#cloud print sites

[inkskinned]

nobody ever gets the mugshot of gluttony right. these days you think it has nothing to do with bodyweight. what a good trick: that gluttony could take a shape. no, there was never any fault in finishing a meal or in taking second helpings. it was always in taking from others that there was an issue - the oil baron's fingers steepled over dead bodies and stolen lands. gluttony - twin of greed, although most think greed and envy are the siblings - gluttony is pleased with the experience of gaining, is thrilled just-by-having. greed is the one that stays hungry, that has to move forever like a shark. gluttony likes it - "a glutton for punishment" is one who is seeking the harm, who loves the rush.

gluttony is a mother using her daughter's body for a diet testing ground, sharpening the bone angles. gluttony is saying why, well not! to the seventh and eighth mansion or yacht. it is not just wanting the six white horses, it is making sure that the horses came from your stables. it is not just bathing in milk - it is bathing in milk while others are starving.

oh, it's true that some sins still blaze in their bright floral prints. wrath in a white woman yelling at a person of color for even daring to be in her neighborhood. the red, incipient rage of a neck tightened at even the thought we would take the guns away. wrath has laurels, and she is good at her job, and works hard.

but sloth wasn't ever the sleepy morning of depression, the hours spent begging a clouded body to please move goddamn it; the protestant work ethic claiming even rest is somehow demonic. it was never chronic fatigue. sloth was subtle, a grey mist. she is watching you get bullied and she is deciding it is none of her business. she crosses the picket line because - what! it's just chicken, isn't it? she is closing her eyes and turning her head when the next anti-gay legislation passes. someone else will handle it. not the tense freeze of anxiety or a lack of preparation - she knows you're hurting and would rather you stay quiet about it. she tells other people i just don't see what the big deal is.

sloth is a father that doesn't do the dishes. sloth is your boyfriend's innocent shrug you're just better at household shit. sloth isn't the missed opportunity - it is the purposeful desire to just get-someone-else-to-do-it.

greed and envy are doing body shots in the back of a private jet. they are the way they always have been, but are lovers in the age of the internet. greed just finished union busting, is rolling a bitcoin over his knuckles, is about to start another MLM. envy is in a broadbrimmed hat, showing off her instagram life, grinning about how if you want it, work for it.

okay, it's true. you have a soft spot for lust, gathering dust in a corner. so tame in comparison to the others. but how funny lust is always painted as being a woman in tight clothes. you've met actually lustful women - the ones that purposefully climb into your partner's lap, the ones that say lesbians are gross but ask bisexual women into bed with their husbands. a lustful woman is not donned in lace and garters and red: that's how men think lust looks, painting their own sins into frame. this way, the sin displaces as fog and hovers above her: a woman in a dress is lust; what the man experiences is just the natural consequence.

here is the thing: lust is doing just fine, save your pity. lust is running more circles than any of them. lust is shutting down safe sexwork sites while also making teenagers in knee-high socks sex sensations. lust is CEO of an advertising network where women never pass 25 years old. all the bras lust makes are pretty to look at but, when worn, legitimately hurt. lust has a podcast, his fur coat looped around his shoulders, sells the idea that only certain people have value, that sex raises some and destroys others. lust is tilting his head and asking what did you expect when you dress like that? lust shuns you, sneers that everything you want is disgusting and taboo - right until he can figure out how to capitalize off of it. lust has the midas ability: everything he touches becomes an object.

people usually say wrath is the scary one. you agree with FMA here, though: the real dangerous one is pride, and the shit-eating grin. the white cloaks and the nationalism and the inability to apologize. it is every partner who threw a book at your head because you don't respect him. it is every mother who said my son doesn't deserve to have his life ruined over allegations. it is the teacher that fails you because you talked back.

you worry you have this one. you feel guilty when you need help but don't ask for it. prideful. ashamed when you complete something and feel good about it. too proud for your own good. but pride is not the reward of hard work or accomplishment: pride is a twitter feed. it is the thing that has to mask i didn't do anything with look at me.

pride is your father's raised hand, his raised voice. how he was never there when you needed him, but he is still "head of house." he ruins dinner and blames it on you: you're an embarrassment to this family. this is the glass you walk around, the cuts in your feet. how he says this isn't how i raised you and you have to bite back the retort: that's because you didn't actually fucking raise me.

[lesservillain]

eddie munson x best friend!reader

summary: a previous request I had to write eddie and a weird girl!reader. edited just a tad for better flow.

cw: none

Eddie watched as you picked up another rock, examining it carefully in your hand before tossing it towards the lake. The two of you had been out here at Lover’s Lake for close to 2 hours now, skipping the rest of the school day after you'd asked him to bring you here during lunch.

The boys laughed at him for how easy it was for you to get him to do anything. But Eddie only gave them the finger as he trailed behind you out of the school. You never asked him for much, so who was he to deny you?

You and Eddie had known each other since he moved to the trailer park to live with Wayne. The two of you fell in and out of friendship over the years as you both went through the motions of life that got you to where you were today.

Sometimes you two were inseparable, and other times you kept to yourself. Choosing to be alone for weeks or months on end until you would knock on his trailer door like you'd just seen him yesterday. Many deemed you weird for your antisocial behaviors, including your own mother. But, Eddie knew you would come back around eventually, and he always welcomed you back with open arms.

With his legs dangling out the back door of his van, he brought a newly lit cigarette in his mouth to chase the joint he had just finished as he watched you do…whatever thing you needed to get out of your system today. He should have known you were going to want to spend the day outside with the overcast that had been looming. You hated the heat from the sun, preferring the shield of the clouds to cover you while you look for different bug or flowers or whatever you deemed worthy to be picked from the ground. 

“Oh, Eddie!” Your excited voice had him jolting straight up, greeted by the site of your bright smile before him. “Look! This one’s got a fossil in it!”

Eddie opens his hand for you to place the rock in it. Your discovery stays hidden until you pull your hand away from his. And, sure as shit, there’s a print of some old ass plant or something on the side of the little rock. 

“Woah, that's fucking cool,” he says, matching your energy for your find. He hands it back to you and you hold it in both hands, face beaming at your discovery. Eddie likes it when you get like this. The pure, unadulterated bliss that beams from you feels like it could cheer him up on his deathbed.

But after a moment, your expression falters. A crack in the joy of the moment that Eddie clocks right away. 

“What?” He asks, looking at you even though he knows you wont give him eye contact back. 

“Eddie, why do you hang out with me?”

Eddie reels back. It’s not the first time you’ve dropped heavy questions on him before, but he wasn’t expecting you to hit him with that one. 

It was one he wasn't sure how to answer. Mostly because the answer was complicated.

Why was he your friend? Why did he like having you around? Why did it kill him when you distance yourself from him?

Okay, maybe the answer wasn't really that complicated. Rather, admitting it was. 

Because the truth is that Eddie is completely head over heels for you.

Ever since he’s known you he knew you were it for him. You never thought that he was a freak for having a dead mom and a jail bird dad. Never judged him for being poor even for trailer park standards. Certainly never made any remarks about his music tastes.

He hadn't always been subtle about his feelings, telling you when you were younger that he would marry you someday. He still gets a kick when he thinks about the way your nose scrunched up at the suggestion.

