#we have 37° right now which is a lot for my area

[tina-mairin-goldstein]

Hannibal Dash Simulator Season 2

🔍iwishididn'thaveatwin reblogged

🐈‍⬛team-sassy-science

Me and @ autopsyguy going to get some drinks after work.

@ teamsassyscience Why wasn't I invited? And who took that picture?

13 notes

#friends #who i will forgive for not inviting me drinking this one time

🌸flowers-in-bloom reblogged

I know this is a stretch, but has anyone seen my dog? He keeps running away and I haven't gotten the chance to microchip him because of this. If you see him, he answers to Winston, and my address is on his collar (he's the one on the upper left, this is the only picture I have).

🌸flowers-in-bloom

Never mind. I found him. Thank you to everyone who tried to help. He is now microchipped.

🌸flowers-in-bloom

Winston ran away again. The microchip is not 100% accurate, so please, if you see him, let me know. I'm afraid he might get hit by a car or attacked by a wild animal.

821 notes

#dogs #dog #missing dog

🔍iwishididn'thaveatwin

Okay, something happened at work, and I am currently OBSESSED. Just have to share this with you guys. This article is the best. I set up the link, so just click the picture.

174 notes

#bees #apiary #honey production

🔥Sponsored

_________Verger Meat Packaging

Fresh, high-quality meat. Perfect for any occasion. Pork, beef, and chicken from a variety of breeds, available for all budgets. Professionally raised on one of the oldest farms in the state.

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0 notes

🍷are-we-not-made-in-his-image

Petition to save local songbird habit from complete destruction

Local Baltimore City Council Sheldon Isley brokered a deal several years ago to turn the habit of endangered songbirds into a parking lot. Recently, there have been discussions going on further developing what little remains of these birds' home. More information and links below the cut.

_______________________Keep Reading

7,843 notes

#birds #petition #songbirds #wildlife #baltimore

🐎animal-lover12233

4 notes

🦅lonesome-hawk reblogged lonesome-hawk

Just LOOK at him.

🦅lonesome-hawk

Yes, I know he's on trial for murder. But if you had been following the trial like I have, you would know he's being framed. Now shut up and leave me alone. I'm disabling comments.

843 notes

🌸flowers-in-bloom

😶‍🌫️Anonymous asked:

Aren't those @ dogsandflyfishing's dogs?

Yes, they are. I am taking care of them for him while he is unable to.

2 notes

#ask answered

📸tattlecrime-official

Coming soon!

The REAL story of Will Graham and how his peculiar mind works, and how he was tragically framed to be the infamous Chesapeake Ripper.

Click on the links below to subscribe to TattleCrime.com for official updates and exclusive snippets.

-------------------------------Keep Reading

365 notes

#tattlecrime #official story #will graham

🐻prehistoric-predator

I'm partial to the Cave Bear myself, but a Dire Wolf is also a good choice. Before you vote, I've got some studies and info in the link below and some general information so you can make informed decision.

I'm curious to see what you guys think; I'm having to make a really tough decision right now.

Reblog for larger sample size

_______________________Keep Reading

69 notes

#cave bear #dire wolf #poll #polls #my poll

🐕dogsandflyfishing reblogged

🍷are-we-not-made-in-his-image

Lomo Saltado

Recipe below cut.

_______________________Keep Reading

37 notes

#recipe #cooking #lomo saltado

🐕dogsandflyingfishing

Everyone who is asking about Buster in the last picture I put up, he is okay. He got on the wrong side of a wild animal, which happens from to time when you live in a rural area. He needed stitches, but he will be fine. Stop accusing me of mistreating my dogs.

12 notes

#ask answered

😷autopsyguy

I've been going through a hard time lately. A friend of mine recently passed, @ teamsassyscience, and I've been thinking about her a lot. Two other friends of mine, @ dogsandflyfishing and @ flowers-in-bloom, along with my boss, are currently in the hospital and things don't look good. I'm really worried

Not what any of you wanted to hear, but I just needed to vent and didn't know where else to do it.

Here's to Beverly, and hoping that Will, Alana, and Jack pull through.

73 notes

📸tattlecrime-official

EXCLUSIVE!

A Red Dinner

Today, the entire city of Baltimore was rocked by the shocking revelation that renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is indeed the true Chesapeake Ripper. According to sources, Lecter very nearly took the lives of three people, and killed a third. Will Graham, once accused himself of being the Ripper. Dr. Alana Bloom, his lover. And Special Agent Jack Crawford of the FBI, a man Lecter has worked with closely in recent months. The one victim who was DOA is reportedly none other than Abigail Hobbs, who has been assumed murdered for months now, previously by none other than Will Graham. And what's more, it turns out he isn't just a serial killer, he is a cannibal as well.

Click Here for the rest of the story on TattleCrime.com

7,651 notes

#tattlecrime #official #hannibal the cannibal

[serashalala]

Generation Loss's Mind Manipulation; A theory by a tired college student

OK. GENERATION LOSS. That was a ride and it’s not even done!

Fuckin loved it, by the way. It was so good. I loved everyone's acting and Sneeg's realization part gave me literal fucking chills as well as Slime screaming and Austin freaking out while Ranboo n Sneeg were just chill.

FUCK that was cool. Thank you @ranboolivesaysstuff for sharing this with us.

Anyway, here’s a nerd dump on the entire mind control thing. I’m not exactly a genius but I’m studying neurosci as one of my college units and this is basically the gist of how I understand the mind control aspect that this is showing.

SO. 

You recognize this? This is the device that we think is controlling Ranboo’s mind. It’s at the back part of the brain, and easily this leads to two possible structures that it can influence: the occipital lobe of the cerebrum and the cerebellum. However, we don’t really know HOW deep this device goes considering Ranboo’s lucious locks of hair covering the rest of the mask and the fact that we don’t know if this is the only thing penetrating the brain.

Anyway, let’s discuss what we know which is that it’s likely latched onto the back part and thus likely embedded onto the cerebral occipital lobe and/or the cerebellum

The occipital lobe is at the back part of the head, and as you see on the picture below, it’s the visual area (mostly).

To make me sound more professional and shit let me introduce to you the brodmann areas. Brodmann areas divide the cerebrum by its function.

Area 17, 18, and 19.

Area 17 is the primary visual area. This is where you see shit. If the device’s influence is only as deep as area 17 then Ranboo is either literally blinded by the device OR the device intercepts what his eyes are really seeing. Damage to this area will lead to literal blindness or difficulty to see.

Area 18 and 19 however are the secondary visual area, otherwise known as the visual association area. This is where you recognize the things that you see. Damage to this leads to dyschromatopsia (color blindness), and visual agnosia (inability to perceive visual stimuli.). 

Basically to explain, as an example you see an apple. That’s the job of area 17. However, you don’t really know yet that it’s an apple. To know that an apple is an apple, you tap into area 18 and 19– the visual association area.

The device LIKELY reaches into this area because the entire time, Ranboo doesn’t recognize that he’s on a show set and he doesn’t see the people on the set like the directors and the staff. What he does see is a 4th wall.

Upon deactivation of the device, only then does he recognize that oh shit, that isn’t a wall. 

Does it stop there? Ok, why not go deeper?

Next to Area 19 is area 37. This is the Facial Recognition area. It's self explanatory if Ranboo's mind control device goes that deep.

How about Area 39 and 7? They're both Someasthetic areas. 39 and 40 specifically have a lot to do with memory, emotion, behavior, sex. rage, fear, and pain.

Area 7 integrates sensory inputs-- it draws upon stored memories of past sensory experiences. This area aint that deep tho ngl, it's basically the part that goes: yo, this fire thing burns you, maybe don't touch it. This can be as deep as you want to interpret it being.

Edit: I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THIS. Ranboo's stream confirms it SCREAMING RIGHT NOW. THEY SAID. "Change someone's perception of reality, and they will act how you want." SCREAMING CRYING WAILING SOBBING. I KNEW IT. The next parts of the theory will be further discussing the things that MAY still apply, alongside the things that Ranboo almost confirmed.

Next suspected area:

The cerebellum. 

The cerebellum is mostly responsible for a lot of important things (as are the rest of the brain but let me get into it)

The cerebellum has 3 main functions: maintenance of posture and balance; maintenance of muscle tone; and coordination of voluntary motor activity. 

You see where I’m going for here?

