#when will my app let me access the game?

[woolydemon]

they should put apollo justice on switch but I don't know the person I'll become if that happens

[exeggcute]

the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators;  reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.

[uwublr]

Pine's Ridiculously Long List of Free Japanese Study Materials

First Month Edition

All my current study materials, because sharing found resources is caring. These are not JLPT-specific and are for pre-beginners to beginners like me. I can't believe I have been studying for a month. Comparison is truly the thief of joy. I am a slow learner, but that's okay. Find a community because it truly does make a difference. Shoutout to Seitokai's Nihongo Discord, and to @tokidokitokyo whose post let me know about it and is just overall a great person too.

Main study material: Marugoto Online A1 Self-Study Kastudoo and Rikai with downloaded PDF and Wordbook (my original post about it)

Supplemental references:

A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar (The only NOT free resource in this list, sorry! The e-book sold on Amazon does not have good reviews as it's a scanned copy of the book, rather than a properly formatted e-book. A free alternative to this is JapBase which also contains Intermediate and Advanced content.)

Marugoto Plus which accompanies the Marugoto courses and includes videos, audio files, etc.

Apps: Anki, Renshuu

Anki decks:

Tatsumoto's Kana (Recognizing and Writing)

Tatsumoto's AnkiDrone Sentence Pack V7

Official KanjiDamage Deck (from the creator of KanjiDamage, crude language warning for both the deck and the site)

Marugoto A1 Rikai Katsudoo 2021

Dictionaries:

Rikaitan browser extension (installed JMDict English V4, JMExtra, 日本語文法辞典(全集), and Kanjium)

Takoboto app (with offline access)

Other resources:

Sukiruma for practice writing sheets

Reader Ttsu for reading Japanese materials on a browser (used in conjunction with Rikaitan, since I couldn't find an e-book reader that I can install a Japanese dictionary in)

Sousakuba for downloadable genkouyoushi without watermarks

Youtube:

Favorites marked with a ⭐️.

Comprehensible Input for what it says on the tin, in bite-size formats

Daily Japanese with Naoko for vlogs with Japanese subtitles

Dogen for the funny videos that you can learn from and/or relate to

Game Gengo because Japanese learning through games, and has JLPT geared content if you're looking for it

Gino Kei who has shorts teaching Japanese in a not so serious way

Hiro - Food in Japan for cooking videos, not in Japanese, but these make me crave for Japanese food anyway so that counts

⭐️ Japan Eat for Japanese food commentary in English and also makes me hungry. So, yeah, not in 日本語 but it's delicious so that also counts

Japanese Koro mostly for kana reading practice which actually helps you get short serotonin boosts for when you do actually get to read the words correctly

Japanese Quest which plays games in Japanese

⭐️ Japarrot! for fun, animated comprehensible input videos

Let's ask Shogo for culture content

⭐️⭐️⭐️ Matcha Samurai for delightfully unhinged culture content, debunking Japanese misconceptions one video at a time

Namba Tsuyoshi for no narration Japanese walk with me style vlogs, very chill and relaxing

⭐️ NihongoDekita with Sayaka for fun, short grammar content

ShekMatz Japan has videos/playlists where she teaches Japanese in Tagalog, so if you can't understand Tagalog, you'd better skip it

Sora The Troll because why not

⭐️ Takashii from Japan is honestly one of my favorites, even before I started learning Japanese. His interviews are just really good!

Taro's Sewing because my toxic trait is thinking I can sew the cool things they post. Also comes with short Japanese commentary on screen

Tokyo Lens counts as uh, immersion even if it's not in Japanese, but it's in Japan so that counts? Yeah, let's go with that

もしもしようすけ for Japan vlogs/walk with me with Japanese and English subtitles

Yomii Japan Piano if you like piano and the occasional trolling

Japanese Calligrapher Takumi because my other toxic trait is thinking I can write this beautifully

[woso-dreamzzz]

Heart IV

Mapi Leon x Ingrid Engen x Child!Reader

Summary: A soft day off

"Well, good morning, sunshine," Ingrid coos as you wander out of your room.

