#macro average

[unsettlingcreature]

ok I'm officially taking suggestions for character creation options, I'm looking purely for suggestions based on visual appearance and currently have:

skin tones (choosing between a shorter or longer list)

skin details (currently freckles, moles, vitiligo, acne and a facial scar)

hair length (including bald/shaved)

hair colour (choosing between a shorter or longer list)

eye colour (currently all natural eye colours. should i add unnatural colours too?)

height

additional details (currently glasses, uses a cane, heavy makeup. I think I could really expand on this part in particular.)

[spark-circuit]

me: hmm, how big is the total Energy Quota for all 50 days anyways? 🤔 math: (around 36,270 according to the Wiki) me: ............. *looks at my Energy Count, currently at day 28*

me: ......................maybe we can leave the timeloop early...?

[littlesistersti]

[feminineriddle]

i really don't try to talk about numbers. because i know how triggering it can be for people. but damn is a 1500 caloric deficit simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing ever.

[reasonsforhope]

"Litter on European beaches from the Baltic to the Aegean is falling, according to a new report.

If you’ve ever rented in Europe, or you’re a European and you live there, there’s a good chance you’ve had to comply with the strict waste control standards that require you to separate trash into several categories.

If that’s the case, and if it’s a pain in the neck sometimes, well crack a smile, because the hard work is paying off in one of the best, perfectly-tangible ways: how much trash is on European beaches.

In its latest EU Coastline Macro Litter Trend report, the Joint Research Center of the European Union has found that between 2015 and 2021 total beach litter has fallen 30%, with the biggest reductions seen in single-use plastic items (40%). The density was measured in pieces per 100 meters.

Pictured: Infographic via the JCR at the European Commission. Zoom or open image in new tab for better quality.

Fisheries-related items decreased by 20% as were plastic bags. The beaches that improved the most were concentrated around the Baltic Sea (45%) while the despite the enormity of the Mediterranean, it too experienced a dramatic decline (38%).

The report gathered data on macro marine litter trends across 253 beaches, and was pursuant to tracking the EU Zero Pollution Action Plan’s Target 5a, which aims to reduce plastic litter at sea by 50% by 2030.

That target would be well on the way to being met, if the report is accurate. Mediterranean beaches are subject to some of the highest densities of beach goers anywhere in the world, and for the improvement to be so dramatic, with 150 fewer pieces of litter found on average across every 100 meters of sand or stones, is a testament to more than just tight regulations."

-via Good News Network, May 7, 2025

[branchflowerphoto]

leucopogon polymorphus | west australian wildflower

from a standing position this looks like a pretty average, small, boring shrub, until I pointed a macro lens at it and... stars and furry petals! I feel like I discovered a secret

[uzumaki-rebellion]

Spinning the Block Part 1

Pairing: Terry Richmond x Officer Jessica "Jess" Sims

Warning(s): 18+, Angst, Mentions of Racial Tension.

Summary: Jess Sims attempts to pay her respects.

Word count: 3.2K

"Turned into an inconvenience

You only want me when convenient

I know that I could probably block you

But for some reason, I wanna see you

And you know I give a damn about you

You got me sittin' here thinkin' about you

And how your name triggers all my emotions

Into my eyes, into an ocean"

Normani – "Insomnia"

Jessica Sims knew in her heart she had no right to be at Michael Simmons' mother's house.

She'd driven an hour from Shelby Springs into Greenwood carrying a homemade lemon pound cake in the passenger side of her slate gray Dodge Durango. Her mother's recipe had her SUV smelling like fresh butter, sugar, and citrus.

The closer she got to the neighboring town, the tighter her fingers gripped the steering wheel, worrying if she'd see Terry Richmond again. He'd been on her mind for weeks…haunting her. She lost sleep and her nerves were so bad she had to get a prescription for sleeping pills just to function daily. Jess tried every home remedy from chamomile tea to a glass of warm milk before bed to fight insomnia.

Nothing worked.

Each night she crawled between cool sheets and stared at her bedroom ceiling, wishing things were different. Wishing she'd done things differently. Terry's smoldering sea-green eyes always came into focus, taunting her, preventing much needed rest.

When he walked into her police station to file a robbery complaint, she'd believed her department ran a tight ship. Her training had taught her to be fair but firm in following the law by the books. Chief Sandy Burnne had been her mentor, the one who recruited her straight from the police academy. She planned her law enforcement career while in college, joining the police academy a year after graduation. Her family wasn't too keen on the idea, preferring she use the hard-earned sociology degree to get a regular job and start a family like her older brothers. Jess had other plans. She wanted to be the first Black female police chief in Shelby Springs.

Wielding a badge and a gun allowed her to protect her own community. She had a certain charmed way of speaking to people that let them know not to test her, but that she'd hear them out with their problems whether they were in the wrong or right. Her excellent reputation around those parts gave her access to places that would unnerve the average person. She grew up a tomboy running around hunting with her father and brothers, physically fighting anyone who crossed her. She abhorred a bully, and that caused her problems with some of her colleagues that used their badge to sling their dicks around. Jess didn't go along to get along, but she picked her battles carefully to achieve her long-term goal: to run the department herself one day.

Men tested her all the time, and she did her job ignoring the micro and macro aggressions. Chief Burnne always had her back despite the cracker ways he tried to keep under wraps. He came from an era of uneducated Cajun rednecks filling up the department. Nowadays, there were more cops coming onto the force with education, melanin, and sometimes a vagina. A lot of old-school men didn't like that. Chief Burnne didn't either, but he accepted her and showed Jess respect when she did her job well. She impressed him, and he took her under his wing. She never revealed her goals to have his job in the future. Staying quiet, observant, and efficient worked to her advantage. Chief Burnne opened up more that way, spilling his tips on how to handle the job and people his way.

