick uses international hand signals for car nuts to explain various car parts, gets out his phone to show Smokey his cars before stumbling upon Smokey's VR32 GT-R (an R32 with all the mechanics and interior of the R35 transplanted) and trying to find a way to import it into Switzerland. But we've got no time for this, as we've got the legendary Bayshore Route to hit and a car meet to get to. For someone so young, 24-year-old Mick is at a rather quiescent point in his career. Having had a triumphant run in his youth coming second in karting in the World, European and German Junior Championships, then switching to Formula 4 in 2015 and finishing second overall in both the German and Italian F4 championships, before becoming European Formula 3 Champion in 2018 and FIA Formula 2 Champion in 2020, Mick made it to the big leagues and bagged himself a seat in F1 with Haas. It wasn't easy. In 2022 Mick lost his seat after a difficult second season that saw him struggle to match teammate Kevin Magnussen for form. He recorded a best finish of sixth in Austria, one of two points finishes during the season, but it was not enough to save his seat. For 2023, Mick dropped his Ferrari junior ties and linked up with Mercedes (the last team his father raced for in F1), picking up the role of reserve driver.

"Being a reserve driver gives you tremendous insight, especially at Mercedes," Mick says. "I miss driving, I'm not going to lie, but the main thing I've learned since moving from Haas to Mercedes is how the team operates, the tools they have, how they use them and the communication. They're big learning points. It has opened my eyes in a lot of ways and has made it clear why Mercedes is as successful as it is. The worst part is sitting in the garage and seeing everybody drive out and do what you love to do." Part of Mick's remit is to join Mercedes trackside at all F1 race. That's how we're able to blat around Tokyo for a night before he heads to Suzuka to support the team. But time in Merc's state-of-the-art sim back in Brackley is also key. Mick was praised by Mercedes' technical director James Allison for a 2 am shift he did during the British GP weekend, turning the car's "woeful" one-lap pace on Friday into a competitive car and set-up for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell to compete with during quali and the race on Sunday. With every mile behind the Evo II's wheel, Mick's smile grows to match the width of its monstrous rear wing, especially when he realizes it shoots flame on the overrun after a 7,600 rpm toll booth roll out. We cross over to Yokohama and swirl down a concrete pillared plughole, arriving in an unsuspecting parking lot that doubles up as the epicentre of cool Japanese car culture in Japan: Daikoku PA. Mick, having never been to a car meet before, has his eyes widened. Even though it's a school night, the place is pumping. Mick walks around curiously, showing his girlfriend, Danish model Laila Hasanovic, Veilside-kitted Mazda RX-7s, how riveted wide arch Liberty Walk bodywork hangs from an R35 GT-R for the ultimate kerbside stance, and the extended provenance from the flood of awesome, rare Mercedes (including the original 190E Evo I, an AMG-clad W124 and a custom Cosworth 2.5 boasting Penta wheels and Brabus brakes) that are all parked honourably in their uniform herringbone bays. As Mick gets under the bonnets and kindly signs carbon airboxes for marginally hysterical owners, I wonder if he's handy with the spanners.

"I wish I was," he says, "but I don't have the time. I'm starting to bring more of my cars over to my place so that I eventually will be able to work on them myself and change things that I want to change. Currently, I am very good at taking things apart… maybe less gifted at putting them back together." But since the meteoric rise of social media and documentaries like Netflix's Drive to Survive, racing drivers' personalities have been mainlined into public consciousness. Nowadays, it appears drivers' human interests need to be put on display like the plastic dishes outside Daikoku's service station restaurant windows. Yet here, tonight, Mick seems completely at home and relaxed. "It's risky because I feel like I'm a very private person. I like my privacy. Sometimes when you get people wanting to know more, they get a bit too snoopy. I feel it should be my choice how much I share, and what I share, not people trying to figure that out for me." In this job you get to sniff out the car nuts from the blaggers, and Mick's passion is palpable. It's refreshing to see, and a welcome break from the headlines and hearsay currently surrounding him given he's caught in a gloopy limbo where F1 politics, money and raw talent are all currently fighting each other to work out where he'll race next.

As I type, Mick's currently linked with an LMDh drive with Alpine in next year's World Endurance Championship, a move Mercedes F1's big boss Toto Wolff is fine with, as Mick is "part of the family" and "will always have a home." Mick's tone becomes more forlorn when talking about the future, obviously having had a tough few years and aching to get back into an F1 car. I wonder if it takes its toll, and how he pushes through in times of uncertainty. "Having the right people around you," he says. "You need to try and be mentally in the right space and try and get the best out of the situation so that you can, whenever it's necessary, be in the position that you can jump in and be ready to go." After an evening with Mick, you can't help but wish him the best of luck. If all else fails, he could always lean into drifting and see where that takes him. Sideways Schuey. Has a good ring to it, doesn't it?