You've got a major case of bedhead, still dressed in your crumpled pyjamas. You lift your arms up for uppies and Ingrid instantly puts you on her hip, turning back to stirring the eggs on the stovetop.

You're still very sleepy so Ingrid takes this moment to give you your medication.

"Open, please."

She drops the pills into your mouth and lets you swallow them down with a sippy cup of juice.

You're very good at taking your medication and it seems to perk you up a little as Ingrid dishes up breakfast.

It's a slow day, the last of the international break.

Ingrid's matches for Norway had finished earlier than other countries so she'd flown home immediately to get the most out of this day off before training started up again tomorrow.

"Would you go and get your Mami for me? I think she's still in bed."

You're helped down from the counter and wander off to Mami and Mama's room.

Mama was right, of course. Mami was still a lump in the middle of the bed, snoozing carelessly against her pillow. Bagheera sits next to her.

You know Mama told you to get Mami up but you spot her phone on charge a little way away and you go to grab it.

Tia Alexia has lots of games on her phone that she lets you play and you wonder if Mami has those games too.

Her phone is locked though so you can't check but you do spot her camera. You can use her camera app without logging in.

Mami and Mama use their camera apps a lot for lots of photos of you and them together. You've never used it on your own though and you're curious.

You swipe onto the app and adjust it so it's showing Mami and Bagheera in frame. There's a ray of sun coming in through the curtains and you want to capture that too.

The shutter sounds when you press the button and Mami jerks awake.

Her movement shocks Bagheera off the bed and she rubs her eyes. Mami looks around in shock before her features soften when she looks at you.

"Good morning, sunshine," She says," Is that my phone?"

"Morning, Mami!" You chirp, climbing up onto the bed with her," I took a picture!"

You can't access it without logging in so Mami unlocks her phone so you can show it to her.

Her mouth is wide open, mid snore, and Bagheera's got her leg sticking upright as she cleans herself. But you've got the sunbeam very clearly on camera so you're very happy.

Mami laughs. "That's a nice picture!"

"I know!" You giggle as she tickles your tummy. "Oh! Mama said it's time for breakfast! She made eggs!"

"Well, we can't leave Mama by herself! Vamos, sunshine!"

Your favourite days are days off. You get to cuddle with Mama and Mami and get lots of kisses because they love you so much.

You eat breakfast on the sofa for once in front of the tv before you migrate to playing with Bagheera on the floor. She's got a bell on a string that you wave at her.

She bats it a few times before grabbing the bell in her mouth and pulling the stick from your hand.

You giggle and Bagheera cocks her head to the side at the sound.

She looks adorable and you pat Mami's leg.

"Hmm? What is it?"

"Can I have your phone please?" You ask and Mami hands it to you.

You swipe onto her camera quickly and take your pictures of Bagheera looking very cute. She gets bored eventually of sitting in the same spot and curls up in her kitty bed and you migrate back up onto the sofa.

Mama adjusts you so you're on her lap and she pulls up your shirt to run her fingers over your Santa Heart scars.

She does that a lot. She checks them twice every day. Usually when you wake up and then at bathtime. She says that it's just so she knows they're healing correctly but they've been healed for a while now and Mami says it's because Mama is a worrier.

You smile at her though and raise the camera up to take a picture of her face.

You laugh at the silly face she pulls so you snap a few more.

"Mami!" You whine when Mami tries to take her phone back.

"I need it, sunshine," She laughs," It's not just a camera, you know."

You think of the camera hanging in Mama and Mami's room. You know you're not allowed to touch it by yourself because it's big and heavy and it's for the pictures when Mami thinks Mama is looking especially beautiful.

You think that you'd like a camera like that so you ask. You asked Santa for a new heart and you got it. You ask Mama for a camera for yourself too.

"Like Mami's, please?"

Mama hums as she thinks about it, carding her fingers through your hair. "That's a little big for you, sunshine. Maybe when you're older."

You deflate. "Oh."

"But we can get you a polaroid," Mama continues," That's good for your age and it means that your pictures immediately get printed out too."

"Really?" You perk up again.

"We'll pick one out together," Mami says, already booting up her laptop." Come here. Let's have a look."