That is…until Terry Richmond showed up.

Jess misread his intentions from the start.

The second he strode into the office, she sensed a cockiness in him that smoldered beneath the surface. Most Black men in Shelby Springs were older and paunchy from a sedentary lifestyle and good Country Cookin', or lean youngsters with hustler's dreams of getting away from small town life. Terry was built strong and muscular, like a brick shithouse. He carried himself different. Spoke with controlled diction. He was a country boy for sure, but one that didn't work around Shelby Springs. She would've noticed his striking looks at the bars or cookouts broadcasting that he was living mighty fine. Employment was good with the new petrochemical plant ten miles away, and the Black community she lived in thrived with folks making good money, something that hadn't happened in over thirty years. Black folks, especially the men, being flush with cash and a pride about themselves irritated the white community. Negroes were acting a little too uppity lately. Buying new cars and scooping up property. Getting their homes built from scratch. Purchasing big fishing boats to use on Lake Tremblay. Sending their kids to college.

Tensions erupted in bars, public gatherings, and even football games at the local high school whenever white and Black people mingled in the same spaces. That's where Jess worked her magic. If she caught word of trouble brewing, she'd make a phone call to family and friends, giving a warning about police sweeps and rednecks making a commotion. The community grapevine activated and her people acted accordingly to stay far from trouble.

When it was her time to do patrols, Jess stayed visible in the white areas a lot. Her paternal great-granddaddy Adelore Seraphin was a fiery white Cajun who never married her great-grandmother, so she never gave their only child, Jess's granddaddy, his surname. The Sims family were proud Black Cajuns who turned their nose up at white trash. Adelore was considered trash because he wouldn't divorce his wife to marry Zema Sims. There was something about her Paw Paw's wife not giving him a divorce on account of them being Catholic. Granny Zema was an African Methodist and didn't give a damn about what Catholics thought about divorce. Paw Paw left that white lady and built Granny Zema a house to show that he was for real about building a life and family with her. So that's what they did. The white wife kept the marriage title, but Granny Zema kept the man.

It was a scandal, and as far as her Paw Paw was concerned, his only issue was that he didn't want that other woman to get part of his pension. She never did because she died before him, a bitter alcoholic, still screaming about the Black bitch that stole her husband. Technically, Granny Zema didn't steal him. She had him first, but back in their time, they couldn't get married because of miscegenation laws. So they broke up and Paw Paw married the white woman…and lived miserably. He started tipping out and one thing led to another. Jess's granddaddy, Hebert Sims, was born.

Jess's connection to Adelore Seraphin meant she had white Cajun relatives all up and down Shelby Springs. The kin on that side, who knew the family tree had an extra dark branch, tolerated Jess when she made patrols or answered calls of domestic disturbances in that section of town. Nothing on her screamed Seraphin except for her eyes. She had Paw Paw's discerning eyes. So did her daddy. She moved in the world like a Sims, but them pale kinfolk recognized her as the great-granddaughter of that trouble-making Seraphin behind her back. That gave Jess intimate knowledge of how outsiders perceived the proud, flourishing Black community. Trouble.

So when Terry Richmond rode his fine ass into Shelby Springs, he was already a problem before Lann clipped him with the police cruiser.

When he sat down in front of her while she typed in his descriptions of who robbed him, his tone was confident. His demeanor crafty. She was shocked that he recorded their conversation, equally shocked by Chief Burnne's sudden aggression toward him. Lann was an asshole to everyone, overcompensating for some deep-rooted male insecurity. Her first thought was that the Chief might've known something about Terry that she didn't, and she expected to be filled in on the matter. Drug couriers were a thing within small towns, and it wasn't above suspicion that drug runners would use a decoy disguise to pretend they were regular citizens going about their day. She went back and forth in her mind about Terry's reason for carrying so much cash in a backpack on a bike. It looked and sounded suspicious, especially with the drug busts they'd done a few months previously on the bridge during a police chase. She had picked up her own distant white kin at his house, the run-down place full of meth and illegal fentanyl. Opioid use was up. Drug dealers were racking up millions transporting that cash economy and product moving across state lines in Louisiana grew. Chief Burnne's own nephew had died of a drug overdose ten years ago, so anything that had a whiff of drug activity got his hackles up.

That was the hard line story they fed Jess for five years as she accepted civil forfeitures as a necessary part of police work. Portions of white and Black men from Shelby Springs and other bordering towns thrived in the drug trade. Sex trafficking, too. Her department prided itself on breaking the supply chain.

It had all been a lie.

Chief Burnne's lie. His department…his rules.

Jess had been inadvertently complicit.

A rule follower, and a staunch believer in the church of right and wrong, she turned a blind eye to activity that should've raised suspicions. Instead, she quietly looked out for her people on the domestic front, dousing potential flames of racist attacks, especially with all the MAGA crowd flaunting their bigotry and jealousy. Jess was more worried about racist attacks happening. Red necks were openly riding around in trucks carrying lynching ropes with right-wing slogans for bumper stickers. The south was always going to be the south, and America was always going to be America…the United Racists of America.

Jess literally couldn't be bothered if suspicious men passing through town carrying ridiculous amounts of cash got hemmed up. She damn well wouldn't coddle grown ass Black men if they got busted for doing crimes. Her daddy instilled in her a strong bullshit detector for her dealings with that.