He would pester you any chance he could, and Wayne had to tell him to not be so forward or else he was going to scare you off. Little did Wayne know that it would take a hell of a lot more than Eddie’s strong personally to push you away. He eventually realized how well you could meet Eddie’s energy, calling the two of you a match made for trouble.

Because Eddie loves when you would barge into his room without knocking to show him a painting you’ve finished. Or when you would tap on his window at 3 am because you couldn’t sleep, knowing he was probably still awake too.

He loved when you would join the Hellfire Club at lunch, telling Grant to move so you could sit next to Eddie’s spot at the end of the table. He loved that you wanted to be around him, and he wanted to be around you just as much. 

“Because we’re friends,” he says casually. Your eyes lift to meet his. He can’t tell you how he feels. He can’t risk giving you a reason to run away from him. “It’s been like, what, 10 years now since we started hanging out? Why do you want to know now?”

Your eyes shift down, avoiding eye contact with him once again. You must be worried about something he thinks. He wishes he could read minds just to see what you’re thinking. 

“I was just wondering," you say in a tone that tells Eddie you were not just wondering. "Don’t want you to think you’re obligated to hang out with me or anything.”

“What?” He shakes his head incredulously, laughing at the absurdity of your assumption. “I don’t feel obligated. I like hanging out with you. Promise.”

He sticks his pinky out for you to twist with yours, something you’ve been doing since he pinky-promised to be your friend when the other kids said you were too weird. 

But you don’t accept it, crossing your arms over your chest and curling in on yourself. Your boot shifts as you nervously roll a rock under your heel. It’s quiet for a moment, and Eddie drops his hand slowly, not liking the way the air is shifting around the two of you.

Something feels off. Final. 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to hang out anymore, Eddie,” you say matter of factually.

Forced. He can tell you’re putting on a front, like the one you put on for your mom. He wonders if she’s got something to do with this. 

Eddie’s throat feels dry, breathing in through his nose to keep himself together. 

“I don’t know why you would think that. Did I do something—”

“No,” you cut him off, looking at him in the eyes for a few seconds before averting your gaze again. “It’s not you Eddie. I just…”

Eddie stares at you with his big brown eyes hoping you’ll give him something, anything to try and fix whatever has you feeling this way. 

“Don’t you want a girlfriend?”

Well that was the last thing he expected you to say. 

“I’m sorry, what?” He blinks up at you, confused at where this conversation is going. You take a sharp breath through your nose, and huff, brows pinching as you become visibly upset. 

“Well you and Jeff and Gareth were talking about how hot the cheerleaders uniforms are, and — and you said that if you had a chance you’d like to see what's under their skirts—“

“Okay, hold on, I didn’t say that,” he says defensively, but you give him a look that makes him back track. “Or, even if I did, I only said it because it was Gareth and Jeff. I didn’t really mean it.”

“I’m not mad that you said it, Eddie. I just," you breath in, a slight hitch in your throat as you do. "…I hear what those girls say about me…about us and…I just feel like…I—I,” you sniffle, “I don’t want to be the reason you can’t get a girlfriend.”

Eddie tries so, so hard not to laugh. Like, he’s really trying to hold it in because you’re clearly very upset. But he can’t suppress wide grin that slowly creeps across his face.

“Sweetheart,” he finally says, “You don’t really think that do you?”

Your only response is a silent nod and Eddie’s heart only grows more for you. 

“Trust me, you’re not why I don’t have a girlfriend,” he says with a tone of self-deprecation. It’s not the full truth, because technically you are the reason, just not in the way you think. “Those cheerleaders wouldn’t want me whether you’re around me or not. And it’s not like there’s a line of girls dying to date me or whatever.”

He twists his rings around his fingers, waiting for your response. When he looks up, you’re looking at him like he’s got three heads.

“What?” He laughs. 

“Are you joking?” You ask him very seriously.

“Joking about what…?”

“That you don’t have girls trying to, you know, get with you…”

“Oh, no, definitely not.” 

A smile finally cracks on your face at his words, and an immediate relief washes over him. The tension in your body visibly washes away and you take a step closer to him. 

“Okay,” you say with a soft smile. 

“Can I ask why you’re so worried about me getting a girlfriend anyway?”

“Well, my mom said—“

He raises his hand, stopping you mid sentence, “That’s all I needed to hear.”

It warms his heart when you laugh, melting all the worries away. Though, he still can’t help feeling like he could lose you forever at any given moment. It would gut him if you really did decide that he couldn’t be in your life anymore. He already gets sick at the thought of you meeting someone else, someone other than him, and moving on to leave him in the dust. 

“Why do you hang out with me?”

He likes the way your eyebrows shoot up when he turns your question back on you. He thinks that he’s got you just as flustered as you had him, but you look at him with a shake of the head as you speak very matter of factly. 

“Because I love you.”

Eddie has to catch himself before he can get too excited. This is you that he’s dealing with here. And you could mean that in so many ways; as a friend, a brother, a lover.  And, god, did he hope you mean the ladder. 

“Love me how?” He asks carefully, trying his best not to sound to excited. 

“Like…well, sometimes, when you do stuff that’s, like, really cute or makes me happy, I just want to—“ You bring your hands to his face, something you’ve done many times over the years when he’s going on about D&D or music or even just when he’s reading. He always assumed it was your way of expressing that he was being a bother or overstimulating you, so he would usually stop or change the subject. “—just grab you and kiss you.”

Eddie knows his face has to be as red as a tomato. His heart is going a million miles a minute and he can barely keep his breathing steady. 

Holy shit is this happening?

“You want to kiss me?” 

You nod, “Yeah, like, a lot.”

“Why haven’t you?”

Your eyes practically bug out of your head, dumbstruck at his words. 

“I can do that?”

“Please?” It comes out breathy, meant to be a joke, but almost as a beg.

And so you do. Your soft, mint chapstick covered lips hastily meet his, head tilted ever so slightly so your noses don’t bump as if you’ve done this before. Have you done this before? Certainly not with him. It makes his blood boil thinking that someone other than him has ever gotten a chance to do this with you.

The feeling of your fingers gliding across his scalp, nails skimming in a way that sends goosebumps down his arms. He takes the opportunity to bring his own hands to your hips, pulling you closer to him to deepen the kiss. 

When you finally pull away, Eddie leans in to chase after you. And when he finally opens his eyes, he feels sick—lovesick at the sight of your pleased smile. The way you’re looking at him with a sparkle in your eye makes him feel like he could do anything. 

“Wow,” you say between the two of you. 

“Likewise,” he says with an airy chuckle. 

“Can I do it again?” You ask shyly. 

“Sweetheart, you can kiss me whenever you want,” he says dreamily. 

“Really?”

He hums in response, cut off with a hmph as your lips meet his again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

thank you for reading.

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam! Recently diagnosed midlife ADHDer here. First, thanks for talking about your ADHD & sharing what you’re figuring out. It’s super helpful to someone on a similar trajectory.

I just saw a reference to your photo books for the first time & it seems like a great way to help with memory issues that come with ADHD (like I know I did [x thing] but when?). Could you talk a little about the process of collecting photos & such all year & then how you create one?

Thank you!