[0sbrain]

here's a list of mozilla add-ons for all of you tumblrinas out there to have a better internet experience

also, if you like my post, please reblog it. Tumblr hates links but i had to put them so you adhd bitches actually download them <3 i know because i am also adhd bitches

BASIC STUFF:

AdGuard AdBlocker / uBlock Origin : adguard is a basic adblock and with origin you can also block any other element you want. for example i got rid of the shop menu on tumblr

Privacy Badger : this add on will block trackers. if an element contains a tracker it will give you the option to use it or not

Shinigami Eyes: this will highlight transphobic and trans friendly users and sites using different colors by using a moderated database. perfect to avoid terfs on any social media. i will explain how to use this and other add-ons on android as well under the read more cut

THINGS YOU TUMBLINAS WANT:

Xkit: the best tumblr related add on. with many customizable options, xkit not only enhances your experience from a visual standpoint, but provides some much needed accessibility tools

bonus: if you are into tf2 and wanna be a cool cat, you can also get the old version to add cool reblog icons

AO3 enhancer: some basic enhancements including reading time and the ability to block authors and tags

YOUTUBE

Return of the YouTube Dislike : pretty self explanatory

Youtube non-stop: gets rid of the annoying "Video paused. Continue watching?" popup when you have a video in the background

SponsorBlock: gives you options to skip either automatically or manually sponsors, videoclip non music sectors and discloses other type of sponsorships/paid partnerships

Enhancer for YouTube: adds some useful options such as custom play speed, let's you play videos in a window and most important of all, it allows you to make the youtube interface as ugly as your heart desires. I can't show a full image of what it looks like because i've been told its eye strainy and i want this post to be accessible but look at this <3

PocketTube: allows you to organize your subscriptions into groups

YouTube Comment Search: what it says

FINDING STUFF

WayBack Machine: you probably know about this site and definitely should get the add on. this allows you to save pages and access older versions with the click of a button. while you can search wayback using web archives, please get this one as well as it allows you to easily save pages and contribute to the archive.

Web Archives: it allows you to search through multiple archives and search engines including WayBack Machine, Google, Yandex and more.

Search by Image: allows you to reverse image search using multiple search engines (in my experience yandex tends to yield the best results)

Image Search Options: similar to the last one

this next section is pretty niche but... STEAM AND STEAM TRADING

SteamDB: adds some interesting and useful statistics

Augmented Steam: useful info specially for browsing and buying games

TF2 Trade Helper: an absolute godsend, lets you add items in bundles, keeps track of your keys and metal and your recent trades, displays links to the backpack tf page next to users profiles and more. look it tells me how much moneys i have and adds metal to trades without clicking one by one oh may god

IN CONCLUSION: oooooh you want to change to firefox so badly, you want to delete chrome and all the chrome clones that are actually just spyware and use firefox

HOW TO USE MOZILLA ADD-ONS ON YOUR PHONE

if you already use firefox on android, you'll know there are certain add-ons compatible with the app, some of them even being made just for the mobile version such as Video Background Play FIx. while most of them are pretty useful, some more specific ones aren't available on this version of the browser, but there's a way of getting some of them to work

you need to download the firefox nightly app, which is basically the same as the regular firefox browser but with the ability of activating developer mode. you can find how to do that here. once you've enabled it, you need to create a collection with all the add ons you want. i wouldn't recommend adding extensions if the creators haven't talked about phone compatibility, but XKit and Shinigami Eyes should work

also, don't tell the government this secret skater move, but you can try using both the regular firefox browser and nightly so you can have youtube videos in a floating box while you browse social media.

see? i can block this terf while Rick Rolling the people following this tutorial. isn't that tubular?

[tommydarlings]

pairing: charles leclerc ; carlos sainz ; max verstappen ; toto wolff ; lando norris ; rbr!seb ; mick schumacher ; daniel ricciardo ; astonmartin!seb ; lewis hamilton

warnings: none

check this out: my masterlist <3 // my ko-fi to support me! <3 // my PayPal to support me! <3 // my Patreon to become a member! (get access to +60 works!) <3 // Save a Life carrd made by me! <3

CHARLES LECLERC

He would IMMEDIATELY sprint to where you are in the house as soon as he heard a thunder, knowing you get immensely scared when you hear the loud noises through the windows.