The cerebellum is a likely attachment site of the device because it is gunning for that motor activity and posture and balance. It controls the agonist and antagonist coordination of the muscles to make sure that there’s no jerky movements going on. As for posture and balance, it can affect your movements so that you don’t look robotic, and so that you don’t have to voluntarily maintain your posture. Maintenance of muscle tone has the same idea.

It is also the best bet because it has its lapses.

While it controls a lot of motor function, it isn’t the only site of motor control in the body. There’s other areas, like the Basal Nuclei, the motor area of the cerebrum (brodmann area 4 and 6) and the spinalcord (though this is more on reactionary shit).

It makes the device fallible where the fine motor movements (such as in the fingertips, where the cerebellum controls less of) is less prone to influence by the device, leading to this nifty clip right here:

And this here too:

They're able to do morse code with his hands, the fingers.

And, chances are, the reason they have a mask in the first place is because it’s significantly more difficult to reach the area that controls the facial expressions since that is a direct connection from the brain to the face via the Facial Nerve that stems anteriorly to from the brainstem. It’d be hard to reach from behind especially. (unless the device yanknow, snuck around the spine or something idk)

So if the connection is posterior, they’d have difficulty reaching that (to a safe extent, at least. We have no idea how deep it goes.

Then again, we don’t know the function of the rest of the mask.

Now for some close competitors of where the mind control device is attached/penetrating!

"But sera, what if it influences at a lower level than the occipital lobe or the cerebellum?"

Cervical spine C1 Level

Difficult to defend. That leaves the problem of Ranboo's speech control. The lower the level the less things it's able to influence. At C1 level, a person's speech, which is something Ranboo's clearly being influenced over, can't be damaged from this level.

"How are we so sure that it's at the back??"

Because it's the clearest shot we've got with that weird circle thing.

Frontal Lobe

This one is a good contender. The Frontal Lobe has the Decision and / or Judgement Center of the brain (area 10, more to be mentioned about this later), as well as the motor areas (areas 4 and 6), and twisting that could lead to being able to change what a person does when faced with a stimuli as well as a bigger portion of voluntary movement.

However, this one is difficult to visually justify.

While it's true that we can't see much behind the mask, we also can't see it penetrate towards the frontal lobe. Let's say it penetrates through the mouth somehow-- how is Ranboo's diction so clear?

But the reason why it's a very good contender is that it could possibly go through the nose. Did you know that the cribriform plate, the part of the skull where the olfactory nerve goes through, is the easiest to break? and thus it's also the easiest to penetrate?

Issue with that though is that Ranboo has a working sense of smell. The Olfactory nerve (smelling nerve) is easy to disturb.

Anything deeper? More anterior?

Any deeper structures are likely too unimportant-- the diencephalon, pons are all mostly on the hormonal / nonvoluntary actions (breathing, sweat, thirst, hunger, etc). Those aren't too fun to control especially when what you want is a puppet.

The most likely candidate is the basal nuclei, which has a lot to do with movement. However it's mostly useless when you target it because it's goal is to make sure that when you want to raise a glass, you don't yeet it to the sky. It makes sure that you have the right amount of output to the muscle without overcompensating.

So what does the device control?

Both.

Well, not both. All-- err, mostly. Ding ding ding! They're all winners.

Only at its best, though, which was during Episode 1 (when undisturbed)-- NOT episode 2.

At its best, the mask is able to take full function of the brain-- most strongly at where it's sourced, though, which is at the posterior regions. Weaker control is evident when you see the finger taps that Ranboo is still able to do. Think of it as some sort of energy gradient-- most concentrated at the back of the head, and weakest at the front.

At its blinking state, influenced by the outsider, Ranboo regains Control of most of the more anterior parts of the brain, but you'd notice it's still blinking-- it never really fully released Ranboo. Its still got a strong influence at the back portion of the brain.

It takes a lot to rip away its influence from Ranboo, as you can see from what the weird shadowy figure from the TV says in the end where he had to do something to disable it fully before Ranboo breaks the fourth wall.

How do we know that? Let's go back to the clip where Ranboo FULLY 'wakes up':

It took some effort by the hacker to fully release Ranboo, but until that point Ranboo hadn't even seen the 4th wall despite being able to gain autonomy of most their function.

Then let's go back to the part where, when Ranboo's device was 'reset':

You notice how the showbizz person isn't someone they interact with? They don't SEE these people. The device is still on, because it's intercepting with Ranboo's perception.

Let's go back to the announcements then.

We don't get to choose a lot this episode, instead we're subjected to puzzles that have more to do with everyone else BUT Ranboo.

I present to you, Brodmann Area 10

This is the largest area in the frontal lobe, and is incharge of decision making (among other things). We, the audience, can't make decisions as flexibly anymore because they needed a stricter control of the device.

The hacker is able to intercept that flexibility and thus the showfall media reduced the extent of which we're able to control ranboo, taking all that control for themselves. It isn't interactive anymore.

Literally being gatekeeped from the audience, smh.

Now what?

A summary of course.

I suspect that when the lights are on (in the mask), it has a stronger pulse and thus influences a larger chunk of his head, ABLE (but not necessarily) to reach the frontal lobe.

It blinks, then it indicates that its pulse is weaker, but still present (the cerebellum is slightly further to reach than the occipital lobe) which is why his sight might still be influenced.

And lights being gone? That's Ranboo's full autonomy baybee. They're back in business!

As for the others' mind manipulation system, I'm not quite sure yet. Probably could reduce it to having already been subjected to being conditioned, not like our 'fresh' protagonist. I'll probably add onto this when something clicks in the future.

This ended up a lot longer than intended...

Anyway, that’s just a theory, a tired-college-student-from-an-allied-health-course theory. Thanks for reading.

[ms-m-astrologer]

Transiting Mars enters Taurus

Sunday, June 9 - Saturday, July 20, 2024

Although Mars is in its detriment here [ie, transiting through a sign (Taurus) which is opposite a sign it rules (Scorpio)] - and although there are a few potential rough spots - this really isn’t a bad transit at all.

Mars in Aries is always ready for a fight, and probably throws the first punch in 75%-90% of all the battles it experiences. Mars in Taurus has to play by that Venus rule book, though. Patience, calm, perseverance, and steadiness can help us get what we want, at least as well (if not better) than carrying chips on our shoulders. Some ways it may play out in Mars’ areas:

Physical strength - “strong as a bull!” This is more of a “brute force” placement and relies on that, rather than being aggressive or flexible.

Energy levels - steady, once it gets going. The problems here are actually getting Mars to budge, and (as with Mars in any fixed sign) in knowing when to quit.

Sexuality - sensual and passionate. A lot of paying attention to everything in our bodies and not just the gonads. Not usually a “wine and dine” kind of placement, that’s too complicated.

How we go after what we want - slowly, steadily, patiently. If you have a project requiring such an approach, this is a wonderful time to launch it.

Some really beautiful aspects and situations ahead of us. Allow a day or two on either side of the given date.

Tuesday, June 11 - Mars/Taurus square Pluto Rx/Aquarius, 1°45’. I really liked Kathy Rose’s take on this particular aspect - it has such a horrible reputation, but by approaching it differently it can be harnessed in a positive way. Look for ways to break through barriers (or maybe even recognizing there’s a barrier in the first place).

Friday, June 21 - Mars/Taurus sextile Mercury/Cancer, 9°12’. Great for finding practical solutions, and for getting on the same page as others.

Friday, June 28 - Sunday, June 30:

Mars/Taurus sextile Venus/Cancer, 14°39’

Mars/Taurus trine Ceres Rx/Capricorn, 15°37’

This is an aspect pattern called an “easy opposition,” with Mars providing a constructive outlet for the Venus-Ceres opposition. It can be extremely fertile, so if becoming a parent isn’t on your agenda right now, I’d abstain if I were you. Great for working through any domestic issues.

Thursday, July 4 - Saturday, July 6:

Mars/Taurus trine Juno/Virgo, 18°56’

Mars/Taurus sextile Saturn Rx/Pisces, 19°23’

Mars/Taurus opposite Pallas Rx/Scorpio, 19°49’

And this is an aspect pattern called a “mystic rectangle” - we have two oppositions whose ends are sextile/trine each other. It’s really good for cooperation, problem-solving with others’ help, and tackling difficult work.

Monday, July 15 - Mars/Taurus conjunct Uranus/Taurus, 26°19’. These two in aspect together promote independence. (I know this from close observation; many people in my family have some combination of the two!) We’re all about being ourselves, albeit in a calm, steady, down-to-earth Taurus way. (This is also the first day of the Republican Party convention. Yikes. MAGAt as an angry Mars-Uranus/Taurus good old boy….)