Ey, happy to have helped! Congrats and sympathies on your diagnosis. And honestly it's good for me too, talking all this out, it helps me get my thoughts in order. I often namedrop you guys to Therapist, you are "my readers" :D

The process of putting the photobooks together is...well, it's a lot, so this is going to be a super high-level overview, but basically yeah I wanted to have records of where I'd been and what I'd been doing that were more concrete than just digital photos on a hard drive or a cloud. But I didn't really want to just print the digital photos and put them in a box, either, so I started making photobooks. Usually I go through Walgreens or Shutterfly for printing, whichever has the good coupons when I'm working on it.

So, here's the weird, kind of obsessive part: a huge help in making a yearly photobook, for me, is the fact that I take my photos off my phone at the end of every month. I have some that live on the phone -- my growing collection of photos of my niece, a selection of photos from my Europe trip, some memes -- but those live in their own folders. The main camera roll gets downloaded every month, and I put them all in a file labeled with the month and year (2023-01, 2023-02, etc). It's a recurring task in my to-do list, that I offload the photos on the last Saturday of each month. You don't necessarily have to do it this way, though -- it's just what works best for me, and I encourage people to find a way to do things that will actually be functional for them.

Across the course of the year, although really moreso in October and November, I go through the photos and remove any I absolutely know I don't want to keep. Once I've done that, I save a copy of the whole year's worth of photos to my digital archive, and I take another copy and label it "FOR PHOTOBOOK" which allows me to do more culling of them than I otherwise would, because I know anything I delete is still in my archive. And this all has the advantage of me knowing that the photos in my archive are at least SOMEWHAT organized.

So I go through all the year's photos in the For Photobook file, month by month, sort them into folders by event (so there's, like, 01-Polar Vortex, or 04-Europe, or 09-Birthday) and clear out all but the photos I know I want most. My photobooks are generally longer than the default length they give you at most sites, so I usually do have to add a few pages (they're like $1/page or something) but not too many. Often these days I have some stuff that's events, like the Europe trip, and then some stuff that's just like....a folder of funny shit I saw in Chicago, or a folder of all the food I photographed that I want to save. The cats generally get their own four-page spread at the back. :D

In 2020, I will say, there were only two themes: CATS and COVID. I alternated pages.

Anyway, once I've got the photos sorted, and deleted any I don't want to include, I get on Shutterfly or Walgreens Photo and start up a new photobook project. I upload the first folder of photos, place them on the page with suitable captions, then upload the second folder of photos, etc etc, until all the photos are uploaded and placed in the book. I don't caption extensively -- often it'll just be a page that'll say like "TEXAS IN JULY!" and all the photos from that trip. But it definitely does help me keep track of what I was up to. And it's kind of soothing to review the year and see all the stuff I accomplished.

So that's the bare bones -- by all means feel free to ask questions, although if you guys wouldn't mind asking in comments or reblogs if possible, that should keep the discussion contained as necessary. :)

[superlinguo]

Research Data Management. Or, How I made multiple backups and still almost lost my honours thesis.

This is a story I used to tell while teaching fieldworkers and other researchers about how to manage their data. It’s a moderately improbable story, but it happened to me and others have benefited from my misadventures. I haven't had reason to tell it much lately, and I thought it might be useful to put into writing. This is a story from before cloud storage was common - back when you could, and often would, run out of online email storage space. Content note: this story includes some unpleasant things that happened to me, including multiple stories of theft (cf. moderately improbable). Also, because it's stressful for most of the story, I want to reassure you that it does have a happy conclusion. It explains a lot of my enthusiasm for good research data management. In Australia, 'honours' is an optional fourth year for a three year degree. It's a chance to do some more advanced coursework and try your hand at research, with a small thesis project. Of course, it doesn't feel small when it's the first time you've done a project that takes a whole year and is five times bigger than anything you’ve ever written. I've written briefly about my honours story (here, and here in a longer post about my late honours supervisor Barb Kelly) . While I did finish my project, it all ended a bit weirdly when my supervisor Barb got ill and left during the analysis/writing crunch. The year after finishing honours I got an office job. I hoped to maybe do something more with my honours work, but I wasn't sure what, and figured I would wait until Barb was better. During that year, my sharehouse flat was broken into and the thief walked out with the laptop I'd used to do my honours project. The computer had all my university files on it, including my data and the Word version of my thesis. I lost interview video files, transcriptions, drafts, notes and everything except the PDF version I had uploaded to the University's online portal. Uploading was optional at the time, if I didn't do that I probably would have just been left with a single printed copy. I also lost all my jewellery and my brother’s base guitar, but I was most sad about the data (sorry bro). Thankfully, I made a backup of my data and files on a USB drive that I kept in my handbag. This was back when a 4GB thumb drive was an investment. That Friday, feeling sorry for myself after losing so many things I couldn't replace, I decided to go dancing to cheer myself up. While out with a group of friends, my bag was stolen. It was the first time I had a nice handbag, and I still miss it. Thankfully, I knew to make more than one back up. I had an older USB that I'd tucked down the back of the books on my shelf (a vintage 256MB drive my dad kindly got for me in undergrad after a very bad week when I lost an essay to a corrupted floppy disk). When I went to retrieve the files, the drive was (also) corrupted. This happens with hard drives sometimes. My three different copies in three different locations were now lost to me.

Thankfully, my computer had a CD/DVD burner. This was a very cool feature in the mid-tens, and I used to make a lot of mixed CDs for my friends. During my honours project I had burned backed up files on some discs and left them at my parents house. It was this third backup, kept off site, which became the only copy of my project. I very quickly made more copies. When Barb was back at work, and I rejoined her as a PhD student, it meant we could return to the data and all my notes. The thesis went through a complete rewrite and many years later was published as a journal article (Gawne & Kelly 2014). It would have probably never happened if I didn’t have those project files. I continued with the same cautious approach to my research data ever since, including sending home SD cards while on field trips, making use of online storage, and archiving data with institutional repositories while a project is ongoing.

I’m glad that I made enough copies that I learnt a good lesson from a terrible series of events. Hopefully this will prompt you, too, to think about how many copies you have, where they’re located, and what would happen if you lost access to your online storage.

[greyskyflowers]

I have all these half hearted soulmate AU ideas and I hate to just delete them, so I'm just going to post what I have and roll with it. Please enjoy some rough draft soulmate AU ideas that I'll never finish ~

💙

Visible soulmate marks

Strings - brook

All his strings are tangled in his rib cage.

Vivid red that's thickly woven and caught between several ribs, always moving and pulling Brook forward.

Dark green tangled up, knotted and fraying in some places but still one of the strongest looking strings he has.

Grey blue that's tied securely towards his inner ribs, usually tangled up with the dark green, and close to where his stomach would be if he had one. Yohohoho

Shimmering orange ribbon that shines on the edges and doesn't pull so much as guide with gentle tugs.

Brilliant yellow in twine, multiple smaller pieces braided into one larger stand and tried off on the bone is a messy knot.

Peaceful pink that's carefully tied with a bow and drapes in gentle loops to a lower height before fading.

Deep purple silk thread, it's thin and slides like water over bone, deceivingly sharp to the touch.

Neon blue wire that's bent on a few places but strong, wrapped over bone in multiple coils.