“I'm coming, baby! Please don’t worry, mon chérie!”

“I'm here, my love, I'm here for you.”

Charles would immediately pick you up, tightly hugging you and giving you the sweetest and softest kisses to your head.

“I know it’s loud and scary,” kiss on the top of your head, “but it’s okay,” kiss on your temple, “I’m here, mon amour.”

gently stroking your hair, constantly reminding you that he’s here and that it’s okay to be scared.

CARLOS SAINZ

He would for sure already have you in his arms since he checked his weather app and saw that a storm was approaching your area.

Carlos would try to distract you as much as possible.

“You wanna watch a movie, cariño?”

“You wanna play a board game, baby?”

“You wanna bake or cook something, sweetheart?”

He would quickly make some popcorn before he would sit down and watch your favourite movie with you, obviously cuddling you in the mean time.

“You’re comfortable, baby? Need anything else?”

Strokes your arms with his thumb and leaves tender kisses on your shoulder from time to time.

MAX VERSTAPPEN

“Okay my love, don’t be scared… but the news say that there’s a storm coming up, okay?”

He would definitely warn you in advance and tell you when exactly the storm's gonna come and go and how strong it’s supposed to be.

“Apparently it shouldn’t rain but the thunder should be very strong, but don’t worry! I’ll hold you, c'mere.”

WOULDN'T LET YOU GO FOR ONE SINGLE SECOND.

Always either holds your hand or carries you somewhere.

“It’s so stupidly loud, I know baby… but it should be over soon and then we can have our peace again, okay?”

He caresses your head, whispers sweet nothings into your ear and gives your temple or cheek there and there a short peck.

TOTO WOLFF

Maybeeeee wouldn’t care that much at the beginning but as soon as he notices how scared you actually are, he comes to comfort you.

“Are you really that scared of thunderstorms, darling?” Toto would ask you nicely.

“Oh I’m so sorry, Liebling… c‘mere, come in my arms.”

Shh’s you all the time to make you forget that there’s a thunder outside.

“Shhh, mein engel,” my angel, “it’s just a thunder, it can’t hurt you, okay? Just a noisy thunder, baby.”

He would always squeeze your body and pull you even closer (if that’s even possible) when a loud thunder would bash against the windows, making you jump.

LANDO NORRIS

YOU CAN'T TELL ME THAT HE WOULDN'T BE A BIT SCARED AS WELL-

of course he would comfort you and hold you, but he’s a bit jumping as well each time a thunder bashes against one of your windows.

“Oh god! Why is it so loud!? I have never heard a thunder being that loud!”

“When does this end!? It’s okay darling, I got you, just like you got me…right?”

“I'm scared as well, baby…you’re not the only one scared of thunders but I‘m here for you, don’t you worry baby.”

LEAVES CONSTANTLY THOUSANDS OF KISSES ON THE TOP OF YOUR HEAD, YOUR TEMPLE, YOUR CHEEK AND MOUTH.

RBR!SEBASTIAN VETTEL

“I already knew that the thunder would scare you, mein Liebling… so I bought headphones for you and made a playlist for you!”

He would literally only listen to music with you.

Sing with you to it.

Dance with you to it.

“Come dance with me, baby.”

Would gently sway to Elvis Presley or dean martin with you.

But two minutes later he would wildly dance to slipknot or Marilyn Manson with you.

He would randomly pick you up and slam you against the wall and make out with you — basically do anything that’s possible to drown the thunders noises out.

“You don‘t have to be so scared of the thunder, okay? I’m here for you, Liebling and I will always be here for you.”

MICK SCHUMACHER

Mick would simply drown you kisses and nothing else.

You would already laugh, pushing him away a bit since he started tickling you as well.

“No mick! It’s fine, really! P-Please no tickling!”

“I don’t care, here comes the tickle monster!”

He would definitely constantly hold you and carry you around the house.

“I don’t care that you just quickly need to go to the bathroom! What if a loud thunder bashes against the window again?! Who will be there to save you?! To protect you?!”

Honestly, he’s kind of the type to brag a bit about protecting you from the loud thunder noises.

