#than one big pile.

[moldwood]

it being 75F in march and receiving the stupidest news about an old somebodys thoughts has me lighting a cigarette on the back porch and lookin out at the woods. its just factually incorrect is all

[suntails]

I’m going to paint you a picture of modern communication, and how it is fundamentally broken.

Let’s look at one friend. You chat pretty much everyday, and mostly talk to this person on twitter and discord, with occasional tumblr DMs. That’s three places you talk. But that’s actually not true, because you also have each other’s priv twitters and talk there as well. That’s four. Now account for, let’s say, one post reply per account per person, in addition to your DMs. That’s eight. But that’s ALSO not true, because not only do you talk in discord DMs with each other, but you’re in a friend group server as well! And you talk in those channels together! That’s nine.

This is one friend.

Now look around you. How many friends, how many mutuals are you in contact with. A few, a handful, a dozen, more? How many accounts per person do you have, how many places can you send each other posts, devolve into separate topics and conversations? How many people text you as well. Friends, family, coworkers? What do you do day to day around catching up, what IRL commitments will rip you away long enough to let the pile build again?

I can’t do it. I cannot live an actual life in the real world and balance this much interaction, it’s crushing. I reply to a friend’s post because I’m interested in the subject, I want to have a discussion! I WANT to talk about it with them, but I immediately kick myself for adding another conversation to the pile. Day by day, I ignore messages for hours on end and watch mountains pile around me, to reply en masse at the end of the night to let the cycle repeat. I wake up to six discord DMs and as I clear the third, the first replies back again.

We weren’t meant to have thirty simultaneous conversations. We weren’t. And you know in your bones that the number isn’t an exaggeration.

[siyuri]

Ef's moment of respite at the bottom of the Mariana Trench from amazing story Falling Falling Stars by @not-poignant

[chestnutisland]

I watched RoF...now you get to angst and suffer with me...>D

[kennyswurvegurl]

That's it? That's all the endings of Yuppie Psycho?

[weezerlvr228]

they look half dead ☹️

[failsquirrel]

me when i completely switch focus from my original ocs to warrior cats once again.....thinking of doing a story that's partially a warriors rewrite but also it's own thing with different characters

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I think the thing that makes it clear that Wilde is an NPC is that with the exception of the B&E (and that's just his personality really) all of his most completly insane absurd moments can be easilly chucked to stress indulced mental breakdowns while the party biggest wut moments (like jumping from a moving cart for no reason or Bertie The Statue) are clearly just how they are.

[arolesbianism]

I've been playing the new cotl update and I generally like it but god do I fucking hate like all of the balance changes just let things be strong man

[acanthyme]

finally snowed for more than a dusting. went to crazy and shovelled sooooo many driveways. arms sore and i'm so cold but worthhhhhh...

[fionnaskyborn]

one day when i am not busy dying on the inside and out i will write an honest-to-god essay about how people are, for the lack of a better descriptor but simultaneously for the lack of a more perfect one, too edgy about five.

[kyeterna]

So I was thinking about Star Team's inspirations and like the two biggest ones that have influenced the way both Rainder and I wrote Star Team (as in vibes, not story as much) were Katana Zero and Spiderman into the spiderverse, as we were both obsessed with those two pieces of media back in late 2018 (when Star Team really took the shape it has to this day). And for the longest time I always assumed that story wise it is more similar to Katana Zero (still the similarities are very superficial) while S:ITSV is mostly vibes. But then the more I thought about it, Star Team could easily work in a spiderman setting. Nora specifically would make a good spider person imo, hell even in the story proper she sometimes uses her scarf as a grappling hook (so in the spiderman setting like how the web is used). Plus Star Team is a few steps removed from being a superhero story so I said screw it, let's do this.

Spidernora au lessgo. It doesn't have 1 to 1 parallels to spiderman proper stories, but shhhh I am gonna be silly here. Also this au has a lot of similarities with ST proper, much like the Catalyst au (hey another "pretty much" superhero au), just with some adjustments to the relationship dynamics and the world a little.