"Sweetheart, Black men have to decide for themselves if they want to do right in the world. Black women can't keep the cape on forever, or come running with mops and brooms to clean up their messes. If Black women can get up every day and build up their community in the same terrible conditions as us, then they gotta stop babying these men who tear it down. There's no excuse for a Black man not wanting better for himself or his people. We done come too damn far to be the new terrorists against our own women and children."

Jess listened well. Applied it to Terry.

Something in her gut knew something wasn't right, but she didn't want to put herself out for some stranger who might've been tearing people's lives apart transporting thirty-six thousand dollars in cash. Black people always suffered the most with drug addiction and drug crime because of generational poverty and the predators who took advantage of that. Terry could've been lying to cover his ass for a drug cartel. She didn't know him, didn't know who his people were. He came into her life that day and turned it upside down. The only silver lining she clung to in the end was that she saved his life twice. Once when Officer McGill almost blasted him with a rifle when Terry dragged Marston behind a cruiser to safety. Jess slammed her hand on the weapon. McGill looked shell-shocked by the turn of events. She felt the same. Her boss had shot a fellow officer and made a speech to them all about how he would cover it up. If Chief Burnne harmed a white man that easily, he wouldn't blink twice before taking her out. The second time was when she carried out a PIT maneuver and knocked Burnne away from Terry, providing his last escape. The death of his cousin and the treatment he received in Shelby Springs were irredeemable. All she hoped for was peace in her own mind that she acted on the right side of judgement.

Jess followed her SUV's navigation system and pulled onto a street full of cars parked everywhere. She passed by Rosa Simmons' single family brick house with a large manicured lawn. Mourners milled about the front and the entrance door was wide open. After all the legal and medical inquiries, along with the criminal investigation, it took the Simmons' family three weeks to get Mike's body returned for burial.

She parked two blocks away and smoothed out her most subdued black sheath dress. It was plain and appropriate for the occasion. She carried the pound cake in a round Tupperware container and listened to her kitten heels click-clack on the narrow sidewalk. Her stomach churned, nearing the home.

"Hi..hello…hiya doin'?" she said, passing people she didn't know on the walkway to the house.

Heads nodded at her with sorrowful eyes and stooped body postures. The atmosphere inside the modest home was thick with heartache. Jess contemplated doing a pivot right back outside, but an older woman in her fifties with short-clipped hair sitting on a recliner noticed her.

Mike's mother, Rosa.

"My condolences, Mrs. Simmons," Jess whispered.

She didn't want to bring attention to herself and stepped forward, past a throng of people carrying plates of sliced ham, potato salad, and baked beans.

"Thank you for coming…oh you brought something, how thoughtful."

Rosa stood up.

"I can take that," Rosa said.

"Ma'am, I can put it with the other food."

"Mm-hmm, yes, the dining room table is right back there. Did you go to school with my Michael?"

"No, ma'am. I knew him from somewhere else. I'll put this away."

"Okay, baby. Fix yourself a plate while you're in there."

"Thank you."

Jess's eyes darted away and took in the other mourners. Her heart thumped a triple rhythm. It was best to put the cake on a table and leave. The stress of feeling like a traitor to her own wore on her nerves.

Delicious odors of soul food guided her nose to the dining room. The dining table could've buckled under the weight of so much food. Folks old and young helped themselves to fried chicken, crawfish, turnip greens, gooey macaroni and cheese, and a pot filled with smoked chiltlins.

She pushed a crock pot of brown gravy aside to make room for her cake next to a half-eaten sweet potato pie.

"Who let this woman in here?!"

A light brown woman with soft, shoulder-length curls glared at Jess, her lips curled into an angry snarl. Everyone looked at Jess curiously, wondering what was going on.

"Mama! Who let this dirty cop into our house?"

Rosa rushed into the dining room. Jess held out her hands.

"I just wanted to give my condolences—"

"You're the reason my brother is dead! Who let her in? Who?!" Mike's sister screamed.

The anguish in her voice brought tears to Jess's eyes.

"I'm sorry…everyone, I'm sorry…Mrs. Simmons…"

In her peripheral, Jess noticed Terry coming from a back room wearing a dark suit. She ran away as fast as her kitten heels could carry her. She knocked into people and brushed past other family members on her way out the door.

"Jess!"

Terry's deep baritone called to her, and she pumped her legs faster. Reaching the car, she fumbled for her key fob and unlocked the SUV. She jumped in and Terry banged on her window.

"I'm sorry I came. I didn't mean to upset your family," she said, starting her vehicle.

"Roll down your window."

His commanding eyes stared right through her. She rolled her window down partially. Wiping tears away from her cheeks, she faced her front window, unable to look at him.

"I know it wasn't easy for you to come here."

She shook her head, and a violent sob choked her throat.

"Listen…give me your number. I'd like to speak with you about all of this… at a better time—"

"No…this was a mistake…I'm sorry…I have to go—"

"Fucking bitch!"

Mike's sister threw Jess's cake on the car. The Tupperware container burst open and the pound cake crumbled all over the hood.

"Livia! Stop!"

Terry walked toward his cousin, and she ran from him toward the sidewalk. Other family members had followed them to watch the scene. Jess's stomach sank to the floor of her car.

"You did this to Mike! You goddamn greedy cops sent my brother to die and I fucking hate you! Get outta here, you murdering bitch!"

Livia picked up a heavy rock and threw it at the passenger side window, fracturing the tempered glass. Terry lifted his cousin up by the waist and carried her away. Jess drove off quickly. Cake crumbs fell away from her hood and she screeched her tires with a hasty exit.

She didn't hold back on crying, allowing her tears to wash away the shame and embarrassment.