[chungledown-bimothy]

What is being high on weed like and will people be able to tell if I am? I want to try marijuana but I have been traumatized by the DARE program and my only friend who does weed has already answered 10 of my questions and I don’t want to bother him abt it anymore. If it’s relevant i would be taking hybrid strand edible gummies.

Sincerely, a chronically anxious millennial

(i'm by no means an expert, and i'm really bad at describing sensory things, so grain of salt on all of this.)

unfortunately, there's not a single hard and fast answer to what weed feels like, especially when it comes to hybrids. personally, i love hybrids, but the thing with them is that your mileage may vary quite a lot depending on how it's weighted between indica and sativa.

but assuming it's a balanced one, you can expect to be physically relaxed- maybe your arms feel a little heavy, less coordinated, stuff like that. personally i feel textures a lot More than when i'm sober. but mentally, more likely is that you'll feel... this is where it gets hard for me to describe. kinda floaty and giggly. things process a bit slower, but things are good and happy. sometimes the room gets spinny for me, too, which i enjoy.

in my experience with hybrids, the negatives to look out for are dry mouth and dry eyes. not terribly bad, but annoying if you don't have water.

and a word of warning with edibles, which you've likely heard before but it cannot be overstated: be patient. it can take a hot minute to kick in, and taking more will not change that, it'll just make you twice as high.

especially with no experience and chronic anxiety, yes, people who know you will be able to tell that something's up, but they may or may not jump to weed, depending on them and circumstances and such.

i'm sorry DARE fucked you up like that :( i hope you have a great time! ^_^

[yasmindifference]

any tips for getting your fics noticed? i hardly get any engagement ;_;

I'm not an expert, but here are a few things that might help!

Tags Prioritize your tags!

It can be tempting to tag as many things as possible in the hopes of grabbing people's attention, but you also risk turning them away with a block of tags. Keep in mind that while readers might be overjoyed to read a 300k fic, that's because they're emotionally invested in it! They're not emotionally invested in your tags, and they're only gonna stick with them to a certain point.

To wit: if you have 15 tags about what you should've been doing instead of writing your fic and 4 tags about the content of the fic, chances are, the casual browser isn't gonna see the fic-related tags. They'll have moved on by the third tag about your neglected homework.

So I recommend really thinking about and focusing the content of your fic: which characters are really important? which relationships feature? which tropes/themes play the biggest parts? Figure out what really deserves highlighting, and tag that!

That said, some people enjoy going wild in the tags, and in the end, fic is about fun. You don't have to minimize your tags if you don't want to! Just be aware of how those extraneous tags pile up.

Summary I can't overstate how important the summary is. Number one tip: Do not include any kind of mention that you're bad at summarizing, the story is better than the summary, etc. I understand the temptation (summaries are hard!) but nothing turns me off a fic faster than the author denigrating themselves in the summary. The summary is your chance to advertise! If you're using it to criticize yourself, what am I supposed to assume about your story?

Other than that, just try to make it interesting! Again, it's your chance to advertise: what's happening in your fic that's fun? What are the characters going through? Toss a fun quote from the fic in there, explain the point of the fic, boil it down to the main trope, etc. There's no "one right way" to summarize, but here's a tip: if your summary bores you, it'll probably bore your readers, too.

Readability Anon, this is SO important. Is your fic easy to read? I don't mean in terms of content or even grammar, I mean layout. There have been many, many fics with fascinating summaries where I couldn't even make it through the first chapter because they were just physically hard to read.

Break up your paragraphs! You need to give your readers' eyes a break every now and then. A "big block of text," as it's called, is usually a pretty quick turn off. There's no hard and fast rule, but I typically try to keep my paragraphs under five lines. (Note that's not sentences - five lines.)

Think of it this way: people are going to be interrupted while they're reading. Maybe the doorbell rings, maybe they get a text, maybe they're reading under the desk while they're in class. If you've got twenty things happening in every paragraph, chances are they'll be losing their place repeatedly. Give your readers a fighting chance!

And for the love of potatoes: ALWAYS start a new line when the person speaking changes. Just look:

"Did you finish the reading?" she asked. "No," he said, "I got abducted by aliens last night." She raised her eyebrows. "Aliens, huh?" "Aliens!" "Was it fun at least?" He sighed. "No, they were just looking for directions to the post office. The one on Jefferson, not the one on Seventh." "Why does everyone want to go to the post office?" she wondered. "Who even sends letters anymore?" He shrugged.

That's hard to follow! There's a lot of lines there and a lot of quotes and not a lot of descriptive tags...and the ones that are make it harder to keep track of who's talking, not easier! Compare that to this:

"Did you finish the reading?" she asked. "No," he said, "I got abducted by aliens last night." She raised her eyebrows. "Aliens, huh?" "Aliens!" "Was it fun at least?" He sighed. "No, they were just looking for directions to the post office. The one on Jefferson, not the one on Seventh." "Why does everyone want to go to the post office?" she wondered. "Who even sends letters anymore?" He shrugged.