DANIEL RICCIARDO

“It’s just a stupid thunder baby, please! C'mere… c’mere princess.”

He would maybe be a tiiiiiiny bit overwhelmed with the fact that you’re so scared and shaky, but he would quickly try to help you.

“Perfect, come on… let me hold you, baby.”

Would just simply talk with you about anything and everything.

“You remember the day we first met, y/n baby?”

“Guess what yuki told me last Saturday!”

“I love you so much sweetheart, love you endlessly, pretty girl.”

BONUS ;

ASTONMARTIN!SEBASTIAN VETTEL

“Not those loud thunderstorms again, gott,” god.

Won't take his hands off of you for even ONE SECOND while he checks the GOD DAMN NEWS PAPER about todays weather.

“Okay, can you quickly listen to me, mein schatz?” my darling.

“Apparently, the thunder should stop in the middle of the night, so in about two to three hours! Then it’s all over, liebling.”

Draws unknown figures on your shaky body as he reads his daily newspaper.

“You want me to get you anything to calm you down, baby? You need anything? Want anything? I’ll bring you everything, engel! Don’t worry.”

“You tired? Wanna try to get some sleep and go to bed? Yeah? Let’s go, my love.”

LEWIS HAMILTON

“Where are my headphones goddamnit!”

Would try to quiet the noises of the thunders as much as possible for you.

“What do you want to listen to, baby?”

Immediately pulls you on top of his lap as soon as he notices that you’re shaking because of the bashes against the windows.

And rock your body forwards and backwards to calm you down while he looks for a specific playlist on his phone.

“Here it is! I’ve made a 'fucking thunderstorms' playlist for you, baby… tell me if you like it or not, okay?”

Lewis would lovingly hold you and rock you a bit while you just listen to the playlist he made specifically for you, constantly smiling down at you.

[kissmetwicekissmedeadly]

MIDNIGHT CINDERELLA MEMORIAL POST

The Midnight Cinderella app will be closed on Monday August 26th, 2024 (5 PM JST). The English version was actively updated from 2014 to 2021 when Cybird announced the ceasing of operations for MidCin, but the app remained accessible until today. I'm sure I'm not the only one who mourns the loss of it even after all these years of discontinuation, so I wanted to put together a post to properly say goodbye to it. Trying my best not to make it all too sappy - I'd rather look at it as a show that reached its final episode. Some things might be left unresolved but in the end, you remember the cast and the emotions they made you feel more than the actual plot. Nowadays there arguably may be better titles by Cybird out there, but for me, the simplicity of MidCin was what made the details so memorable.

1. VIDEO - POV: You're playing Midnight Cinderella (for 10 minutes)

The 10-minute version (without sound) is accessible via the link above (opens in Google Docs) This one I was really excited about recording! It's just your normal day playing midcin, I'm sure many will find it nostalgic and comforting. You log in, claim your daily bonus (I used the chance to do a present box reveal, 90+ items, many of which you might recognize from route grace checks), play the garden gacha (in my case, I used up all the points I had accumulated, 7800 which equals 39 solos), do your princess lessons, change your avatar, greet your friends, read 1/5 of today's free story parts, check the ranking and your stats, look at your memories directory. The video has no sound, as the game wouldn't let me turn it on (you will see me try to do so throughout the video...) but later on I got it to work so I recorded a one-minute video (the one imported above) of me replenishing stamina just for those iconic sound effects that you either loved or absolutely couldn't stand the volume of, haha.

2. A Midnight Cinderella playlist (spotify link)

While I wasn't there for the early days of midcin, the songs I associated with the game almost always captured this very specifically nostalgic 90s-10s period, you'll see what I mean. Many of those are taken from 8track playlists dedicated to Midnight Cinderella, and if I'm not mistaken you can still look at what is left of them if you search them up. Others are just my very random interpretations of the route stories and the characters.

3. Fic recommendations

We have a lovely community of creatives and there are still so many works left behind which you can check out on the tags! But especially for fics I wanted to list some that truly touched me during the years (all links open in ao3) -

i'm on fire and its NSFW bonus scene bloodstream by a deleted user - words are not enough for this one. It's like it meant more than Nico's whole route for me at one point, and the songs are forever in my heart as Nico songs...