Back in Shelby Springs, she paced the floors inside her house, drinking whiskey, and pondering her fate. Mike's burial was only the start of her troubles. Next came a lawsuit Terry filed against her department. It would probably finally bankrupt them like the last legal settlement they paid almost did. With the dashcam evidence, plus her, Summer, and Marston's testimony, Terry was sure to win a large payout. Her career was in jeopardy, and their department possibly disbanded.

She downed a half glass of Uncle Nearest whiskey and looked at her black dress. The audacity of her showing up in Greenwood thinking she could dip in and out without consequences.

Jess had to face her part in Terry's life being traumatized forever. Losing her job was a small price to pay for his lifetime of pain.

She leaned her head against her living room window in the dark and watched a swarm of fireflies do a light dance outside. Her grandfather used to say seeing fireflies brought good luck. Jess desperately needed that to be true.

Crawling into bed with her dress still on, Jess stared at her ceiling again, semi-drunk and all cried out. She thought about Terry calling out her name and running after her. He didn't sound mean or angry when he spoke to her briefly. Asking for her number surprised Jess, because…why? What could they talk about that would fix the wide valley between them? Maybe he wanted to yell at her too, get his justified anger off his chest. She deserved it.

Jess curled into the fetal position and thought of Terry. Even in mourning, he looked handsome in his suit. For the first time in weeks, she fell into a deep sleep without having to use medication.

Part 2 HERE.

Masterlist.

Taglist:

@nahimjustfeeling-writes

@planetblaque

@kindofaintrovert

@thedondada05

@blackburnbook

@avoidthings

@slutsareteacherstoo

@nayaesworld

@notapradagurl17

@4pfsukuna

@yamst3rdamctrl

@sweettea-and-honeybutter

@comfortzonequeen

@theereina

@brattyfics

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@megane96

@honeytoffee

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@mightbeher

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@kaykay772

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@thickmadame

@onherereading

@daneiawrites

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@ariiijestertheklown

@blackerthings

[despazito]

My controversial opinion is I won't be super impressed by pugs bred to their current standard clearing health tests until I see these good stats backed up over several compounding generations to see how what their averages are like. Are you just cherry picking the best ones how do these trends look on a macro level in the breed bc atm it's not looking good

[rosygames]

Another update

Hello everyone!

I come bearing news. This is a decision I came to after a month of back and forth, and after consulting some of the people in my personal life. I’ve been thinking about this for much longer, but it is only recently when I really thought of actually doing it.

I know I said I’d switch over to Twine, and I even finished the template (and even submitted it as my final requirement to graduate uni!) but with all the recent happenings in my personal life and being stumped with how much more complicated coding and bug fixing is on Twine, I decided to stick with CSIDE.

While I do still have my own opinions on COG and everything that’s happened a few years ago, CSIDE is still an incredibly helpful and accessible way to get a loved story out. The community is not perfect, but it is one of the most supportive and welcoming communities I’ve ever been in.

Coding is incredibly complicated on Twine, and I don’t mean learning it. I’ve learned it, and I know how to do it, but the tedious way of doing it is making it all difficult to actually write. I like writing fast, I like letting my fingers fly across the keyboard and watching a story come to life on my screen. I like minimalism in my code because too much code makes my vision swim, especially when it’s repetitive. I do like the designing aspect of it, I do love coding CSS, and I am proud of what I’ve finished for it, but I looked at it as a long term project and I felt so exhausted. I felt like I might get burnt out so easily with it. Especially with how stressful the past few months of my life has been.

Not only that, but bug fixing seems next to impossible to me. With CSIDE/Dashingdon (I’m aware it’s gone), it was a simple click and wait to see any game breaking bugs. It was also a simple click, wait, and compute to see the word count/average word count per play through. For Twine, I’ve just been raw dogging the bug fixing on my own and I know I missed a lot with the Prologue + 1/3 of Chapter 1 that I have done in my private files. I use VSCODE, and I know it’s simply finding the red highlights to see any broken links etc, but I think of the branching in the future and the possible circles the story will take, and I don’t think it’ll be that easy.

Apart from that, I’ve already talked about how itch.io wouldn’t work with our internet service provider for months last 2023. This was one of the major things that stalled me from actually doing anything with the game (aside from the blistering heat I’d already talked about, but we recently installed an AC in my + my sister’s rooms and it helps during particularly difficult heat waves). We were asked to pay so much more money monthly just to “unlock” it basically. If I remember correctly, and please do not quote me on this as this was almost two years ago, we were asked to basically double our monthly payment which was absolutely not happening. It hasn’t happened since then, from what I can tell (I rarely visit the site though) but it is still a fear of mine that it’ll randomly stop working again and I’ll have to pay double just to get the game going.

Lastly, I know that Twine can be difficult for readers. The mobile version can be quite clunky (even the well coded ones) and it’s much more accessible for readers to go to HG/COG. I am also taking this into account since my readers’ experience is incredibly important to me. I, too, read on my phone and I admittedly do not do so with the Twine games I enjoy.

Twine, of course, has its pros. I love the customization, I can keep a ton of information for readers to come back to and read if they need a refresher on things. I was warned when I was still on CSIDE that my “stat” screen could start being laggy due to the amount of information in it. With Twine, I can have a codex, and I can have fun with how to present the information without worrying about lag. I loved creating the UI and editing the pages. There are also macros on Twine that obviously do not work with CSIDE—the cycle macro in particular is something I will be sad to let go of. Twine and CSIDE are just vastly different and I think, for TRO at least, CSIDE is the way to go.