It's still a boring conversation, but at least it's one you can read! This is especially important when you have multiple characters using the same pronouns. Keep who's talking clearer by giving each speaker an individual line!

The readability goes for summaries, too - if your summary is a twenty line long block of text, chances are people are going to scroll past it.

Expectations Finally, and potentially most importantly: manage your expectations. A fic for a popular pairing is usually going to get more engagement than a fic for a rarepair. A fic in a lively fandom is likely to get more engagement than a fic in a fandom that's mostly died out.

Does your fic contain a controversial kink? Have you warned for a common trigger? Is the fic centered on a minor character most casual fans couldn't pick out of a lineup?

It's wonderful to write for characters/pairings/kinks/whatever that aren't popular. I'd never want to discourage you from that! But it's important to keep in mind that a less popular subject is, by nature, going to get less engagement.

And also: consider the dates! It's tempting to compare engagement on your fic with engagement on the most popular fics in the fandom/pairing/whatever. But was that fic with ten thousand kudos posted earlier this year? Probably not! Chances were, it's taken a long time for that fic to gather that much engagement. Don't compare your numbers three days after posting with a fic that's been up three years.

I hope any of this is helpful, anon! Good luck! ♡♡♡♡

[charles-leclerc-official]

Australia 2024 qualifying analysis

I'm not going to waste time with an intro, let's get into what happened. Won't be covering everyone but will be going over the big things of note.

Max P1 Carlos P2 and Lando P3 are the top three in qualifying.

Charles: So what happened to Charles?

Charles is good at qualifying and he's been flying around this track, so for him not to be in the top 3 that is a sign something went wrong.

And yes conditions with the car and I suspect the track were not ideal for him during quali.

Rear wing - Ferrari went with a single bar rear wing for FP3 and quali, this changed the balance and thus some other set up elements needed to be changed to compensate. I suspect they did this change because they are trying to create less drag for the race. Possibly in anticipation of not getting a lot of DRS

Front wing shift: Change the balance if the rear you have to change the front. Charles apparently requested a very aggressive front(makes sense) but it seems that was an over correction and that led to the car being less predictable. A less aggressive approach would probably have been more suited to the quali conditions.

Track conditions: wind and temperature differences in addition to the tyre wear and the change in tyre pressure all are contributing factors for why he might have lost grip on certain corners. With low drag and low traction that easily could create the conditions Charles described as being both oversteer and understeer. Like once a slide happens the car can easily do this.

Driver error: also have to acknowledge that Charles isn't perfect and he didn't have time to do the best he was capable of yesterday. It happens.

All this being said, the Ferrari and Charles had the best race pace during free practice, and that rear wing change might pay off for the race.

Charles qualified P5 but will be starting P4 due to Sergio's grid penalty

Carlos: He put in some good laps. Lost a good chunk of time on turn 10 to Max. But I will say I am impressed with his performance given he is still recovering from surgery.

Sergio: Sergio qualified P3 but took a 3 place grid penalty for impeding Hulkenberg's flying lap during quali. It seems this was more a failure of his team to inform him that a car was coming up behind. He will be starting P6.

Lewis and Yuki: The big upset of quali was Yuki knocking Lewis out of Q3. Very exciting for Yuki, and damning for Mercedes. Because that is Lewis Hamilton in that car, the Mercedes has not had the setup this weekend, and they have been struggling for any real straight line pace all season.

Yuki really is proving he is the top driver at VCARB and that was an impressive lap from him.

I also don't think Mercedes thought they needed to worry and possibly didn't push too hard. That yes they were low but the chances of a mid field car knocking them out was not high. Well Yuki proved them wrong. Some of this comes from underestimating Yuki(never underestimate Yuki).

Esteban: Esteban really surprised us all getting that Alpine into Q2. Given how many problems with pace and weight the Alpine has had that is just some solid driving from him.

Alex: Alex did put in a good performance for qualifying being the only Williams on the field. He got the car pretty close to the points and was competitive with the rest of the midfield. Hopefully this translates to good results for the race. So far it looks like he is delivering for Williams this weekend.

Mercedes: Mercedes was shockingly bad. There is something fundamentally wrong not just with the setup but the entire design philosophy. They have two talented drivers who are simply not able to compete because the car does not have the straight line speed. It struggled a lot during free practice, so it isn't surprising that both Mercs are so low, but it is not a promising look for the car as a whole.

Zhou: Zhou had probably the hardest quali. He damaged his front wing on the curb of turn 10 and that really cost him any hope of having a good time. Stake also did not have a spare front wing for him, so he will have to start from the pitlane and run with a damaged front wing. Not only was his quali compromised his race will be as well.