Saturday, July 20 - Mars/Taurus sextile Neptune Rx/Pisces, 29°50’. Ending on an inspired note; taking a practical vision forward with us. We can manifest our dreams into reality.

[emmebearpaw]

Hello. I've worked in a grocery store for a while, I shop for people and take it out to their cars (this is my 3rd summer in a row...). I know lots of weird types of people at the grocery store. Please allow me to tell you what kind of person various characters are at the grocery store. Fandoms: Reverse 1999, Genshin Impact (R1999) Regulus is the Doordash driver who checks in to pick up groceries and then goes MIA. She shows up 5 minutes later to get them with a Dr. Papper and no cart and you just have to look her dead in the eyes with 2 dozen bags around you and say "You need a cart."

(GI) Furina is this one guy at my old store who was always the last one to show up on Saturdays. Tired. Easy. Does not feel like chatting right now. She's here to get Mac and Cheese and some Wine and then she is going to bed. (R1999) Kanjira, Erick, Balloon Party and Mondlicht are the group of unsupervised kids that are causing a Problem. (R1999) Oliver Fog and Eagle are the inexplicably unsupervised kids there at odd hours that ask you where a specific item is and are a joy to have. No problem. Inexplicably looking for a block of good cheese. (GI) Lyney, Lynette and Freminet are the kind of people shopping who employees don't even notice until they get to check out. They are sent to the store with a list. They plan out an ideal route like its a fucking heist. They are in and out of there in 20 minutes with the power of teamwork and planning.

(GI) Baizhu does carside pickup. Only buys organic foods. Qiqi doesn't get goldfish she gets Annie's crackers, that sort of thing. In a seeming contradiction there is a bottle of wine in the order too. (R1999) Ok listen to me. This isn't a customer story. This is my former STORE MANAGER. Constantine is my old store manager that everyone hates, but I have one particular story she is. We had radios in our department so we could communicate items that weren't on the shelf and to ask for assistance from other departments. No one else was supposed to use the radios, however management didn't want to spend money on the radios so they just let other departments steal from us, which usually meant we didn't have any. Our store manager in particular would get upset if we didn't use the radios. He also had a habit of stealing ours, so we didn't give him the code. I left my radio at my workstation to run an order outside as he walks in for the morning. I come back in barely 2 minutes later and the radio I left out is gone. Constantine is stealing my radio. (R1999) The Apeiron crew are this group of 4 or 5 Orthodox Jewish men who would all come in together (unusual, most grocery shoppers are alone or with their significant other + maybe their kids. Additionally we are not an area with a large jewish population) and I always had to inform them that. Yup that's our whole kosher section. No we don't have a kosher frozen section. I wish you luck on finding food for your diet, god speed, I can not find kosher food we don't stock. I do plan on writing something jsut for them because I think i need to, emotionally. 37 would throw a fit in the canned bean section.

(GI) Venti was this guy who was clearly reselling beer. Ordered 5 40 packs of bud light 3+ times a week. (GI) Yaoyao is every kid I've seen pushing around the tiny kid sized shopping cart they have at my new store. She's not accompanied like the real world kids are though. No she's just shopping by herself. Where are her parents. (GI) Neuvilette is the guy at my old store who would order like. 10 liters of sparkling water. All the same flavor. Made me climb the shelf most days to grab all of the bottles that fell over (the flavor he ordered was on the top shelf too) so I could try to scrounge together everything he ordered. Probably more later lmao

[elfwreck]

The age thing's a little relevant too. I'm approaching my mid 30's and I just feel adrift, and lost. Nothing in my life's really worked out, I made bad decisions, I missed opportunities, I lost potential. I don't want to live another 40 or so years like this and then die a nobody. I know the "gifted kid" thing is a meme now but everyone thought I had so much potential, including me. And that just makes me feel even worse than if I'd been a loser from the start.

It gets... better? Sort of?

Take everything you have heard about "your potential" and throw it in the trash.

"Potential" is a myth we tell to small children to encourage them to study and work on projects. "Potential" is a way of giving kids a direction and a reason to focus on their interests. Small children have no context for understanding what they could be doing a year, five years, twenty years from now - they just know what they can do right now, and that it doesn't include "build a whole car" or "paint beautiful sunsets" or "write a book" or "be Mayor of Can Town" or "overthrow the Dark Lord and put his minions in wizard-prison" or whatever.

So we tell them: You have potential, which means, You share some personality traits and innate talents with people who have done these things. It gives kids something to aim for. "You have a lot of potential" means "you share a lot of traits with people who are famous for doing these things."

At no point does anyone tell you how many not-famous not-rich just-muddling-by people also have those traits. At no point does anyone say, "You have a terrific singing voice and perfect pitch so you could be a famous musician OR... you could be like Mrs Thomson who plays piano and leads the church choir in a tiny church with 37 weekly attendees and gets paid a $40/week stipend for it, and she also works 5 days a week in the chicken-packing plant."

By the time you are an adult, that is no longer meaningful. You know how to assess your skills, and what kinds of skills you might like to develop, and which of them you'd be good at. (And by "good at," I mean, "good enough to enjoy practicing them and get results that make you happy." I assure you that I am a mediocre cook at best, but I have the level of cooking skills I want, and I know I could develop more if I cared to.)

It's also easy to get intimidated by the people around you, who've developed expertise in areas you have not, especially in areas that you'd like to have more skill.

I promise you that you have expertise in areas other people want. (Because. Here you are, in your 30s, talking to strangers on the internet, and trying to figure out what to do next with your life. THOSE ARE SKILLS. Really. Even the "try to figure out" part; there are people who feel absolutely stuck in life and have no idea why, don't even know how to realize they want something to be different. And I'm betting you have other skills that aren't apparent in an anonymous ask.)

Ignore your "potential" and focus on what do you want to do?

Maybe throw a few thoughts towards "what kind of world do I want to live in, and what would I do if I were living in that world?" but don't put a lot of energy into fantasies about "if we had clean energy and robust anti-capitalist legislation and UBI and..." (I mean. Spend all the time you want on those. But those aren't part of sorting out "what do I do with my life now?") So: if you want to live in a world where neighbors welcome each other to the community with a casserole, then go talk to your neighbors, even if you feel awkward about it. If you want to live in a world with active, thriving libraries, go borrow some books from your local library. If you want to live in a world where you own your digital purchases, learn how to strip the DRM from ebooks. And so on.

If you're running into self-worth issues, consider who the Republican party is running for office, and remind yourself that you are not worse than them, and if they "deserve" money and power and fame, you at least deserve to be comfortable. (Whether they "deserve" what they have or not, they have it, so you might as well decide you deserve some friends and some entertainments and a job you don't hate.)

If you're running into "but all that seems like a lot of effort and I don't know if I have the energy" - pick something smaller as a first goal. Don't write the novel; write one scene that's stuck in your head, one bit of dialogue that makes you want to tell the story around it. Put it in a private file just for you. Start a collection of story fragments.

tl;dr umm...

We're all just muddling along. Really. We're stuck in a capitalist hellscape together. Find something you care about and let yourself be obsessed with it. Give yourself permission to be bad at it. Give yourself permission to just do the 5% you enjoy.

Don't count your achievements by starting with a list of things you haven't done.

[delphinidin4]

Okay folks, I am Tumblr Old, even though I’m only 37 (which I know probably sounds ancient to some of you, but it’s genuinely not even middle-aged yet). I wanted to share something with you from my experiences--call it the wisdom of the aged lol

This transphobia backlash will pass.

I don’t mean to minimize the suffering of trans folks and the community. Yeah, it is terrible. No question. But also, it won’t last forever.

I know this because this is exactly how people were acting about gay people in the 90s. When I was growing up, this was what widespread homophobia in the US looked like.

And yes, there’s still homophobia today, especially in certain areas. But the US culture in general has decided that being gay is fine, it’s great, good for you, gay marriage is a normal fact of life, hardly anybody even blinks at it anymore. That was almost unthinkable in the 90s. Being homophobic is now the cultural outlier, not the norm.

I remember in 2004/2005, when I was a freshman in college, a speaker in religious studies came to our school and talked about how homosexuality was just a current controversy in the church that would eventually pass, and someday people would look back at it and scoff like, “Why was that even a question?” just like we do today with slavery or Triclavianism. A lot of local Christians did NOT like hearing that. But goshdarnit, she was RIGHT. Where we are today, in 2023, proves her correct. Gay rights activists strived to improve the culture, more people caught on and joined in the fight, and they won the culture. That scholar knew which way the culture was moving.