Flower tattoo - robin

Sunflowers cover her back in messy lines, sprouting into long leafy stems and then giant detailed blooms, a heavy and bright presence always at at her back.

Gladiolus grow up her left forearm in thick inked lines that intersect with fine perfect ones, and lush blooms, one of the larger blooms sits where her arms cross.

Blue stars cover her right forearm with elegant and surprisingly subtle line, the most stunning one parallel to the Gladiolus and they meet when her arms cross.

Dahlias grow around her ankles, beautiful and healthy with lines like a rough sketch, looking wind swept and rain drenched.

A mix of peonys grow on her collarbones, they're sweet and inked in childlike handwriting, the blooms hide playful behind each other in a bunch of petals

Clematis bloom on her chest, they're the largest bloom and are messily arranged, the lines are reminiscent of blueprints with scales and measurements.

Daffodil climb up her left side in elegant white ink and tangle together in all stanges of life: bud, bloom, and wilting with petals dropping.

Marigolds cover her right side in ink that mimics paint strokes, the blooms more detailed than any of the others and look like something from an old gardening book.

Color spots - luffy

Luffy is cover in color, everything from pale, watercolors to vivid metallic

Green covers his right hand and forearm, always visible and on the side that he throws the first punch with.

Pale blues mix on his left hand and forearm, intermixed like different depths of water.

Gold drips down the right side of his chest like spilled ink, a shine to it that catches the light and gleams.

Yellow shines like sunlight on his left knee, it's a burst of courageous color and quick to draw the eye.

Pale pink is whispy on his lower back like cotton candy, edges soft and happy.

Crisp, black is in sharp lines against his left ribs. They site between each rib like a shadow and curl like skeletal fingers.

Purple stains his fingers dark like fruit, it finds its way into his finger prints and trace the shape like it's memorizing it.

Solid grey wraps around his ankles like bands, gleaming like metal and strong looking against his skin.

Moving tattoos - zoro

Zoro is full of life, even when he's fast asleep

A sun, filled in with all the colors of a sunset and whispy, white clouds that roll lazily over the design before fading away and reforming again on the other side. The only mark he ever wants on his back

A part of a map wrapped around his upper, left arm. It flutters like it's catching the wind and the edges shine vivid gold and copper.

Flowers bloom on the back of his right hand, they drop petals that fade like they're sinking into water before the flower starts as a bud again.

Gears turn on his left side, little blue stars tumbling between them before flickering out and reappearing at the top.

The going merry circles his left ankle, it bobs happily under a half circle shape with 5 prongs on the inside.

There's a sheet of music wrapped around his upper, right thigh. Binks Sake, the notes jump like they're being played.

Smoke curls around his right forearm, spitting embers and flashing flames in dark smoke before settling back into a gentle grey.

Hoof prints walk in happy, steps around on his right ribcage. They're there and gone in quick black prints like soot in snow.

Names - nami

Luffy curls around her right wrist, vivid red ink that forms the letters in playful strokes.

Zoro is inked on her lower back in a strong, green.

Sanji rests in greyish blue under her left collarbone in clean, neat lines.

Chopper is a warm brown that wraps around her left ankles, the O replaced with a little hoofprint.

Usopp wraps around her right ankle in messy yellow like paint.

Robin is on her right ribs in dark purple, it's a beautiful cursive.

Franky is neon blue and sits on the back of her neck in block letters.

Brook is one her left ribs, black ink spelling his name in thin, curling strokes.

Usopp - constellations

Taurus in red like blood across his collarbone, a rough circle with proudly raised horns growing off to the sides.

Scorpio in black ink around his upper left arm, razor thin lines that raise high and curve before dropping back down and closing off in an arrow.

Cancer like copper coins behind his ear in tight, storming swirls and long tails.

Pisces in silver around his upper right thigh, two curves back to back and gleaming.

Aquarius in pearl around his fingers in waves that creast in points.

Capricorn in bronze on his right ribcage dripping down and up before curling into a circle and trailing off

Pisces in cobalt on his left shoulder blade, a second pair of curves sliced through but this pair is has thicker lines.

Aries in platinum down his spine, the curve starting by one side of the neck before dropping all the way down his back and back up to the other

Something from home - Sanji

A jungle tree cover his right arm, a small treehouse tucked in between all of the leaves and branches.

The outline of a small building rests on his lower back, the large doors are open and even though he hasn't seen it in person he knows it's a dojo.

A orange tree has roots on his right ankle and grows up his leg into a tree baring healthy, ripe oranges.

The outline of a snowy mountain covers his left ribs, the tops snow tipped and the shadows adding a depth.

A whale rests on his left hip, it's got a scar and a sprout of water above it

A trains follows it's tracks in loops around his left ankle and up to his kneecap

Another tree grows on his left leg, smaller around the base and larger around the middle with little dots like windows in the trunk.

The going merry sits between his shoulders, she's bittersweet but he's honored to have her on his skin.

Franky - bands

Red band that ties like an anchor hitch knot and the edges are wavy like the sea

Green band that's frayed and threadbare in some spots with 3 razor sharp lines carefully cut

Gold band with a little bow and faint maps designs almost light enough to overlook

Purple band with a design like lace, elegant flowers and hearts mixed in

Yellow band with textured like a rope and a little ship he knows but never met sailing on top

Brown band that looks like gauze and just barely covers a little hoof print behind it

Blue band that looks like fish scales and has smokey edges

Couldn't decide what to do for Chopper so let's just say his fur covers them 😀

💙

Soulmate AU ideas

Where you share parts of everything with your soulmate. Random thoughts, wounds, knowledge, etc will sneak through before disappearing

Luffy saying something he absolutely should not know and Robin grinning

Nami sharing in the heavy sleeping feeling from Zoro

Usopp showing off the brief wounds he gets from Sanji like they're his own before they disappear from his skin

Chopper being musical in a way someone with hooves shouldn't be

Franky having medical knowledge that a cyborg doesn't have much use for

They all know they could weld Zoro's swords if they needed. None of them trained in any type of swords style but they can feel the ache of the repetitive motions that come with training and way it feels to attack with the intention of killing. His swords are weary of them, aware of the power soulmates have. They all know what happened at Thriller Bark, felt the acceptance of death because it meant their captain wouldn't have to.

They all love Ace as their own immediately, memorizing everything about him in the way you do for a loved one. They have a fondness for Shanks and others that they've never met besides in stories. Their hands have been busted again and again, the skin splitting over broken bone. They've felt fire in their chest, a loss far deeper than skin.

They've all felt wind against exposed bone, even with there own safety wrapped in skin and muscle. They've felt strings under their fingers and hum melodies they've never heard. There's a loneliness in their heart that speaks of a lifetime lost, one they never lived.

They all felt the foreboding feeling of knowing a storm is coming while looking at clear skies. They wipe at their fingers like ink stains them and there's an itch that only comes from old scars that always sits on their shoulder. They trace maps in their heads and itch for a pen, calculations springing up in their minds for properly scaling.

They've all had situations where their hands knew what to do before they did, their eyes tracing over someone and seeing all the injuries like it was written on their skin. They've felt their noses itch with a influx of scents, knowing immediately what belonged to who. They've felt the zip down their spine of that animal instinct when in the presence of a predator.