With that being said, I am going to go back to working on the CSIDE version of the new story. I’m aware that others think revision kills a project (and I will admit that TRO was in a critical state lol) but I couldn’t go through with the early TRO because I felt that wasn’t the story I was truly trying and wanting to tell. I’ve said that it was a bunch of bullshitting on page, spurred on by mania and love for the characters and the world. I changed a lot, and I’m aware of that. This version will be the final version, barring some revisions just to make things flow better. The story will be final, the characters will be final. I spent the past two years being honest with myself and my ambitions for this game. I’d had to let go of characters, of some arcs and cool background stories, and I had to decide what to actually do.

I will be working on it, and possibly posting the new demo soon. I know I said soon last year, but 2025 was shitty, to say the very least. I will go into a little more detail under the cut, but things were out of my control and I don’t think I’ve had a more draining year than 2025 since… ever. Please understand that what happened in my personal life recently is a big reason why I am sticking with the easier and more familiar code of CSIDE.

I will create the account soon, and I will post the “main post” soon (I am already writing it but I do not want to post until I have Chapter 1 ready). I will update you guys, and will post a final post here before turning this into a locked archive.

For everyone who is satisfied with what’s said up there, thank you and I hope to see you again when the next demo is live. For those who are curious about what’s happened recently, continue on.

I will not be going into details about some of the things because I am uncomfortable with sharing them publicly, but I hope this can shed some light on why it’s been so difficult to update the past two years.

I’ve mentioned here that it was hot in the Philippines last summer 2023, and it was. It was so hot that I was having daily headaches. It was not ideal at all, and we didn’t have AC in our rooms. The heat passed, and I found myself struggling to access itch.io. This went on for months, until I stopped trying late 2023.

Late 2023, I had an episode. I cannot speak much of it since it was literally just a week of me, well, to explain I felt like I was “out” of my body. Everything felt gray, and I felt so detached. It was scary, and I didn’t know what to do, and I’d informed my parents of this but I could do nothing but let it pass because we didn’t know what was happening. I think stress may have caused this, since I was at the time stressed with school work, but it was one of the most terrifying things that has happened to me. It made me want to go back to my psychiatrist and get treated for my illnesses. I’d stopped medication some years ago because they were making me miserable, but this event made me want to go back. And I made plans to go back, I went on my first online appointment with a new doctor and I was getting my blood checked for any other problems (found none that we didn’t already know of), but things halted once more because something life-changing (and not in a good way) had happened to our family. No worries, it wasn’t health related and everyone’s safe, but it wasn’t good. The effects of this situation went on for months (even now, there are lingering effects), and I had to drop a few of my classes and postpone my graduation for a year.

I lost all motivation then. I stopped working on anything but class related projects. I was too busy trying to help with what was happening to really focus on anything else. I was still thinking of the episode I had and wanting to get it possibly checked. This went on for a few months until I started working on the Twine version once more since I decided to make it my final project—the project needed to graduate from my program.

This went well, as I already mentioned. I was working on it semi-regularly, and I had arrived at a point where I thought I could post it soon. January and February of this year were hectic, but thankfully pretty peaceful.

Then March happened, and with it other household/family problems that were too big to ignore. I was once again one of those in charge of making sure things were okay, and I don’t know. I really do not want to give more details since these are family problems, but they were so stressful that I was nauseous and losing sleep over this. What made it worse is that, before the situation even concluded (caused it to conclude without any real “solution”, even), one of our dogs got sick with a blood parasite despite having flea medication. We caught the symptoms a little too late, and it had already affected her liver. We were in and out of the vet clinic for weeks, and for some days it felt like she was getting better, but she unfortunately passed early May. The same month, our senior dog caught a virus and similar to the other dog, we did everything we could to save him but he unfortunately passed. It was peaceful—poetic even, as he’d passed on the day of the previous dog’s birthday and as the sun was setting, we were all there with him as he took his last breath. It was easier to accept compared to the other dog’s death because he was old, and I suppose the previous heartbreak had made us all more accepting. Still, it was painful since they were both with us for many, many colorful years and we love and miss them each day. We’ve become quite protective over the remaining dogs since then, and it is honestly making my anxiety spike lol.

The kicker is that all of this happened around finals’ week. My sister and I were swamped with deadlines and all this was happening during then. I was busy with the Twine version and hurrying the process because not being able to pass it this semester would’ve meant I’d delay my graduation once more. Thankfully, my adviser was understanding and I managed to pass the project. If things all go according to plan, I will be graduating after this semester!

As you can see, it was a difficult few years. A part of me thought maybe the game was cursed, since problems seemed to have appeared every time after I started becoming more serious with working on it. I thank the tremendous effort I’d put into learning myself and my triggers and how to deal with the symptoms of my illnesses because I don’t think I could’ve survived the past two years without that, and I definitely don’t think I’d go back to working on this game without that.

I apologize for the silence, I was busy trying to survive all the curveballs life has thrown my way. I don’t know what tomorrow brings, but if what happened the past few months has not made me want to give up on this game, I don’t think anything will.

That being said, thank you for being patient and thank you for loving the game. I hope I see you guys next time.

[drizzledrawings]

OK SO SAW UR ARM POST

first off,THATS SO COOL IM HAPPY FOR YOU!!! Having a build like that is such a accomplishment and you should be proud!!

secondly,what is your routine??(if you’re ok with sharing)

also maybe more of a personal question so feel free to not answer,do you count macros,protein etc?

Why thank you!! It’s been a lot of hard work and dedication but I really really enjoy being strong

To answer your last question, nah I don’t count macros or calories for that matter, I used to but I developed some really bad habits, so instead I just have an Apple Watch which lets me track how active I am during the week!