We are experiencing a conservative backlash right now specifically because the general culture has been moving leftward. That’s why conservatives are doubling down and getting more extreme: because they’re feeling threatened. Because the culture is moving away from their old way of thinking. The fact that there is a backlash, while awful, is also a symptom that in general, the culture is going the right way.

Things are going to get better.

We need to keep working and keep up our part of the struggle, but don’t lose hope. Don’t burn yourself out if you can help it. Because better times are coming.

Someday, when the teenagers reading this are 37, in approximately the year 2041 (a time that is coming faster than you could possibly imagine right now), you’re going to tell a new batch of teenagers how bad it was for trans people in 2023, and they’re going to have trouble believing you. Because having trans people around as an accepted part of the culture will be so normal and natural to them that they won’t be able to understand why it was even an issue.

[jambusaur]

hi jamblr i have unfortunately reached the 200 den items limit in ajpw so i'm going to give you a tour of my perfect den

this is what it looks like when you enter

some key features of this entrance area are the hyena plushie in the pond (aka "water yeen"), the nyan cat masterblock i won in an aj pride contest, and my shops

let's go into the den itself now! a fun part of this den is that there's a little elevator that you can take up and down

and from there you can see the entrance where i have some of my giant plushies

going to the left of the main room we have what i call the food room

very fun little area with a bunch of food

and then going to the right of the main room we have my bedroom

some key features of my bedroom are the birthstone collection on the display shelves (which you can see is piss poor as of right now), the crafted dinosaur beanbag chair (my son), and the bed that i made out of cardboard chairs and rugs

here's a closer look of the bed because it was the first thing i made in this den a while ago, and i am still very proud of it

and then to the right of my bedroom we have the lab ("lab" sounds too formal, i imagine it as more of a garage where cool stuff gets made)

from the lab we're going to go down the leaf slide (and struggle to take a screenshot because it goes very fast, this is all you're getting)

and from there we'll go over to the phantom portal area

this area is unfortunately very empty because of the 200 den items limit

i wanted to decorate it a lot more but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

now we're going to go to the left a bit to admire what was going to be an entire fence made out of overflow trophies, but i suppose that's not happening now either

then we're going to go to the left some more, avoiding the petsitter area because i want to save that for last

and we see the pet station, the super claw machine, the best guess machine, and all of my minigame trophies as of now

and finally, the pièce de résistance of my perfect den

the petsitter pros

(i have to go into den editing mode to show them all)

they're all filled with pets right now, and i'm actually going to need to get rid of some stuff in my den to make room for a few more petsitters eventually

for really experienced ajpw players, 37 petsitters isn't really an insane amount i don't think? but i'm still proud of it nonetheless

actually while i'm showing off the petsitters i might as well show off the 76 turacos i bought while they were on sale for 35 sapphires each instead of the usual 50 sapphires each

but yeah that's my den

it's definitely the best den i've ever made, it fits me very well

thanks for stickin around to the end of this post!

[nehswritesstuffs]

questions for fic writers!! answer however many you'd like :)

2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

10. How do you decide what to write?

15. What's your favorite AU that you've written?

21. If you wrote a “missing scene” in Double Date from Hell, what would it be?

42. Have you ever received a comment that particularly stood out to you for whatever reason?

thank you!! <3 have a lovely week!!

I'll answer all of them! :D!

2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

So this one is kinda interesting, because it's very different if you include all my works (207 thus far (soon 208) and I'm not done transferring everything from my FFN days) compared to my One Piece offerings, which is what you, my specific friend, are most familiar with. Under all stories my list is:

Prompt fic (117)

Fluff (says 55, toggles to 57)

Alternate Universe (says 41, toggles to 60)

Not Beta Read (37; the real tag is no beta we die like Roger: laughing at the chaos we've caused)

Angst (25, toggles to 33)

...but if we filter to only One Piece stories, we've got (aside from the specialized No Beta tag and designating what originally posted to FFN):

Alternate Universe (18)

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence (10)

Crack (9)

Pre-Canon (6)

Alternate Canon (6, toggles to 11)

That's... a difference. The first list is pretty clear that I've done a lot of prompts with plenty of fluff, angst, and AUs. The second focuses in on those AUs. I do have a lot of non-searchable tags in the more recent offerings, which affects things. They're both pretty spot-on, though playing around with my filters brings surprising stuff in many of the categories.

10. How do you decide what to write?

I do not decide what I write. God decides what I write. Sometimes He leaves it to my brain. That's usually a disaster.

15. What's your favorite AU that you've written?

I love all my AUs what are you talking about...

If I had to pick one I think my favorite right now is a tie between little seagull, little seagull, where shall you go? and Adventures with the Denizens of 1000 Sunny Rd, just because they're both really fun for completely different reasons. One's just the Great Dilfening of Trafalgar Law in its varied forms and the other is Modern pseudo-Midwestern American AU w/Sunny as a sus af party house in rural suburbia that totally isn't based on my local metro area what are you talking about. Both torture Law though, and that's what counts. :D

42. Have you ever received a comment that particularly stood out to you for whatever reason?

A comment that stood out? Well, I think comments that stand out to me are usually the long ones, as well as the ones that end up in long-winded conversations and exchange of fandom squealing. While I've gotten some in recent years, I cannot express how it was very different back in the heyday of my years mainlining FFN. So, like, 2004-2010, I'll say. Those were really good days, and people loved commenting/reviewing! There were still lurkers, obviously, but there was way less commodification of fandom like we see now. It's definitely not a "fandom old yells at teens" thing because I know it's not necessarily fandom's fault for the shift and is instead the corporate end that has trained us (especially newer fans) to treat media and fandoms alike the same one would cheap paper towels, but that's not what fandom is, and oh would you look at that I strayed from the topic.

21. If you wrote a “missing scene” in Double Date from Hell, what would it be?

A missing scene from Double-Date From Hell? Well then, don't mind if I do...

“Ah, there’s your kid,” Bell-mère noted. She watched Law cross the street from the hospital to head into the restaurant a few cars ahead of them. At least he was in scrubs and a doctor’s coat, making it a little less likely he’d murder them. “Didn’t you teach the little shit not to jaywalk?” “Jaywalking is the least of our worries right now,” Cora replied, his eyes following his son as he disappeared into the restaurant. “What if they see right through us?” He worried his hands as he grew progressively more fidgety in the passenger seat. “They’ll be too off-guard to think that,” she replied. From her vantage point, she could see the kid walk to the back corner of the seating area and slide into a booth, face getting real close to someone with very orange hair—must’ve been Nami. “Come on—where’s your sense of humor? It was working great last night.” “Last night I wasn’t staring this down so concretely,” he frowned. “I don’t want my kid and his super-cute girlfriend to hate me now that they’ve both met me.” “If she hasn’t run for the hills yet, they’re fine.” Bell-mère winked and killed the engine. “C’mon, let’s get this party started, shall we?”

[lovelykei]

Dream big!

Masterlist

Chapter 1

“Rio if you don’t get up right now I’m going to the entrance ceremony alone” you said while fixing your bow. The entrance ceremony starts in 30 minutes and while it only took about 7 minutes to school Rio hadn’t even gotten out of bed. You sighed and walked over to the couch while sending Tobio a quick message to make sure he was awake. You and Rio have been best friends since they were born, their moms had been best friends and they were practically raised together. Around the 2nd year of middle school their parents got a promotion but you and rio didn’t want to move. After begging for what feels like forever their parents reluctantly agreed.