They've all felt the feeling of being too big, metal where skin should be and a loss of nerves. They've felt the heavy satisfaction of building something new and impressive, constant bigger and better in their minds.

They've all spoke of books they've never read and place they've never been. They have felt multiple spines break and necks snap under their hands. There's knowledge in their heads that feels heavy and overwhelming, it wants to spill out from their mouths to make room. They miss a place and family that they never knew.

They've all had that vicious huger, the desperation only caused by starvation. They've felt the fleeting attraction to a stranger and also the beauty of genuine love. They have the itch for nicotine, lungs begging for something they've never had.

They've all had times where the day is clearer, a haze they didn't realize was there lifting off their eyes and letting them see further than they had before. They've felt the snap of a slingshot and the swelling urge of creation in their chest.

They never held Zoro's swords

They never mourn the loss of Ace the way Luffy has

They never taste a storm on the back of their tongue the way Nami has.

They've never aimed with the knowledge that people will get hurt if they miss like Usopp has

They never felt hunger as fiercely as Sanji has

They never saved someone's life with enough confidence the way Chopper has

They've never ran their fingers over the last of something the way Robin has

They've never traded skin for metal the way Franky has

They've never met death quite like Brook has

💙

Soulmate String of Fate AU?

Strings tangled in or around:

Zoro's swords

Luffy's hat

Brook's ribs

Robin's fingers

Sanji's wrists

Chopper's antlers

Franky's arms

Nami's bracelet

Usopp's hair

[irregularbillcipher]

been feeling nostalgic for my favorite old virtual pet sites lately

these will eventually be available as mini prints in my shop!

[ID

Two images are in the photoset.

The first image is a lineless digital painting of the logo of the Wishing Well 2 Webkinz game. It shows a smiling brown Webkinz puppy with a white face and paws, and a slight blush, looking down happily into a wishing well. The puppy's reflection is shown in the water, along with a cherry, a wishing well, and an orange. The well itself is a rainbow, stone well with a yellow roof. It is sitting on a green, grassy hill dotted with small white flowers. The sky behind the well and puppy is a very pale orange-pink, leaning on the pink side, and the sky is filled with clouds. A pastel rainbow stretched across the sky.

The second image is of an alien Aisha from Neopets. The Aisha, a green, cat-like Neopet with four antennae and a red triangle on their forehead, is in a spacesuit, floating in space. The suit is white and gray, and they have a red collar with an "A" as the tag. There is tubing, also gray, extending from the suit to a ufo in the top-right corner of the painting in a spiral. The Aisha is holding a large, yellow, five-pointed star that is glowing, and is smiling at it happily, their eyes closed. in the background, with the aforementioned ufo, is a sky full of slightly darker orange stars, also glowing, along with two planets-- one pink with brighter pink swirls, and one purple with crossing pink rings. The background is a deep purple, with some slightly paler purple clouds. The Aisha, tubing and ufo are all lined with a purple much brighter than the background, but all the background details, such as the planets, stars and clouds, are lineless.

End ID.]

[blubberquark]

Computer Literacy

Computer literacy is the most important social problem of today. At least, it’s the most important problem relative to the amount of time we spend talking about it. That makes it the most underrated social problem, and probably the one where we can achieve the most long-term improvements per unit of effort spent, but for some reason we don’t.

As computers have become more and more important, most jobs are now impossible to do without some sort of IT system in there, and that has resulted in people who used to be competent, confident and creative in their jobs throwing their hands in the air, saying “it’s a software problem, what can you do“ as automation increasingly dictates their workflows and makes them unable to even do things they used to be able to accomplish manually.

Somehow, the modern world is full of computers, and they are more important than ever, but as software has become more complicated and more difficult to use, people have become worse at using computers.

Over the last twenty years, we didn’t really get better at computer use. Instead we got used to not being able to understand what’s going on. We are also used to not being in control. Programs update themselves. Web apps change their UI. Web sites change their URL structure and invalidate all your bookmarks. Phones become obsolete in a way that makes it impossible to even run the versions of apps that used to work.

When I talk about complexity, I don’t mean the “internal” complexity of software, as in code complexity, build dependencies, software architecture, and all the tooling to manage this somehow. I mean user-visible complexity: Software is no longer an .exe file on your hard drive, but a self-updating app with a small icon that needs an online account and starts itself when your computer starts. Data is no longer a file on a floppy disk, but a collection of rows in an SQL database somewhere in %APPDATA%, or worse, a collection of rows in an SQL database in the cloud behind a REST API that is actually not REST but just RPC over HTTP.

Computer literacy is a moving target. That makes it difficult to teach. I suspect that the software industry wants it that way.

In their quest to “simplify“ software, vendors turn every application into a black box or a walled garden, denying users ways to re-use knowledge gained from other apps. Can you share the document you are editing with your friends by sharing the URL in your browser? If it was a file, you could save it and share the file with a friend. Online, all bets are off. Maybe the URL thing works, maybe the application has its own internal sharing system that requires your friends to make accounts, so you can “connect“ with them, and only then can you select them from a drop-down menu to share your document with, or maybe the application automatically scrapes your friends from facebook.

When I was in 7th grade, I had “basic computer lessons“, sponsored by Microsoft. We learned how many bits there were in a byte, how to send e-mail with hotmail.com, and what to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for. What we did not learn was how to uninstall software, how to burn a CD, or how to send e-mail attachments. The “child-proofing” software installed on the school computers prevented us from accessing the file system.

Important tasks such as

connecting to a wireless network

printing on a shared network printer

getting your PowerPoint to display on an external screen or projector

verifying that an e-mail is indeed coming from your friend or your bank

were left out.

(Aside: Why don’t banks sign their mail with PGP?)

In the mean time, what has gotten worse was not education. It was software itself. Software has gotten more and more hostile to computer literacy. Some software is actively hostile to deep understanding now, and increasingly it’s also becoming hostile to shallow understanding and muscle memory. Good luck with your new iPad air, we have moved all the buttons around, and have hidden basic functionality behind gestures. Tapping this does nothing, maybe try swiping it, pinching it, shaking it, with three fingers, swipe from the edge of the screen, whoops you switched apps now. It’s no longer possible for an end user to understand software. It’s no longer possible for third parties to even write “the missing handbook” of Slack or Google Docs or Spotify or Dropbox or indeed the iPad. It will be obsolete before it hits the shelves.

Related: http://contemporary-home-computing.org/turing-complete-user/

[solradguy]

Hey Sol! I remember quite a while ago, someone asked you about how to get into archiving stuff and you answered with a little guide of sorts of useful programs/websites/etc.

Do you still have that guide up? Is there somewhere I can learn more in-depth about how to begin archiving too?

Tumblr search is failing me and I can't find that post now... So! I'll type it again. Lately I've been thinking about writing some kind of "archivist's manifesto" type thing for my Neocities in an effort to hype people up about archiving and to guide them on how to do it. When I write that up I'll post it here too.

Here's a big post I wrote on how to scan books and where to upload them (this is also linked in the big GG masterpost that's in my pinned): https://solradguy.tumblr.com/post/722512206034501632/sol-radguy-scanning-guide

That guide also has some tips on photo editing that may be useful for non-book scanning stuff, like some free program alternatives.