As for routine:

Right now I’m doing a 2 week weight training, 1 week off (just cardio)

I’ve noticed that if I take more regular breaks I actually gain more muscle and do better preformance wise

I work out 5-6 days a week depending on my energy level, and I try to have active rest days when I can

I do 2-3 days upper body, 1-2 lower body, and one day with just cardio

So an average workout for me would look like:

35-40 min of weights

15-30 min of cardio

15 min abs workout

THATS IT WOOOO as always take my advice with a grain of salt cause everyone is different

[ouroborosorder]

that said. i've been using linux for a few years and i've actually come to realize that linux advocates are honestly very frustrating. mainly because of how they keep kinda. brushing past the fundemental problem with linux.

the one thing i have learned about linux is that it is fucking annoying. Like, yeah, there's solutions for basically everything, and I can get anything working with some elbow grease.

But you know what I don't want to do? put in fucking elbow grease to get my computer to work.

my laptop has had an issue where the auto-sleep functionality crashes. The AUTO SLEEP. CRASHES.

MEANING THAT IF IT'S SLEEPING, MY LAPTOP WAKES ITSELF BACK UP EVERY 3 MINUTES. AND THEN GOES BACK TO SLEEP. AND THEN IT CRASHES AGAIN.

I have not been able to debug this issue because are you fucking kidding me? How the fuck do I even debug it? What the fuck do you mean auto sleep crashes? Literally everyone I ask about it looks at me like I'm from mars but it renders my laptop functionally useless due to the damaged battery life. This is the sort of thing that, to an average normal human being, is pretty much unacceptable.

Like. Sure, if you're a programmer or whatever, I'm sure all this shit is great. But the average user doesn't want infinite macros for opening programs instantly with a button press or performing git interactions with a key command. i don't care about that shit. you know what I do want? The ability to open an mp4 file and have the subtitles reliably work. I want my laptop to actually sleep when I push sleep mode. I want to actually be able to find the files for my steam games easily. I just want my laptop to work.

if it wasn't for how easy it is to set up printers, i would be going back to windows in a heartbeat. but holy shit is it easy to set up printers on this thing. holy SHIT is it easy to set up printers

[clone-trooper-cheese]

Fluffy therapy

I got a Fives figure and put him on my friends cat. Long story short, we have now created a new species called "Macrooka" which are pretty much just giant cats. Here's a quick run-down of everything we made about them:

A species of giant tooka cats from Iduunnoh, an enormous planet, larger than Yavin Prime, located in wild space. This planet has everything giant. The floura, food and wildlife are all very large.

A full grown Macrooka can get up to 15 times the size of a tooka cat, hence the name Macrooka (Macro-Tooka) with an average height of 8.4 meters, length of 14.1 meters and an average mass of 150 kg.

Macrooka Cats purr in the range of 20-140 hertz (i dont know if this is the proper term for Star Wars stuff), which reduces stress responses in humanoids.

Reference image below of my friends cat, Dax

[transgenderer]

imo the strongest argument against vegetarianism, and this is actually a pretty potent argument, is that the ethics of anything get really weird and vague when economics gets involved. like. does me being vegetarianism actually do anything? would there be more animals killed in a world where i ate meat? i mean, its not even a meaningful question, the set of events that would lead to the change is so vague and complex and obscure, involves so many people that in the actual world we live in, any effect would be swamped by random chance. you could try to reason from the perspective of like...the average effect, over all worlds (microstates) compatible with my macro-observations. statistical mechanics of ethics. but we dont have the data to make an actual estimate there so. that doesnt tell us anything

[dhruvkumaar]

How to read like a writer

If you’ve ever followed any Writergram accounts on Instagram or Twitter, I guess you’d have heard this advice—read like a writer.

People can’t stop glazing about how it’s one of the best pieces of advice any beginning writer could get, how it’s one of the most important skills to study prose and create your own, and all that. But, as you could’ve guessed, there’s a lot of unpacking to be done here.

What does it even mean to read like a writer? How’s it different from reading like a reader, or just for fun? And, how the frick do you even read like a writer?

I had to rant about something, and that’s the topic I’ve chosen today. So, here’s my two-cents on it.

***

#01 - The Basics

So, what does it mean to read like a writer?

I believe that reading like a writer is a form of reading prose where you’re conscious of the artistic decisions the author makes throughout the piece. For example, if there’s a high-stakes action scene, probably a fight scene or something, and you notice that the average length of sentences has suddenly become shorter and punchier.

Firstly, you need to understand that there’s a lot of such artistic decisions that writers take while writing a piece. And, every writer does that. These decisions are primarily related to writing-style, but are also focused on the story-structure, character-development, themes, and more.

For clarity, let’s divide them into two types of decisions—micro-level decisions and macro-level decisions. Micro-level decisions would include the writing-style, scene-descriptions, and all that stuff. Primarily, stuff that you can notice on the very page itself. It’d relate to the sentences instead of the plot. Refer to the example above again—that’s a form of micro-level decision.

Macro-level decision would be an artistic decision where you need to complete the whole, or a big chunk, of the piece to point them out. Such macro-level decisions would relate to the plot instead of individual sentences. For example, the decisions they’ve made regarding the plot, characters, and the underlying themes of the prose.

I tried my best to make the distinction as clear as possible. I hope you guys understand them clearly.

Anyway, each type of artistic decision would need to be checked in a different manner, y’know. To analyze macro-level artistic decisions, you’d need to probably finish the whole novel and do some research and brainstorming related to the themes of the story and the way the author discussed those said themes in their work.