MidCin Works by DBMidCin (SoftSen) - ALL of these. This is my go-to collection of writings for midcin when I start to miss the game, it has a little bit of everything. The headcanon of Giles teaching his girls French for instance is one of the things I still remember reading like it was yesterday!

Bedroom Etiquette (NSFW) by RubyLeeRay - Because this is the dream. Doing something forbidden with your tutor Giles is the ultimate fantasy, I swear. I just love it.

And of course, many, many more. There are currently 166 works on the midcin tag in Ao3, and I'm sure there are a lot of hidden gems here on tumblr as well! Reminder that writers LOVE it when you interact with their old works, it's not weird, you shouldn't hesitate doing so if you find yourself enjoying any of them! <3

4. My own humble collection of MidCin writings on my writing blog @xxsycamore!

Maid, Butler, Chamberlain (NSFW) - Nico x MC with Giles joining them

Grabbles: 💋 Demand for a kiss, right here, right now (GILES); 👔 Stealing their clothes to cuddle when you miss them (BYRON); more coming soon as there are still some in my askbox and I plan on including midcin in future short writings request openings too.

Shared Moments (NSFW) - Nico x Reader - Secret relationship

Ice-cold heat (NSFW) - Byron x Reader - Temperature play

Double the Surprise - Alyn and Leo birthday fic

Leo Crawford having a misadventure with a cat (ao3 link) - crack fic featuring most of the suitors

5. Out of context Midnight Cinderella screenshots

This is a sideblog of mine dedicated to posting out-of-context funny screenshots that I took while playing the routes - @oocmidcin . If you have some of your own that are not on there, you're free to submit them and add to the archive!

6. The perfect MidCin song - The Moon Will Sing by The Crane Wives

When I first discovered this song back in 2020 I dreamed of making it into a midcin music video with simplistic art and animations... It ended up being just something you daydream in detail about while in the car, but that's alright. I could at least share my vision with you! Disclaimer, this is just an interpretation and obviously it can't fit all characters ideally - In the brackets, I explain how the lyric is related to them and usually it reveals their backstories. Some of the details I've already forgotten, sorry if it's inaccurate.)

Tell me once again

I could have been anyone, anyone else

Before you made the choice for me

(Giles - his family making the choice for him since birth and later disowning him once he failed to become a knight due to his illness)

My feet knew the path

We walked in the dark, in the dark

I never gave a single thought to where it might lead

(Nico - wandering the streets with his mother once they were thrown out of Stein castle because she was a commoner having an affair with Byron's father, the King)

All those empty rooms

We could have been anywhere, anywhere else

Instead I made a bed with apathy

(Robert - the empty rooms of the once flourishing palace of the country that Robert ruled and led to demise, nowadays becoming a mere court painter)

My heart knew the weight

Ten years' worth of dust and neglect

We made our peace with weariness and let it be

(Leo - the years in which Alyn didn't speak to him, after the death of their parents)

The moon will sing a song for me

I loved you like the sun

Bore the shadows that you made

With no light of my own

(Albert - loyally standing in king Byron's shadow)

Name your courage now

We could have had anything, anything else

Instead you hoarded all that's left of me

(Sid - his relationship with his fiance that he agreed upon just to find out more about his parents by getting close to her father)

Swallowing your doubt

Like swords to the pit of my belly

I want to feel the fire that you kept from me

(Alyn - searching for answers about the murder of his family and the fire that burnt down their home)

I shine only with the light you gave me

(I could have been anyone, anyone)

(Louis - being a nobody and MC being his sun)

7. It goes on

I went to read what I could of chapter 4 of Rayvis' route, using my last two chapter tickets as well, thinking it won't make me cry. And then I'm hit with those familiar things.

So let's close this with a word about the things that never change in the universe of Midnight Cinderella.