Since then you girls pretty much live in your house but still frequently go next door to Rios house. Kageyama also stays over most of the time seeing as his parents usually work late or go on work trips. That’s what he claims at least but it’s worth mentioning that the girls have some beach volleyball nets in the backyard…

—

"im up let me just put my uniform on" Rio replies lazily from the room. You decide to just sit down on the couch and wait, Rio usually doesn’t take too long. “I’m so excited, do you think we’re in the same class as Tobio?” You reply excitedly. “Definitely I mean we’ve always been in the same class” Rio replies while hopping out of the room on one leg trying to put her socks on. “I’m more concerned about the volleyball team, I heard the girls team has never even made it to nationals, like ever in the history of the school” Rio continues. You knew that which is why you had suggested this school. Kitagawa Daichii had completely drained your motivation, volleyball that used to make you so happy no longer excited you. To be honest you didn’t really want to continue that playing anymore, but you decided to atleast try it again. “Yeah that’s crazy” you say trying to sound shocked. “Alright I’m ready let’s go”

-

“Let’s go we have to check what class we’re in” you dragged both of your friends over to the bulletin board where the classes were announced. “Hoshino…….kageyama……” your hand drops from the list dumbfounded. Why wasn’t your name on it? You applied from the same area? The same school? You sent in your applications together…there has to be a mistake. “Eri cmon what class are we in” Rio shakes your shoulder. “1-1…you’re in 1-1 with Tobio” you turned around , almost in tears, “but I’m in 1-4” you all squeezed yourself through the crowd that was looking at the bulletin board. Both Rio and Tobio immediately look at you for answers, asking why you weren’t in the same class, as if you’d have the answer. “Classes are divided based on how you scored on the entrance exams” a voice comes crackling out of the old speakers. Ah..there it was..the reason. “Didn’t I specifically tell you two morons to study for you entrance exams??? Didn’t you specifically tell me that you made a 73??” You reprimanded your friends angrily. “Honestly…I got a 37…and I don’t know how you believed Tobio could ever score above 20…” Rio replied carefully while Tobio reached out a milk for you with shaking hands. You were dumbfounded and angry because it’s true. There’s absolutely no way for Tobio to score that high-

So this is the first chapter, just a lot of introductions and setting the scene. I’m going to write the whole fic and then proof read it when I’m done. I just want to see how well I can get my story together 🤡

It will be written like a y/n story but I decided to give her a name! So we have 2 oc so far.

Tsukino Eri and Hoshi Rio👯‍♀️

I hope you enjoy!

[josiebelladonna]

seeing my mom hooked up to machines, an epap machine to help her breathe, an ekg, ultrasound, undergoing blood and urine tests, was… weird. really, it felt like a dream, like i’m still trying to process it all.

people do survive pulmonary embolisms, albeit with rehabilitation to bring everything back to health, like i was doing a little research and it’s got a survival rate of 37% which… great 🙃 simply because the presence of a clot in a very delicate area will damage and create scar tissue to the lungs as well as the heart, the circulation, and the diaphragm. i do know she’s looking at a long road to recovery.

work from home is nice but everything good comes with a price. you still have to take care of your body. you still have to move and eat right.

when the nurses were asking her the rundown questions, she noted how she hadn’t been to a doctor in years… and she hadn’t. the head nurse told me that this is actually very common, believing that you don’t need medical help and you don’t need to do anything about your health and you can just do it on your own. so, to that i say… please take care of yourselves for me.

and it’s funny, i’m actually taking this a lot better than i thought i would. like i’m actually doing good. i’m kind of in survival mode right now, but i’m not at all sad or a wreck or anything. i think it’s got to do with the fact that i’ve spent so much time with her and we’ve been through a lot together. the same thing happened to my dad when my grandmother passed: he took it well but his siblings (my uncles and my aunt) were just in shambles. and i noticed this with my brother when we were texting each other earlier, like i could tell that it was getting to him a bit.

still. this is something serious. something that is undoubtedly going to change everything. i just have this feeling that we’re going to move (worst case scenario, i’m going to have to move) because living on this mountain isn’t good for anyone.

[dvar-trek]

Happy WiP Wednesday on a Thursday

don't even worry about it! we're good!!

in this edition: injury update, travel update, and new projects 💖

as you may remember, i did hurt myself for realsies knitting in the round on too-small DPNs, and have had to take it really REALLY slow since then, including many days off. i went to the doctor, because things have not been improving (like i had to reconcile the petty cash at work before i left, and gripping the bills to count them was legitimately difficult 🙃), and she said we better test me for rheumatoid arthritis because i am getting to be that age! so we will see what happens. as my friend karla says, i am already a walking inflammation, so. i would prefer to not have more. but also i'm pretty sure i don't have it, because that would involve me having something diagnosable.

anyway in the meantime i'm taking lots of breaks, soaking my hands in warm water, and doing lots of stretches. i started two different projects in the round on circular needles, but that's been extremely slow going. since i'm the world's slowest knitter, i don't do big projects. but that means i'm working pretty small diameters, and the needles are too long to work comfortably, and it puts strain on my grip. not sure how to describe it properly. even when working with a properly sized cable, it ends up feeling stretched too tight, especially when purling—somewhat like this (pic from sheepandstitch dot com):

also, on one of them, the yarn is SO slippery and SO prone to splitting and also i made SUCH a dumb mistake that i frogged the whole thing. but let's not worry about that.

IN THE MEANTIME, i am in the great american middle west for like a week and a half to take care of my brother. it turns out my dad lives in one of the "cool" neighborhoods of the city (aka the school district is not very good, so everyone else moving in is young gay couples). his neighbor who is a trump supporter is moving out, because the neighborhood is getting too "woke" for her (aka people have put up pride flags and BLM signs).

here's the project i brought with me for my downtime (not that i'm going to have any):

and here's the ravelry link. i'm using Lang Regina yarn on US 5 square needles (bought one set of these square needles in a relatively small size to see if they help me at all—stay tuned).

this ended up being the perfect project for me right now! it's worked flat, so i'm not dealing with the wrist strain of circs as discussed above. it's tiny (i'm doing 37 st across) and a suuuuuper simple lace pattern that works up quick, so even i (the world's slowest knitter, as previously stated) feel like i'm making progress after only a few minutes. the pattern is a 4-row repeat that's easy to memorize, and after you've done about 3 repeats, it is immediately obvious where in the pattern you are just by lookin, which makes it perfect for travel, as you can pick it up and put it down at a moment's notice. i've also been experimenting with frequent swapping between english style and continental style, so that i'm not straining one set of muscles the entire time, and this pattern turns out to be great for that. the right side has all the increases and decreases, all of which are worked knit-wise, which i'm finding easier to do english-style. and the wrong side has all the quick switches between knit and purl (eg k3, p1, k1, p2, etc), which is much faster to work continental-style.

i think it's pretty likely that i'll end up with second-mitt syndrome, but hopefully it'll be a quick enough knit that i can power through.

also working on:

-remembering how to drive (i will GET there please do not honk at me for the next two days THANKS) -cooking every day (😭) since my brother can't really cook much -the to-do list my dad left me, which is. extensive. and includes things like "plant half of the potatoes in the dish on the counter and save the other half until i get back because there's debate about the best time to plant in this area so i want to test it out. make sure you pick the sproutiest ones to plant and leave the others so they have time to get sprouty before we plant them." -my actual job (a little)

since i'm not home and my dad "has too much going on already" to have a pet, you don't get a bonus pic this week ✌

[survey--s]

606.

What would you say is the worst part of high school, period? The social aspect of it. I actually didn't mind lessons - in fact, I actually quite enjoyed that part of it, but I had un-diagnosed autism and really struggled with the social part.

What is your favorite color of apple? Red, green or yellow? Red ones, but I only eat apples chopped into slices and dipped in something. I don't like them by themselves.

How old will you be on your mother’s 68th birthday? Is that ‘old’ to you? 37, and no, it's only a few years away.

Ever thought you were dying of something you weren’t even close to having? Not quite, but I did have symptoms of cervical cancer about a decade ago which really terrified me. It turned out to just be hormonal changes but I was really freaked out as I had to have all sorts of tests to make sure.

Ever want to be a doctor? Is it because of all the hospital shows? Nope. My dad was a doctor and honestly I can't think of much worse. The money is good but it's really stressful.

What do you think of all these reality shows that try to alter personality? I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Where are your favorite pair of shoes in the whole world right now? In the porch area.

Do you live anywhere near a mall? Which one exactly? Not really - our nearest mall is probably in Workington which is an hour away from here, but it's pretty crap in all honesty.

If you were dying who would you say goodbye to first out of everyone? Whoever I saw first <--- well, exactly.

Are you someone who actually likes to babysit children? No. I didn't mind it when I was younger though - I think I had more tolerance back then lol.

Do you ever have those ‘ah ha!’ moments? Do those annoy you? Sometimes and no, not really.

When is the next time you’ll eat a cupcake, if you know when? I have no idea, I'm not really a fan of cupcakes.

Does your family go on a lot of vacations? Are they more boring or exciting? We did when I was growing up - we went all over and they were great. Nowadays though, not so much. The dog is a bit more limiting plus prices have shot up recently. We're also both self-employed so need to factor in holiday pay etc.