I've tried finding professional guides on how to archive media but most of them are written for people looking to archive family photos/things and not web media or physical books. None of them have been very helpful, honestly. One thing they recommend doing that I think IS helpful though is the rule of 3: Keep 3 copies of an archive somewhere. A physical hard drive, cloud storage, a second hard drive stored separately from the first (in case of accidents/hardware failure), uploaded to separate file hosts, and printing new physical copies are some. Doing any 3 of those is highly recommended. I do the two hard drives and cloud storage/file hosts ones. My hosts are generally Archive.org, Neocities, and Google Drive.

Be very careful about trusting image hosting sites with valuable scan data because they come and go like the wind. Photobucket, Tinypic, Imageshack... They're either dead or require a premium to host files now, which doesn't help hobby archivists at all. Imgur's demise is on the horizon. It's just the way it goes with these due to how expensive and space-consuming image hosting is.

Absolutely 1000% do not ever use just Discord for archiving/hosting things. Nothing on that platform can be backed up easily or with automation, and the guys that run it have already made weird choices the community didn't want while also putting more and more things behind the Nitro paywall. I suspect they're going to kneecap image and file hosting some day soon, too.

For archiving someone else's files, something that helps greatly (if it can be done) is either including the source of the file in the file's name or writing a separate document with the sources and whatever other additional information there is.

Here's a basic example of some Sol images from my Sol folder:

The first two are from the Counterside collab event and then the second two are official art but the file names are descriptive and it saves time sourcing them for things later. For archiving fan art/fiction, the filename is a good place to put the artist credit. Something like [Artwork Title]-[Artist Name]-[Original File Creation Date].format ("Sol Badguy Missing Link - Daisuke Ishiwatari - May 14 1998.jpg," or however you wanna organize the folder) works good.

Windows 11 didn't like working with Japanese text in file names for some of the Vastedge stuff I archived and I had to translate/romanize them. If you can't read Japanese/source's language, just do your best (number them instead?) and include the native language text in a .TXT file if possible.

A more complex example from the Vastedge .TXT doc:

The Vastedge materials archive is pretty dense and had a lot of contributors so the first half of the .TXT document's just credits for who did what. This is useful for if something gets lost because we'll know who to go bother about it. Among other things.

The next section is a long stack of details about the files themselves. I won't paste the whole thing here, it's pretty long. It covers how the archive came to be, issues with some of the files, how the files were obtained, and some other stuff:

The last half of the .TXT doc is a listing of the folder contents. I included this for quick reference and because sometimes archives get fractured by people only reuploading certain parts of it. Future archivists or anyone else going through this archive now have a list of what should be in there and will know if something is missing.

Archive.org/Wayback Machine has a browser extension for quickly archiving webpages. I have that and WebP / Avif Image Converter by Nullbrains (Chrome, might be on Firefox?) installed to quickly archive pages and convert image files as I save them.

In summary:

Upload/store things in multiple places

Include credits wherever you can, however is easiest for you

Try to keep files in the most widely compatible formats (jpg, gif, bmp, png, tiff, mp3, mp4, txt, pdf, flac, etc). Google's .DOC, Clip Studio Paint's .CLIP, and similar file formats meant for a specific piece of software may not be supported in the future.

A bad/incomplete archive is better than no archive at all. Consider how exciting Sappho poetry fragments are compared to what it would be like if we didn't have anything. Don't worry about making it "perfect."

Hope that helps some!! I'll try to write the manifesto for my NC soon

[a-new-vers]

~H5~

Woke up today to find out Halsey has set the stage for a new hunt for fans to go on. In true Halsey fashion, it's cryptic with a distinct visual style we can probably expect from this era.

So let's explore, shall we?

A Lil' Timeline:

Halsey played the 27th at Lollapalooza India. During their set before they began to play Gasoline, a visual on screen displayed a URL: FOR MY LAST TRICK (click to go to the site).

Click HERE to see a video of when it was displayed at the concert.

The Website:

The theme behind the website seems to be opening a miscellaneous stick/patch packet.

The first thing is prompting the user to "pull to open" as in a tag to swipe off. You can see the collection of patches behind the plastic wrap. Once you finally open the package, all the patches will disperse.

This is where the Internet sleuthing begins, people. 24 unique patches (technically 25, but I'll get into that later) with different meanings. Let's get into it.

1 - SNA Flight Tag

So really obscure, but googling Air California flight tag brought me to this used bookstore site. In any case, the thing to notice is the date it is attributed with, 1968.

2 - Vintage Blotter Art

According to this blog (which is the only place I could find the image), this is a vintage blotter from 1994. Blotter art is an "...art form printed on perforated sheets of absorbent blotting paper infused with liquid LSD."

3 - Blythe Dolls

I believe this doll is a Blythe doll. Image reverse search does not come up with an exact result, but from the details you can make out, the dolls eyes are quite clear. Which looks a lot like Blythe Dolls, a doll brand that came out in 1972. Their gimmick was that the eyes could move left to right.

4 - Witch Halsey

Unsure, but it would seem it's Halsey as a witch. The aesthetics are similar to IICHLIWP (H4).

If the main theme here is the 70s, there’s the movie Season of the Witch that came out in 1973, February 14th. It’s apparently commentary on traditional American suburban lifestyle through the perspective of a housewife who does not like her place in life. She meets a witch and progressively gets into the occult.

5, 18, 19, 23 - Outside of USA

5: It's hard to tell what most of the words are, but the text "Pagado" (Spanish for "paid") is on the piece of paper. . The particular location might be Palenque, a Mexican city. Relevant date: June 25th, 1977.

18: Belleville. Based on a real winter carnival programme. Belleville is a a city in Ontario, Canada. Relevant date: 1971.

19: “We smokers all want to be non-smokers too” or something along these lines. I'm trusting online translation for this (German to English). Unable to find when this was made.

23: “For Us.” French. The image search doesn’t result anything. Unable to find when this was made.

6 - Peril is My Pay

Based off of a detective book involving traveling. The font is the exact same as one of the book covers. It was published in 1960s.

7 - I have something to tell you

A sign up. I assume it has to do with being updated on any album news.

Looking through the inspect tab you can see the information is being sent to “Sony Fan Music.” It does take note of which country you are in and your address.

8 , 9 - Round visuals

I think these are visuals to give grasp to the 70s theme. It’s reminiscent of 60’s/70’s clothing/aesthetic.

10 - Michigan license plate.

1971 comes up in the plate. Michigan has come up in HFK (H2), on Bad At Love. I doubt this has anything to do about the “boy back in Michigan” but perhaps traveling back throughout her albums.

11 - Ghost

Jan 27th 2014, interesting date to put since this is the date this is all happening, just a decade after.

I've seen some people say this is meant to be the anniversary for Ghost, the song. Although it came out in 2014, its release date was in July, and it originally came out on sound cloud on February 3rd. So unsure why Jan 27th is there. EDIT: I have been made aware that Jan 27th 2014 was its international release date! I am but a fool.

The text can be in response to the lyric “Where did you go?” and the themes on the song of someone leaving. IDK, this could also be a meta thing. If a theme here is traveling and visiting locations/people, then perhaps one thing you won't find if the ghost?