For spidernora's design I had to go with the classic pink-blue-white Nora look (walking trans pride flag). While Nora is not head covering hijabi, she still wears clothes that would align with the rules (loose fitting, covering the entire body), so I tried to not make their spidey suit skin tight. They get poofy pants instead of a skirt because it is probably easier to move in and I cannot imagine her wearing a skirt/dress unless she's wearing baju kurung. Aaanyways robo backpack with robo limbs designed by Terrance (lower) because what is a spider without 8 limbs (though if needed the backpack would provide them with two extra robo limbs, making is 10 total. Nora never uses them out of principle as the scarf does most of the heavy lifting anyways). Anyways stretchy scarf made of special self replicating material to work almost like web. As for powers, aside from the sticking to walls and spidey senses, she has (way too much) heightened senses and can jump really high hence the jumping spider associations. The bun part of the name is because you cannot take away the bunny parallels from Nora in any au, over my dead body. In this au they'd have a relatively more normal childhood compared to star team proper. Now how normal it is for them to run away from home in both timelines ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Moving on we got the one and only, the legend themselves, Maya Marah. She is pretty much the same character as with proper Star Team, but the Star Team blog (now named spiderblog) has the added feature of a conspiracy board where she tries to figure out who J. Spiderbun is. Eventually she does discover who is behind the mask (I mean it's her roommate, and her other roommate works with her) and decides to not reveal it. She ends up becoming the man in the chair for Nora. What's her secret? I ain't spoiling ST so easily hahaha.

The third roommate, Terry, everyone's favourite alien. I mean his role is pretty much the same as Star Team proper but he is more of Nora's assistant than Maya's here. Also the circumstances of U.S.O are different and can't go into it without spoiling Star Team.

IT'S THEM IT'S THEM but they get demoted for this au. Imagine being just captain and vice-captain of the police (cringe). In this au Aradia and Damien unfortunately don't become friends with the Nora-Maya-Terry trio but still act as sort of antagonists (in the sense that they try to stop J. Spiderbun from doing their thing, much to Aradia's dismay). Damien and Maya are still sworn rivals. Anyways can't wait for Damien to inevitably die trying to save a chi-

I KNOW clockstopper's design could use some work, it's a first draft of sorts (If I ever decide to revisit this au) but HEYYYY LOOOK it's Nora's eternal narrative foil, the disaster herself Rena!! What do you mean a spiderman finding out one of their friends is a supervillain isn't a canon event? It is in my heart. Rena and Nora still have The Fight for the same reasons pretty much, only difference being that what happened between those 4 years of them not being in contact is veeery different. Well.... hm... anyways if I continue this section I will end up rambling about the renora dynamic and we don't want a 10k page rant do we. As a villain she usually has 0 agency, but when she does stuff that seem out of character it's when her real character shines through. Maybe she gets redeemed down the line woooo

Lightning round because it is getting late, I feel bad for not giving Jack a dedicated page like the rest of the team. Jack is central to the main arc of the au, as he is the one most closely connected to Dr Faith (ooooh who is she~ I actually can't explain anything more without spoiling actual Star Team so-). Hey isn't it funny how Ender and Maya are the two characters who are the most alike their canon counterparts- Rose 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🛐🛐🛐🛐🛐 she's never looked better, she deserves being a corrupt billionaire that does some unethical stuff from time to time and by that I mean frequently.

The rest of the characters would have a less significant role but sone type of role nonetheless. Anyways this was a fun little thing and not to be taken too seriously, I just love talking about my blorbos (star team characters) and putting them in different situations (there are a billion ST aus)

[a-polite-melody]

Hm. Now that it's been less consistently muddy and their feet aren't gross and muddy maybe I should take some pictures of my interactions with the pigeons I feed at the park. They bring me much joy and spreading joy in the form of pigeons would only make me that much happier.

[fanflames]

its very important to me to mention that this blogs canon 100% takes fox mannerisms and slaps them onto foxians because they should be treated as monster people. tail wagging... ears movin to indicate emotions... pupils dilating like cats'.... better senses in general meaning they'll react to things that normal humans wont....

[aeide-thea]

me, full of ongoing scrupulosity abt microplastics and also a vague sense that it would be good for me to take another crack at incorporating running into my life for 'holy shit i desperately need endorphins' reasons, scouring the shorts market for anything natural-fiber but also functionally/aesthetically fit for purpose and coming up almost* entirely blank: what if i bought another one of the merino-tencel tanks whose fabric i'm in love with (or‚ you know‚ sourced similar fabric somewhere that wasn't already a different garment‚ but like‚ that would involve learning things about 'where to get specialty fabric' in addition to the 'how to sew it' part) and turned it into running shorts? surely it couldn't be that hard??

⸻ * in fairness, icebreaker does make some that tbh are probably ideal except for cost but like. do i want to go running in basketball shorts? not really. and the tiny (women's) version only comes in black which is so dreary. i keep hoping they'll come out with some other colors but so far no dice! also an extremely crunchy-granola company makes some weird little gym shorts in a hemp knit which. i'm sorry, i grew up in manhattan and i'm dubious! they might be great but! 🧐