Where did you last buy socks from? What do those socks look like? They were just plain white ankle socks from Amazon.

Do you ever lay in the grass and look up at the sky, just because? Nah, my back can't handle lying on the hard ground anymore, hahah.

When do you normally go to sleep on the weekends? I go to sleep anytime between 10am-midnight, no matter what day of the week it is. I don't really sleep in at weekends as it messes with my body too much.

Have you ever met someone with the same ‘biggest fear’ as you? I'm sure I have, yeah.

Do you ever have movie nights with your significant other? Yeah, though we haven't had one in a while. We have quite different tastes in movies.

Would you rather write with a pen or a pencil? Why is this? Pen - they're just more comfortable to hold and easier to write with.

Who was the last person to call you fat, if anyone at all? No one calls me that.

What color skin does the last person you danced with have? White.

Are you afraid of being kidnapped if you go outside at night time? No, it's not really something I ever think about. I do live in a ridiculously safe area though.

Has your mother ever called your school because of your grades? No. I never struggled with my grades.

The best field trip you’ve ever been on; where was it to anyway? Paris.

In the next twenty minutes, what will you be doing and where will you be? I'm waiting in for two parcels so until they arrive I can't go anywhere lol. They could be here at any point within the next three hours.

Do you work? If so, have you ever been fired, then rehired from the place? I do work but I have never been fired from anywhere before.

Can you tell when people are lying or telling the truth? That depends on the person. Some are good liars and some aren’t.

What would you say your average word per minute time is on the keyboard? I have no idea but it's pretty fast. I can touch type.

What is your least favorite class in school? Why is this? Maths and chemistry as they're the ones I struggled with the most.

Do you bite your fingernails or tap them on desks? I don't do either of those things.

Have you ever wanted to be in a band? What position exactly? Not really.

Do you ever call your cousins just to talk to them randomly? No. I haven't spoken to my cousins in years. We're really not a close family as they all live overseas.

When did you last spend the night at someone’s house? Last month when I was doing a house-sit.

Do you find any of your friends’ parents creepy or really mean? I don't really know my friends parents.

Do you ever have to wash your clothes at someone else’s house? I have done before when our washing machine broke.

When is the next time you’ll go to the library? Why is this? I have no plans to go to the library any time soon.

Do you know how to play pool? Are you any good at it? I can play but I'm rubbish at it.

Are you someone who likes to get in arguments or fights a lot? Nope. That said, if someone starts an argument with me I'll argue back lol.

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 37: Sidekick is kidnapped (part one)

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon! Well, here’s one that happened pretty frequently in the comics: 

Episode 37: Sidekick is kidnapped (part one)

For this one we need to first of all decide who counts as a sidekick. I asked around a little and found most people seem to agree with me that the majority of the Freedom Fighters don’t really count as sidekicks, but Tails does. And while it’s certainly true that Tails has been developing and trying to be a much more independent character ever since Sonic Adventure, it’s also impossible to ignore the many years he’s spent as Sonic’s wingman, little bro, and player 2. We also need to clarify what qualifies as a kidnapping - it's a bit of a muddy subject trying to ditinguish between capture, kidnapping, and imprisonment, so I'm just going to include all of them. But as far as I can remember, the only character who actually got kidnapped and held for ransom was Sally.

Pfffft. Amateurs.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s have a look at the times Tails got kidnapped, captured, imprisoned, taken hostage, whatever you want to call it. 

Tails’ first kidnappings in ArchieSonic (albeit being brief ones) were in Sonic #4’s story, “Tails’ Little Tail.”

As Sonic had exhausted himself in the book’s first story when he transformed into Super Sonic and fought the Universalamander, this story opened with him taking a nap and Tails deciding to take over hero duties in his absence. He went on a patrol to look out for trouble, completely failing to notice Robotnik and a group of badniks right in front of his nose. A pair of them spotted Tails and decided to use him for target practice, but Tails managed to save himself from them on this occasion.

Full of self confidence from his victory, Tails decided to go take on Robotnik himself but was immediately captured by swatbots.

Fortunately Sonic woke up and saved Tails before he could be roboticised.

Next came Sonic #14, which featured a story I’ve already talked about in a previous post. Tails became a super genius and tried to take out Robotnik by himself but was rescued once again by Sonic.

Following that came Sonic #25, the Sonic CD adaptation. In this story Amy Rose was kidnapped by Robotnik to lure Sonic into a trap, and Sally pointed out how obvious it was in its trap-liness. But Sonic wanted to go in anyway, so he sent Tails to get them some reconnaissance from the skies. Well, you can probably guess how well that went…

Then there was the SonicQuest mini series, which featured the debut of the Death Egg. I’ve mentioned this story before briefly, but not the specifics of how Tails ended up aboard the thing in the first place. After Sally ordered them to bring back a load of rings to try and heal her father with, Sonic and Tails journeyed to a grotto where Sonic had previously found rings and chaos emeralds, and used them to get into a big dumb fight against Knuckles.

…it was glorious. :D 

But this time when Sonic and Tails came to the grotto, they found it had been covered up with a steel dome. Sonic told Tails to stay put and keep an eye on things while he went to contact a nearby Freedom Fighter group for information, but not long after he’d left Robotnik came calling.

Flying high above the grotto in his new Death Egg, he sent down a chute to suck all the rings up out of the grotto. However the swatbot manning the controls also sucked up some of the surrounding area, including Tails.

In this case Tails rescued himself, climbing into the remains of the same swatbot that had dragged him aboard (which Robotnik had destroyed and thrown in the garbage for its incompetence) and using the disguise to infiltrate Robotnik’s control room.

This disguise may have been a little too good though, because Sonic soon came along and tried to kill him. :P 

Tails’ next kidnapping came once again at the hands of Metal Sonic in Sonic #86. I’ve already gone over this one in a previous post, so I won’t go into too much detail. Metal Sonic had used the power of a power gem (I’m still shaking my head at that name) to rebuild himself after being smashed apart by Knuckles, and had gained a personality in the process. Deciding to settle the score with Sonic before going after Knuckles, he kidnapped Tails and tied him up above an active volcano on the brink of erupting.

Sonic did manage to get to Tails before the eruption, but both of them got trapped when a quake broke the ground around them. Metal Sonic, having been shown the true power of friendship by them, sacrificed himself to save the two of them, remaining dormant for a long, long time, until he was rebuilt by Uncle Chuck and renamed Shard. 

This next kidnapping was a weird one. After Knuckles tapped into his dormant chaos powers beyond his ability to control them, his great grandfather Athair called upon Tails for help in Sonic #95 - 97. Knuckles’ response to this was to punch Tails in the face and knock him out.

…well, I guess turning green didn’t change Knuckles that much. :P 

Athair took Tails to his uncle, the magician Merlin Prower, and asked him to summon the Chosen One (aka Tails’ super form, Turbo Tails). That moment was when the bad guy made his move. As I discussed in an earlier post, Mammoth Mogul had previously been defeated when he was trapped inside the Master Emerald back in Sonic #56. He was accidentally freed from his imprisonment in Sonic #79 when Eggman shattered the Master Emerald as part of the Sonic Adventure adaptation.

Free but weakened by his ordeal, Mogul seized the opportunity as Merlin called forth the Chosen One to kidnap Tails and replace him with a doppleganger who was completely ignorant of the fact that he was not the real Tails.

The fake Tails went on to fight Chaos Knuckles and get his butt kicked, causing Merlin and Athair to realise his true nature.

They decided to let him go back to Knothole and continue to believe he was Tails while they tried to locate the true Tails. This was a plot point that seemed to be forgotten by the writers for awhile, as this fake Tails continued to be in stories thinking he was the real Tails for over a year! It was finally addressed 17 issues later in Sonic #114 when the fake Tails started having nightmares about an evil presence in a cave, and went to investigate with Sonic. When they got there they found that Mammoth Mogul had been keeping the true Tails, still in his super form, in a coma and using him as a living battery to recharge his own powers.

The fake Tails was completely stunned by the revelation that he was not real, but he joined Sonic in attacking Mogul, and the two of them combined was enough to break Mogul’s concentration, releasing the real Tails from his shield.

Mogul fled, and the fake Tails faded away into nothingness as the real Tails woke back up.

Maybe the writers thought that Tails had been through enough trauma after Mammoth Mogul used him as a living battery for months, because Tails didn’t get kidnapped again until #165, when Sleuth Dawg held him at gunpoint.