Additionally, this follows the theme of revisiting her previous albums.

12 - Cannel 17

WPHL-TV is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, serving as the local outlet for The CW Television Network. The logos here are form the 60’s/70’s.

13 - Master Mystifier

Or, alternatively, Harry Houdini. The date I do not believe has any relevance here but perhaps the idea of magic.

I came about the google search “Houdini’s Last Trick” where his last trick is widely asked about. It would seem to be an inspiration for the name of the website. So potentially Halsey will lean into magic, tricks, and deception.

14 - Calling Cards

Text on card: “Compliments - May I See (C) You (U) Home? If not, please return this card.”

“May I See You Home” seemed to be a common phrase for calling cards. They were handed out to ask people out. Again, the font and images are similar to H4 aesthetic. These were used in the 18th and 19th century.

15 - B&W Hair

Oh, I actually no idea.

16 - Candy

The closest I could get to finding what this meant is when this font was used for the book Candy by Maxwell Kenton, published in 1958.

As wiki describes the plot "Candy Christian, aged eighteen, is an extremely pretty and desirable but naïve young woman, who finds herself in a variety of farcical sexual situations as a result of her desire to help others. The men in her life, regardless of age or relationship, wish only to possess her."

17 - Southern-Belle

Clearly the saying southern belle. A girl born form the south, typically with certain attributes. The saying came from the idea that “... a girl who was expected to grow up into a lady. She was supposed to be fragile and flirtatious while also sexually innocent. She was beautiful but risky to touch, like porcelain.”

https://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/2259#:~:text=Course%3A,risky to touch%2C like porcelain

20 - Rabbit

I couldn’t find anything that looks the same, but I assume it has to do with Alice and Wonderland. Concerning dates, the book was published in the 1800s, while the arguably most famous iteration (the animated movie) came out in the 50s.

However, this can relate to the potential theme of magic and deception and girl/womanhood. But I’m also inclined to think the rabbit might have nothing to do with Wonderland and might be something else all together.

21 - K-Mart

Wiki comes in handy here. As described, “Satisfaction Always icon seen on Kmart branded packaging until the mid-to-late 70s, adapted from a hanging sign displayed in every early Kmart store.” So 70’s themed.

https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Kmart_(United_States)/Other?file=Kmart_-_1960s_(Satisfaction).svg.

22 - Eye, Eye, Eye, and Eye

The eyes. Girl IDK, they’re eyes. They kind of remind me of the biblically accurate angels and the eyes they have. Although, I doubt that's what they're meant to be.

24 - Cigarette

People seem to think this relates more to Badlands, and I’m inclined to agree.

Themes:

Here are overall themes that seem to be present within the collection.

- Travelling

- Magic

- 60s-70s

- Eyes

- Books

- A Feminist Lens

- Past albums

A Tangent on Web Dev:

I just kinda wanted to point out the cool coding stuff they've done. When the patches are still in the plastic bag, they're always randomized in which order they're in (you have to refresh to notice this). They also disperse in a randomized order. I thought maybe the way they disperse could be a trail of sorts, like a map. But it seems totally random. I still find it cool how they've done that, every time in a different location, as if you open the package they come out uniquely for each person.

Oh and about the 25 patch, it seems the first patch in your packet appears twice when you open it. Idk if the number 25 matters or if this was done by accident. But the 25th patch is a duplicate, and never one in particular, just which ever is the first in your shuffle.

The End

For now.

[spockandawe]

RAKSURA TIME! I live for this book series, guys, I know murderbot really caught the internet's attention, but Martha Wells wrote such a good fantasy series before that, I highly recommend.

First up, we've got a fusion fic! Imagine ffvii. Imagine cloud. And then just.... superimpose him onto moon. It matches so well. And then you just need to stack a good four loving husbands on top of him to love and cherish him deeply! Look. I promise. Just read the Raksura Core series, there's even a fresh new au of an au that didn't make it into this edition, so I'm gonna be rebinding this at LEAST once more in the future.

Then, pure raksura fic! How River Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Moon. River.... River. He's exactly my kind of character, which means he's an asshole who almost burns down his whole life in ways that are largely but not wholly self-inflicted and I derive great, GREAT joy by watching him attempt to scrape the ashes back together and seek personal growth and happiness. I find it so, so rewarding. I ran out of gold foil this week, but I may be attempting some more elaborate cover decoration one more arrives, only the best for my best boy.

And then some miscellaneous short stories from the author's patreon! I live in a state of perpetual low key stress over the impermanence of digital media and that goes extra for sites that aren't designed to work well as archives. I hope, desperately, that someday Martha Wells publishes more raksura, maybe even including these stories! I will buy it immediately. No thoughts, wallet empty. I own all her other raksura books in literally three formats, fingers crossed that by printing this, I can actualize a formal official printing of these stories by the author 😂

[fridge-full-of-feels]

Pro-tip for reading Dracula Daily Oct 3rd

This is my first time reading Dracula, but I’ve been forewarned that the Oct 3rd entry will be obnoxiously long (like 50 pages long)

The problem with reading by email these past few days, which were the longest thus far, has been losing my place in between readings.

Therefore, I’m going to implement the following for Oct 3rd (and so can you):

Step 1: Download the email as a PDF

The method to download an email to PDF on mobile is a little convoluted, so here’s my best attempt to explain how...

In the Gmail app, open the email and press the three circles for more options

Press “Print”

You’ll see an option to “Airprint” that can be misleading, but you need to press that to continue

You’ll be taken to a print options screen pop-up. Make sure it says “No Printer Selected” and press “Print”

A new pop-up will come up, and you have to scroll down to “Save to Files”

Yet another pop-up will give you options on where to save the file on your phone or cloud

Once you have the PDF saved, it’s time to send it to the Kindle app...

Step 2: Convert the PDF to a Kindle ebook

Tumblr is horrible about blocking posts from tags whenever they include links to outside sites, so bear with me.

On your preferred search engine, search for “email pdf to kindle” for the Amazon help page with exact instructions that include helpful links

Here are the distilled instructions:

Find your Send-to-Kindle email address

Make sure you have an approved email account to send from

Attach the PDF in an email FROM approved email TO your Send-to-Kindle email

The subject line just needs to say "convert"

Finding the file on your phone may require some digging. On iOS, press the attachments icon and scroll down to the Attachments subheader in the pop-up. If it’s not immediately visible as an option, press on the file icon square. You can press “Browse” in the top left corner to get returned to a list of all locations on your phone.

Step 3: Open on the Kindle app

The file should arrive on the Kindle app looking like a generic DOC

[Edited to add: You don’t need a Kindle for this. I simply read on my iPhone using the Kindle app]

Once you open it, it can be read and treated like any other ebook, including the opportunity to highlight passages and save progress.

Hope this helps!