It takes some time to get into the head-space to analyze the story and its themes. And, you might need to recap the story in some form or the other, y’know. At least, I need a little recap. Because generally, it takes me months to complete a novel or TV series. Or manga series. Or anime. Or anything else I need to analyze.

… And that’s because I start a lot of stuff before I finish the previous ones. Not gonna lie, I’m reading around four-five novels at the moment, a couple of which are web-novels on RR, along with three manga series. Please don't ask me why I do that, I hate it myself.

Anyway, now onto the second type: the micro-level artistic decisions. This is where you need to be really conscious while reading the work. In fact, I believe that these forms of decisions are what people generally mean when they talk about reading like a writer.

Micro-level artistic decisions, like I said earlier, include sentence-structures and writing-style of the author. And yeah, it’s really easy to slip out.

I’d like to refer to my favorite lit-fic The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, as an example. Reading the work, you’d see that the style feels… barren. The scene-descriptions are a pain to read; the vocabulary is just too hard. But, vocabulary becomes a lot easier during dialogues. That’s because the scenes are a pain to see, while the characters are losing their power to communicate effectively. I talk about it in detail in a previous blog:

But, man, maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. Maybe that’s why McCarthy wrote the descriptions in this way—to symbolize the mental stress that the characters go through as they experience this world, this form of reality that they were not meant to be in.

And maybe the novel is so lacking in narrations because the characters’ minds have gone numb. They’re forgetting language. With almost zero human interaction most of the time, they are forgetting how to think and interact in words. You lose the skills you don’t really use anymore, y’know. And these guys are so obviously depressed, so they don’t think about the world. They are used to the sad reality they live in. No point in complaining how bad the food is if that’s all you’re gonna eat all your life.

So, a scarcity of narrations tell you a lot about the story and its characters. It reflects something, it symbolizes something.

Also, if you read about Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, you’d observe how the author’s writing-style is often bland and indifferent. That says something about the characters and the plot too—it keeps the readers detached from the story, forcing them to adopt a third-person POV where they can constantly judge the plot and the characters.

Understanding the micro-level artistic decisions also include understanding the different nuances in different authors’ style. For example, sometimes you’d see that authors write scene-transitions like this,

We talked it through, and decided that it’d be the best to continue the conversation once we’re in the safe vicinity of this house. School was dangerous for such serious conversations—what if somebody hears us out and report us to the police?

So, we shut up as we boarded the bus, and twenty minutes later, we were pulling through his house’s driveway. We both stepped outside and…

Personally, I’m not a big fan of such transitions. I’d rather use three asterisks instead, like I do with my blogs here.

***

When to read like a writer and when not?

Yeah, that can be a mess. You don't need to have the writer's eye open every single time you’re reading something.

Personally, I use a trick. I only read like a writer when I feel that the piece is really different from the type of prose I generally consume, y’know. For example, I’m reading Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. The blurb says that the novel is narrated by Death, which is something quite interesting. Apparently, Death appears in the story as a character, acting as a third-person narrator.

However, the story is not third-person omniscient POV. Quite the opposite, actually, for we see the narration alternating between the thoughts of the protagonist and the all-knowing omniscient narrator Death, which makes the writing-style of the novel quite interesting.

So I read the book as a writer—all the way, I’m figuring out how the author masterfully blended both third-person limited and third-person omniscient narrative styles and used the best of both worlds to fully utilize both of them and paint such an amazing writing-style. I don't think I could ever pull that off, to be brutally honest. It’s just awesome what Zusak has pulled off in the prose.

Anyway, I derailed too much. The main point I was tryna make is that The Book Thief is different from what I usually consume—third-person limited POV web-novels. So, I do have to read like a writer. I probably won’t be reading like a writer if I was reading yet another RR web-novel or fantasy light-novel, y’know.

Another factor you might want to consider is if you like the prose or not. If you believe that you really love the novel and want to write something like it, you better study it a little. After all, you’d be writing what’s interesting to you.

A third factor: classics. If the prose is a classic, you might learn something from it. I mean, there must be some reason it’s stood the test of time, y’know, and people are still reading it. Yeah, sometimes, the style just seems outdated, and you likely won't be adapting it. But there are some gems in it too. The Great Gatsby is a really good novel to learn first-person POV.

… And that reminds me, I still haven’t finished The Great Gatsby either. Even though I’ve been reading it for more than a year.

***

#03 - Conclusion

All of this might feel a little overwhelming for you guys. I can understand that.

I mean, that’s just too much information to think about, y’know. And you might not be able to catch up on most of them. Heck, you might not be able to understand any nuances between different authors’ styles at all!

But, just don't give up, pal. It’s kinda tough out here, yeah, but that’s alright. Keep reading, keep practicing it out. You’d get there.

Keep reading and keep writing. That’s all it takes to become a great writer. But, doing both your reading and writing mindfully is what matters the most.

Subscribe to the FictionStudent newsletter to get latest blogs like this straight into your inbox. Also check out the website, as well as my Instagram and Twitter—where I might start posting soon. To be honest, I still don't know how to use social media as a writer, but I’d be trying.

Meet you in the next blog. Till then, bye-byeee!

[darkmaga-returns]

by Tyler Durden

Former Wall Street money manager Ed Dowd is a skillful financial analyst who said in May the economy was skidding. Now, Dowd predicts the economy is poised to “roll over” and soon.