He and Scourge had been sent to get back Rouge the Bat and the warp ring that she had stolen from Dr. Finitevus, after she had sabotaged the missiles that he was planning to use in a terrorist attack. She’d fled to Knothole and asked for asylum, bringing Finitevus’ henchmen to their door.

While Sonic and Scourge fought, Fiona negotiated with Sleuth and he agreed to release Tails in exchange for the stolen warp ring. 

Our final Tails kidnapping came after the reboot, in the “Eggman’s Dozen” arc in Sonic Universe #83. This kidnapping didn’t happen in real time though - it was a flashback to the classic era and in fact to one of the early Sonic video games!

Sonic 2 for the Master System and Game Gear’s story involved Dr Robotnik kidnapping Tails and demanding Sonic bring him the Chaos Emeralds as ransom. We got to see the tail end (pardon the pun) of that game in the comic, with Sonic confronting Dr Eggman in the Crystal Egg Zone’s Egg Storm Chamber. When Sonic beat the doctor’s machine and Eggman fled, he freed Tails to try and prevent Sonic from chasing after him. Something surprising happened after that, but I’ll be getting to that in a later blog post.

So those were all the times I can think of when Tails was a solo kidnapping victim in the ArchieSonic comics. Buuuuuuuuuuuut I guess I should also mention the times when Tails was captured along with other Freedom Fighters, otherwise I’m sure someone will call me out on missing them. xD That’ll be next time though, because good lord, this would be a long post otherwise! Stay tuned!

[beautiful-songbird]

The Strings of My Heart [36] - It's Okay to Cry

← Chapter 35 | Chapter 37 →

Pairing: Zoro x Jupiter

Genre: fluff, angst, f2l

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: none

Summary: Zoro’s moved to sunny California for college to escape from the life of fame for a little while. But when he loses his violin case in the second week of school, he’s sure his college experience has just gone up in flames. What will he do when, despite all odds, his case is returned to him?

Jupiter could tell Zoro was having a bad day.  He was clearly holding onto his last nerve each time a kid talked to him.  He was doing a good job of holding it together, but it was clear he wasn’t in the mood for conversation this evening.  Jupiter wondered if he was in the mood for anything, really.  He’d already made dinner and fed it to everyone, which always seemed to elicit a disaster, so she supposed maybe he just needed a break for the night.

She caught him right after he’d cleared the table off.

“Hey, Zoro?”

“What?” he asked sharply, and Jupiter had to admit she’d never heard him use that tone of voice before.

“Do you want me to clean the kitchen tonight?”

He had about ten plates in his hands.

“No.  It’s fine.  I’ll do it.” He took the dishes to the counter without saying another word.  He wasn’t really looking at her much, either.

Jupiter watched him, quite concerned.  Even on his bad days he wasn’t usually this irritable.

“Are you sur-”

He set the plates down on the counter abruptly, causing them to clatter against each other.  He set his palms against the counter, and without turning to her, ground out, “Jupiter.  Please, just leave me alone.”

Well, that told her everything she needed to know.  He just needed alone time right now.  Badly.

“Ok.” She’d go find something else to do for the moment, then.  Maybe she could get him to talk before he went home.

It was nearly an hour later before she headed back out to the kitchen.  The dishes had all been washed and put away, and Zoro was nowhere to be seen.  Had he left?  One quick check of the garage told her that no, he hadn’t.  So, where was he?

She headed upstairs to her bedroom, but a noise coming from the bathroom gave her pause.  Was someone crying?  She knocked on the door.

“Zoro?”

The cries silenced.

“Are you ok?”

The door opened a moment later, and she frowned as she caught sight of the tears on his cheeks.  He was quick to wipe them away.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“It’s just been a long day…” he frowned. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“It’s ok.  You needed some space.”

“I wasn’t very nice about it…” he muttered.

She shrugged. “You weren’t very rude about it either, though.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, I should probably head home.  It’s getting late.”

She shook her head. “Come to my room.”

She took his hand gently and dragged him down the hall to her room.

“Jupiter.”

She nodded toward the bed. “Lay down.”

He blew out a breath. “But-”

“Lay down.  We’re going to cuddle for a few minutes.  You’re clearly stressed out.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he gave in and sat on the bed.  She plopped down and patted the area between her chest and shoulder.

“Come on.”

He sighed and leaned against her, and she wrapped her arms around him.  He was near tears again.

“Did something happen today?” she asked softly.

He hummed. “One of my older students yelled at me for correcting her bow hold today.”

“I see.” Jupiter ran her fingers through his hair. “Can you tell them you won’t teach her anymore?”

That was when the tears really started. “I did.  It’s just not…the first time something like this has happened.” He sniffled. “I don’t like my job, Jupiter.  I thought it would be easier than most social interaction I have because we have something in common, but a lot of the people I teach…it just seems like they’re doing it so they can say they know how to play.  And that’s fine, I guess, but it makes it harder to talk to them because they’re not passionate about it.” He sighed. “And I just…I just want to quit.”

She thumbed at his tears. “Then quit, Zoro.”

“What?”

“Why do you think you need to work?”

“We need money.  I need money.  I have rent to pay, and car insurance, and all sorts of other stuff.”

“Ok, I’ll pay you to watch the kids, then.”

He sat up just enough to look her in the eye. “No, I won’t let you do that.”

“Zoro, do you know how much money I make?  I can afford to pay you ten times what you make at the studio, and I’ll know my siblings are safe, and I’ll know that you’re happy.”

He frowned.

“Zoro, come on!  Don’t make that face.  It’s what you’ll be doing when we have kids, anyways.  We’re not going to hire a nanny to take care of them!”

“I know, but, Jupiter…I’m your boyfriend.  You don’t need to pay me to take care of your siblings.”

“I’d sure pay a friend if they were babysitting for me.  I don’t see how a boyfriend is any different.  It’s not like we’re married right now, so we don’t share our money yet.”

He sighed. “Ok, but what about my job?”

“Tell them you’re putting your two weeks in.”

He rested his cheek against her shoulder again, clearly considering everything she’d said. “Ok.  Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.  I don’t see why you need to work when I’m making enough money to support all of us and then some.”

He sniffled. “Yeah.  I miss sleeping with you at night, though.”

“Do you want to stay tonight?”

“Can I?”

Jupiter laughed. “Of course.  I didn’t even want you to move out, silly.”

He hummed in satisfaction and nuzzled his face into her neck. “Ok, I’ll just stay like this, then,” he mumbled.

◇◆◇◆◇

The next morning, Zoro was woken by yelling coming from downstairs.  It was late enough that Jupiter should’ve been gone for work already, but he was sure one of those voices was hers.  He crawled out of bed and headed towards the staircase to see what was going on.

“Mom, you are not going to just abandon us again!  I won’t let it happen!  Stop running away from us like you didn’t want to have all of us!”

Zoro peeked over the railing to find Jupiter and her mother standing in the kitchen.  There were four suitcases packed and sitting on the ground.

“I told you, I’m done here.  Andi is old enough that I don’t need to nurse her anymore.  Take care of everything yourself.  Hire a babysitter or have Zoro take the kids with him to work; I don’t care.  I’m moving to Florida.”

Jupiter was practically fuming at this point. “Don’t you understand, Mom?  We need you!  The kids need you!  Dad isn’t here anymore, so it’s just us now.  You can’t just leave us because you don’t feel like raising us anymore!”

“But I can.  I gave you guardianship.  Isn’t that enough for you?”

“If you’re leaving, I need custody of the kids.  Not guardianship.  I don’t trust that you’ll ever come back, and they need to know that they’re in a stable home.  Andi is nine months old, Mom.  If you leave, Zoro and I will be her parents as far as she knows.  Do you really want that?”

“I don’t care.”

“Ok, fine.  We’re going to sort this out with the court, then.”

“No, we’re not.  You have guardianship, that’s enough.”

Jupiter blew out a hot breath. “Mom!”

“We can go to the courthouse to talk to them today, but if there’s nothing we can do immediately, I’m going to Florida.”

“Ok, fine, we’ll do that, then.”

Jupiter had taken two steps towards the staircase when she noticed Zoro.  She gave him a look that told him how extremely irritated she was at the moment.

“Can you watch the kids?  Andi’s probably going to be awake soon.”

He smiled faintly. “That’s fine.  Do whatever you need to do.”

She nodded, but she continued on her path up the stairs anyways.  Once she was at the top, she grabbed his hand and dragged him into her bedroom before shutting the door.

“What am I supposed to do, Zoro?  She’s leaving us!  Again!  And probably for good this time.”