[snapthistiger]

exercise 01302024

bike ride to the gym

3 x 10 lat pull

3 x 5 dips

3 x 10 tricep press

3 x 10 row

3 x 10 tricep extension

45 minute spin class

6 x 5 seated press

bike ride to my Mom's then home

the gym workers received Hershey kisses

my Mom was sleeping so i visited with the sitter. the sitter is working on getting a passport so i helped her find the correct web site and then later i printed the application form for her

top left = excavation for some utility work near the Catholic school

middle = not easy to see but spin class was set up in a near semi circle. we talked about a semi circle last week so i started off setting up bikes in a semi circle today and the idea caught on

bottom = little purple flowers in this clover. maybe an early sign of spring

gorgeous weather / low 70s and no clouds and a light breeze from the west

taking my Mom to the doctor's office for lab work tomorrow morning. her routine primary care appointment is next Wednesday

hope you have a peaceful afternoon and evening..

[artofalassa]

Once again, twitter is burning. Or... has not stopped from burning yet. Yay!

SO.

While this site feels extremely lonely, I guess it’s at least a little bit more friendly to categories and sorting your art and -- acting like an archive in general. So that’s a pro.

JUST SO YOU KNOW.

I’m usually a very chatty person. I have my batteries, they need to recharge a lot and often, but if you ever want to talk/ask about Zack/Cloud, FFVII/XV, art, prints/merch, BOTW (I’m playing it atm yay!!) or anything in general, my inbox is open. <3 I always loved being alive, communicative and connected to people around twt. So please, feel free!

I also read all the tags! I just don’t know how to respond to them, even though I’d really like to! ;; So thank you for all the nice words! <3

End of my emotional outburst! Thank you for reading! <3

[custom-pronoun-pins]

Can you make one for he/she please?

of course :)

[ID: Eleven circular pronoun pins with transparent backgrounds. The first is black, with a white ring around the outer edge, with "he" written in white text, and "She" written in yellow. The second is a stock photo of a cyberpunk, Matrix-style person in dark sunglasses, holding a neon rod behind their head, with "he-she" written in neon-style green text. The third is covered in different wild flowers, with "he she" in light and dark purple text with a white outline. The fourth is a grey brick wall, with antique style white font with a black outline reading "he she" The fifth is a drawing of a crescent moon with small white stars, and black text. The sixth is a half photo, half digital painting of a realistic crescent moon in a black-to-blue gradient sky scattered with tiny stars while clouds lit grey and orange by the sunset below, and cursive white text that reads, "my pronouns are he she". The seventh is a purple galaxy background, with concentric white rings, and "he/she" in white text with a bold outline in a computerized style font. The eighth is a phooto of ocean waves from above, with bold black text that reads "he she" The ninth is a swirling abstract background of black, blue, and red, with white text that reads, "My pronouns are he/she - that means you refer to me as both 'he' and 'she'". The tenth is half yellow and half black, with black text curving across the top that reads, "my pronouns are", then "he" in black on the yellow half, and "She" in yellow on the black half. The eleventh is colorful stripes of rainbow paint, with text with a black outline and center, and pastel inner edges, that reads, "please use He/She pronouns for me!" End ID.]

You can download the HD versions from the web archive!

"https://archive.org/details/he-she-pronoun-pins-by-request-september-5th-2023"

These are free to download and print out, and you're welcome to share them to other sites, or use for icons / headers, in art, ect! All I ask is that you include an image description to make the post accessible! Copying and paste the relevant section above is the easiest way to do this :)

Requests are always open!

These designs will appear in this collection in my threadless store when they're done uploading, so you can buy them as buttons, shirts, stickers, ect! :)

[vanweezer]

come what(ever) may - stone sour

took me by surprise seeing this at my local book/physical media store. idk if anyone remembers google play music but that was my everything in middleschool (along w pandora bc it was the only site not blocked whenever id listen to music) and i remember being in the "slipknot"/"nu-metal" "radio" stations pretty often, and stone sour popping up every now and then. obvs as a little angsty rat i didn't always care to listen to their more ~melodic~ or acoustic stuff, so i ended up skipping their songs in favor of slipknot + the like. didn't even know corey & james were in stone sour as well! didn't even know who corey and james were. different times i spose

some of these songs i do remember from my tweens/recently watching corey's live in london show (bc thats just a rite of passage for me isnt it) and hearing them on my cd put me in 2007. sure i wouldve been like four. but still. the composition of these tracks alone just puts you there. its like a wormhole through a higher grade nickelback discography. and i mean that in the most respectful way possible. if you can imagine.

standout tracks are obviously through glass, cardiff, 1st person, and hell & consequences. i didn't get a chance to really pay attention to the lyricism this listen but i just love hearing corey sing. who doesn't. the man literally made a career out of it. wild. i know there's jokes to be made about stone sour being slipknot: 2 (very justified btw, what with the acoustics paired with the industrial/death metal tones we're so used to hearing from them in slipknot) but now i get why they were able to reach icon status in the aughts. i always say there are bands that define a genre to a time and bands that are a product of a genre in their time, and stone sour (to me, at least) is definitely the latter. however, it isn't a bad thing here ? like you'd expect any band that shares similarities with nickelback or creed or godsmack or any beloved pioneers in buttrock to be the same degree of "corny turned cult classic" but there's something about stone sour that cements them as just a genuinely good rock band, period.

and dont even get me started on the artwork & art direction on this foldable, it took a lot of strength to not just scan and post everything. whoever was in charge of cd foldable artwork from 2006-2010 needs to have their work studied in the same way we used to run over picasso's greatest hits in art history class. it's like the entire spread was printed on acid washed jeans. it's like no matter where i look there is an embossed edge. it's like even the png clouds above them have a tactile texture as i turn and read lyrics. it's straight up male casual wear section in the department store-green city. it's so cinematic that way. also i wonder if the album's title itself is a reference to annie? i know corey's into theater, and the whole "come what may" thing is like a lyric or phrase from something else. feel free to correct me though 🫶

im glad i gave my 12 year old self a new listen today, and as always im glad to be able to share my listens and findings to the 2 people interested in my cd tag.

[penig]

I did take one more picture at Friedrich but I got distracted before I sat down to post it on-site and then we went home and now I can't find my phone. Either the fairies took it or I dropped it in the parking lot. I hope it's the fairies 'cause they give things back. Eventually.

Anyway, the cloud cover broke a teeny tiny bit so my friend glimpsed the corona, but I couldn't see a thing. It got very dark and still and the air-pressure thing happened in both our ears. My friend said she heard crickets, but all I heard was tinnitus. The temperature dropped noticeably. Someone was letting off fireworks. And then, with astonishing rapidity, at least twice as fast as it had come on, the darkness went away.

I'll try again in 2045. I'll only be in my 80s.

As a consolation, I'll always have the eclipse that happened when we were stationed in Maryland - probably the March 7, 1970 total eclipse, since we were only in Maryland for a year and a half, but I don't actually remember this one going to totality. It was a big enough deal that all the classes in our elementary school learned to make the little pinhole devices to catch the reflection.

My brother and I both had one but my little sister didn't, because she was sick as a dog with (I kid you not but this is the kind of detail I might have gotten confused) yellow fever. She was sacked out on the couch while my brother and I went out and absolutely failed to get anything in our little devices, so we got frustrated and cold and went in.

The couch was under one of those big picture windows mid-century builders loved so much, and Mom had closed the drapes. But there was a little chink between them, and there, printed in sunlight on the skin of my sister's leg, we saw the eclipse, or what remained of it, perfectly.

This is one of two stories she stars in which my sister doesn't remember at all, which is a real shame.