Why is the Fed cutting rates with a record high DOW? Maybe they see the same thing he does. Dowd explains, “Real weekly wage growth was minus 2% going into the election. It is also interesting to know that minus 2% number of wage growth was also in 1980 when Ronald Reagan won in a landslide and also in 1992 when Bill Clinton won in a landslide…"

"I have never seen such blatant manipulation of government statistics.

There is government spending and government hiring to paper over what is truly a bad economy for the average man. When I was asked prior to the election who do you think will win the election, I said Trump has already won, according to the economic statistics. That’s why he won. Bobby Kennedy helped along with Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, lots of people switching and what have you. What really got Trump in was the economy, the real economy, not the stock market.

It was not the ‘everything is hunky-dory’ pablum from the mainstream media.

The real economy has been rolling over, and we are just waiting for the financial markets to figure this out.

When they do, Trump is going to inherit a turd of a financial market crisis.

Government statistics will be updated, and it will show we started a recession sometime this year…

The incoming Trump Administration has to get out in front of the narrative. This was already baked into the cake. They just got handed fraudulent books. So, they are basically going to get blamed for what is coming.

They have to get in front of the narrative and talk about what they were handed. They need to talk about how the stock market is not a real indicator of economic health like it was before the days of raw manipulation.”

[ZH: We have been endlessly reminding readers for the last six months that the 'always positive' macro headlines that appear every day after almost ubiquitously revised down in later months, hiding the reality that set the scene for Trump's almost unprecedented victory in the election - despite the endless charade promoted by legacy media that 'everything was awesome', it clearly wasn't (and isn't) and the rug-pull is coming.]

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

Mother Teach, Ed, and Self-Determination CW: Emotive

I want to explore Ed’s mother in the red silk flashback, and its lasting impact on Ed.

Mother Teach begins with the imperative, ‘Feel it, boy’. There seems to be a certain lesson in showing Ed the thing he cannot have, before explaining the rich folk she works for own many items of this quality; so matter of fact as if it’s nature’s law.

When Ed asks in innocence the question, ‘Why can’t we have things like this?’ Mother Teach comes up against an alternate line of thinking which she seems never to have considered. She blinks in what could be surprise before giving what appears to be an obvious answer: ‘It’s up to God. He decides who gets what’. This establishes the idea that life is ‘not up to us’, but controlled by an external locus: God, providence, fate… ‘He decides’.

Mother Teach is conditioned to believe in determinism, and who can blame her. Her life is decided for her. What hope of agency for a poor, indigenous woman in a world run by a rich, white patriarchy? And it’s easier to attribute the decision to God, His unfathomable will. God is also likely and conveniently a rich, white man, so the issues blur somewhat in who is actually doing ‘the determining’; but frankly, the outcome is the same. It is safe to say God isn’t a poor, brown woman.

Ed carries this belief into his future life, struggling with agency, succumbing easily to manipulation; not having beautiful things despite acquiring riches, and giving up quickly in the face of setbacks. The second part of Mother Teach’s explanation, ‘We’re just not those kind of people’ further reinforces Ed’s class and race inferiority, which again he carries painfully into adulthood. These words are spoken with some emotion. We hear the shake in her voice as she acknowledges certain truths about the limitations of their existence.

The impact of his father on Ed’s psyche is largely plain in the cycles of abuse with older white men, but the transmission of generational trauma via Ed’s mother is also significant.

Mother Teach isn’t trying to be cruel. She clearly loves her son, and the silk is a love-token which she possibly took without permission so her child could have at least one chance to look upon and own a ‘beautiful thing’. But her own trauma means she further damages her son’s self-esteem during this interaction. She doesn’t want Ed to be a dreamer or believer in a better life. Best accept your lot, know your place, then you won’t be disappointed. There is a certain wisdom to it; and had she an average son with a dullish mind, it’s probably sound advice in this particular time and place.

But her son isn’t ordinary. He is a genius, an empath, a creative, as well as prone to overthinking and melancholy. His race foremost, and class also, are against him, and that is outside of his control; but everything else is up for grabs with someone as brilliant as Ed if he can find inner worth. He might always have to live within a subculture to find both success and happiness, but he may have done so sooner with a stronger internal locus of control, and belief in his own worth and agency, had he received a different message in childhood.

As it is, he lives a life in the shadows, emulating and enhancing further the toxic masculinity revered in the dominant culture which is so against his true nature. He uses his genius for strategy and theatre to enrich himself for protection and subsistence only, never going beyond and allowing luxury or beauty; and when finally world-weary and screaming for change, finds himself trapped by the ghosts of his childhood, some of whom are reshaped into new human forms.

One of many things which saddens me regarding Ed’s sacrifice in killing his father as an act of protecting his mother is I don’t feel it changed anything much. It was a micro action against a macro problem. If Ed possibly then ran away, his mother would’ve had to do what she always did: find another male protector, possibly a white man to enable a certain social standing, and she would likely be back within a similarly psychological and physically abusive situation. It isn’t inevitable this would happen to a woman in her situation, but it’s the most likely outcome because her choices are so limited. And that’s hugely tragic for both herself and Ed.

It’s often said for Ed, there’s a psychological affinity between Stede and Mother Teach. The rich, white man who is kind and optimistic is everything Ed’s mother could’ve been with those same sociological advantages. Stede is able to self-determine. He is a repressed gay man in a heteronormative society, but much of the world is built with his empowerment in mind, and he is able to take full advantage of that and change his path. Both Stede and Mother Teach love or loved Ed, and in an unequal world, one of them at least is able to model a different way of living; help push open the psychological door enough to allow Ed himself to begin to change his stars, and self-actualise as the person he truly is.

Writing this made me sob…I’m sorry if it does the same for you reading it