He sighed and pulled her into a hug. “I don’t know.  I’m so sorry this is happening.”

She frowned and leaned against his chest. “What am I supposed to do?  The younger kids are going to ask someday where Mom and Dad are.  How will I tell them that Mom just left?”

“I don’t know, honey.”

“Zoro?”

“Hmm?”

“Can you move back in?  Is that too much to ask?  I…I can take Mom’s room.  You can have this one.  Is that ok?”

“Yeah.  We can do that if you’d like.”

“Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you for always having my back.”

◇◆◇◆◇

Cyan found himself back in that same café for the sixth time that week.  Esther worked almost every day, and it seemed to him that she didn’t particularly enjoy it.  She didn’t often smile, and it appeared that she didn’t talk with any of the other workers.

Cyan didn’t know what to do.  The coffee was great, but he wanted to talk to her.  He wasn’t sure how to, though, and he had to admit to himself that maybe it was really weird to talk to her after his initial reaction to her.  Zoro hadn’t even felt that way about Jupiter, so why had he felt that way about Esther?

“Here’s your coffee.”

Cyan glanced up to find Esther glaring at him.  He grimaced. “Um…thanks.”

Ok, so he was not going to talk to her.

Did they really know each other?  Was that why he’d recognized her?  There was no other explanation for why she was glaring at him, was there?  Maybe she was just having a bad day?

“You can stop coming back here every day, Cyan.  You should know by now that I’m sick of seeing your face.”

That made him pause. “What?”

Esther rolled her eyes. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Cyan would’ve asked what she meant, but he didn’t have time.  His break was almost over by now, and he needed to get back to the hospital now.

He spent the rest of the day extremely distracted.  What on earth had she been talking about?  They knew each other, but how did they know each other?  Had he totally blanked out the time they’d met before?  This made no sense.

He was still thinking about it as he got ready for bed that evening.  The name Esther still didn’t ring a bell, and her face didn’t either, so what was he missing here?  Did they go to school together?  Maybe.  He was so out of it half the time in class that it was entirely possible that they’d been in a class together and he’d just forgotten about it.

He couldn’t recall doing anything to anger anyone else, though, and surely, he’d remember that.  Maybe if he went through his old workbooks, he’d find an answer?

He pulled out his computer that evening to do a deep search through his documents.  Had he made a note about this on one of his documents?  A few minutes of searching later told him that yes, he had known an Esther.  Esther Singh, his lab partner in chemistry his first semester.  Was it the same girl?  He wouldn’t know.  He hadn’t made it to a single class besides his first one, and even that he’d had to leave early because of his schedule.

Even so, what did it matter to her?  He’d informed his professor at the beginning of the year that he likely wouldn’t make it to most of the labs, so he’d assumed that his partner had been put with someone else.  Had she not?  Had she done all of those labs by herself?  That seemed a bit odd to him, especially considering that the professor had been so willing to work with him, someone who wasn’t even making time to go to the class.

This left him right back where he’d started: confused about why some girl was unspeakably mad at him.

Chapter 37 →

This is part of the Dad!BTS series that can be found here

Series M.list

A/N: hahahahaha yet another scene I get to get out of drafts…also a double post today because 🤪

It would be greatly appreciated if you reblogged the story if you liked it!

Taglist: @jiminie-and-his-pinky-finger @jinnie-forthe-winnie

[thecrazyalchemist]

The one ask game

2 - is your room messy or clean?

7 - what color hair do you have?

13 - any siblings?

20 - how tall are you?

25 - what color socks are you wearing?

27 - do you have a job? What do you do?

37 - do you read a lot? What is your favorite book?

40 - how many times have you been to the hospital?

49 - what was the last compliment you received?

56 - would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs?

59 - do you smile for pictures?

65 - what do you wear to bed?

77 - do you miss anyone right now?

78 - do you slep with your door open or closed?

79 - do you believe in ghosts?

81 - who was the last person you called?

82 - favorite ice cream flavor?

86 - what is your phone background?

87 - are you outgoing or shy?

93 - last thing you ate?

94 - what are your favorite lyrics right now?

95 - summer or winter?

96 - day or night?

99 - what is your zodiac sign?

100 - who was the last person you cried in front of?

I know I asked quite a few, you can pick and choose if you want, or you can answer all of them if you want

2 - My room is quite messy most of the time

7 - My hair color is brown

13 - three siblings, I'm the eldest (2 brothers and a sister)

20 - around 5'9-5'10 (176 cm)

25 - gray socks

27 - no I didn't have a job, I'm still as highschool

37 - Yes I read a lot. It's a really tough choice, I think I shall choose 'Fool's Fate' by Robin Hobb

40 - as far as I remember, I only have been once (when I was born). I have been to the doctor though.

49 - i come up with creative solutions

56 - That kinda depends, but I think I lean towards rural (if there is a good library close by)

59 - Yes

65 - Usually pajamas (I have a really cool pajama of Hedwig)

77 - idk

78 - I sleep with my door almost closed

79 - Not really

81 - my mom

82 - chocolate and orange peels (as I've said before I've got a weird and wonderful ice cream shop close to my home)

86 - a picture I took of the sky once which is kinda after sunset, the upper part of the sky is dark with the moon and two bright starts, the bottom part has dark shades of sunset

87 - I'd say somewhat outgoing with people I know quite well, but shy with people I don't know

93 - cake

94 - Poor Unfortunate Souls (Beluga Servuga come winds of the Caspian sea, Elmaxdes glocides la voche to me)

95 - currently in spring-summer, prefer winter

96 - currently in night, prefer night

99 - Taurus

100 - my mom(had a little breakdown)

Sorry for the long response time, I'm currently on a trip so I have little time to answer (now I have time because we go to sleep)

[horrorcheck]

Organizing in my area means you have to consider religion. A little less than 37% "aren't religious"*, but that doesn't always mean they're atheists. West Virginia has one of the largest "unchurched" populations, but plenty of those folks consider themselves God-fearing Christians, they just think that none of their local churches are the right kind of god-fearing. And of the rest, plenty of us were raised Christian and still have Christian beliefs and ideologies that influence us, even when we stop considering ourselves "religious".

Moreover, you have to look at who in the area is already organizing for collective action, and at least 90% of those organizers are religious people. There are the churches and religious non-profit organizations created by churches, and then there's the less obvious non-profits that just have boards that are 100% made up of religious people.

These religious folks aren't uniformly evil. The local anti-war activism group that takes folks to demonstrations and runs a liberal/left radio station is held together by devout Quakers. The house that feeds and clothes anyone who needs it, including the queer homeless kids, is run by Catholic Workers. The Catholic Workers also did some extremely effective organizing this year to expand public transportation.

Of course the Catholic Workers are also vocally anti-abortion.

I'm thinking about religion a lot because I'm in a book club that's reading "Let This Radicalize You", and religion comes up often in our discussions. Pretty much everyone in the group is very new to the ideas presented in it.

The group includes an experienced Quaker migrant justice organizer and a - well I can't think of a better word than "hippie". The hippie has attended a lot of demonstrations but hasn't done any local organizing before, believes in a lot of conspiracy theories, and is very against "organized religion". If she just criticized Christianity I would understand because like I said, that is the one religion that has enormous political power locally. But she often brings up Judaism out of nowhere and we have to shut down the tangent before it strays into what I worry would be outright antisemitism. Sometimes I wonder if we should ask her to leave, but she also seems to be learning a lot from the book. I think our discussions are helping her consider different explanations for the way things are than "a secret evil organization of bankers did it".

Meanwhile the Quaker organizer has this thing where she seems to think motivation or thought is as bad as action. Hating a person who has hurt you or others is immoral. Getting angry (even if you don't act on it or show it) is wrong. Using "violent language" is wrong. Jokes about violence or destruction, about hating someone or something is wrong. And this is clearly coming out of the Quaker culture that she grew up in and still lives within. It seems to cause her a lot of discomfort when it comes to organizing with non-Quakers, but that also seems to be something that she's very interested in. I'd like to help her but I'm not sure how.

Not really any point to this, just lunch-break musings. Now back to work!

* So, during a break I looked up where this number for "No Religion" came from, and it's from the U.S. Religion Census, which asked congregations for "membership" and "adherent" data. So it's really a number of people who aren't in any religious congregation, not a number of people who self-identify as atheist or lacking religion. IMO it's likely that most of these folks consider themselves Christian and just don't go to church. I'd guarantee the number of atheists is much much lower.