Stumbling down the grand staircase and right into the arms of somebody. Escaping the palace at midnight with Nico's help. Sitting at breakfast with Giles giving you your schedule for the day. Nico's teasing little smile as he accompanies you everywhere and listens to your relationship troubles. The way he's just a little suspicious at times. Finding Robert painting in the garden of Wysteria palace. Going to the room of your chosen suitor for the first time and meeting a pet there. Leo teaching you history and politics in his office. Dance lessons with Louis. Needing those dance lessons because King Byron is coming to Wysteria and a ball is going to take place. The bureaucrats being unhappy with you as a princess elect, no matter what. Galloping on a horse with Alyn who just protected you from an enemy attack. Getting information from a certain flirty merchant at a bar. Albert bickering with Nico, Sid teasing Louis. Being introduced to Archduke Herneit at Stein castle. King Byron appreciating the night sky. The sight of your yellow and orange princess elect room where on the large bed with its blue bedframe and tall see-through canopy you lie awake and think about the events of the day and how would a wise future Queen of Wysteria deal with the current situation. But ultimately you fall asleep, hearing the melancholically beautiful sounds of a violin coming from somewhere deep within your dream, and leave it all to the following day.

Thank you for everything, Midnight Cinderella!

08/26/2024

[archaeren]

Hello!! I hope you're having a good day ^^ I came across your post about writing non-linearly on Notion and I'm excited to try it out because the advice resonated with me! Though, I'm really new to using the app and, if possible, need help with how to do this part: 'where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry.' ;v;

Hello! Thank you so much for messaging!!! Since that post about writing non-linearly (linked for context) blew up roughly ten thousand times as much as anything I've ever posted, I've been kind of meaning to make a followup post explaining more about how I use Notion for writing non-linearly, but, you know, ADHD, so I haven't done it yet. XD In the meantime, I'll post a couple screenshots of my current long fic with some explanations! I'd make this post shorter, but I'm unable to not be Chatty. XD (just ask my poor readers how long my author notes are...) (There is a phone app as well which syncs with the desktop/browser versions, but I work predominantly in the desktop app so that's what I'm gonna be showing)

(the table keeps going off the right side of the image but it's a bunch of unimportant stuff tbh) So this is more complicated than what you'll probably start with because I'm Normal and add a bunch of details that you might not need depending on what you're doing. For example, my fic switches POVs so I have a column for tracking that, and my fic follows a canon timeline so I have a column for dates so I can keep track of them, and I also made columns for things like if a scene had spoilers or certain content readers may want to avoid, which they can access in my spoiler and content guide for the fic. (As I said, I'm Normal.) I also do some complicated stuff using Status and estimated wordcount stuff to get an idea of how long I predict the content to be, but again, not necessary. Anyway, you don't need any of that. For the purposes of this explanation, we're just gonna look at the columns I have called Name, Order, and Status. (And one called Part, but we'll get into that later) Columns in Notion have different types, such as Text, Numbers, Select, Date, etc, so make sure to use the type that works best for the purpose of each column! For example, here I'm using Select for Character POVs, Number for Order and WC (wordcount), and Text for the In-Game Date. Okay let's get into it! Name is a column that comes in a Notion table by default, and you can't get rid of it (which drives me up the wall for some purposes but works totally fine for what we're doing here). As you can see on the scene I've labeled 'roll call', if you hover over a Name entry, a little button called 'Open' appears, which you click on to open the document that's inside the table. That's all default, you don't have to set anything up for it. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like when I click the one titled 'I will be anything for you' (I've scrolled down in the screenshot so you can see the text, but all the data fields also appear at the top of the page)

(This view is called 'side peek' meaning the document opens on one side and you can still see the table under it on the left, which is what mine defaults to. But you can set it to 'center peek' or 'full page' as well.) All my scenes have their own entry like this! Note that I've said scenes, not chapters. I decide the chapters later by combining the scenes in whatever combination feels right, which means I can often decide in advance where my chapter endings will be. This helps me consciously give most of my endings more impact than I was usually able to do when I tried to write linearly. So hopefully that gives you an idea of what I mean by writing inside the table and treating the table as a living outline. The 'Status' column is also pretty straightforward, and might require a little setup for whatever your needs are. This is another default column type Notion has which is similar to a Select but has a few more specialized features. This is how mine is set up:

(I don't actually use 'Done', idk why I left it there. Probably I should replace it with 'Posted' and use that instead of the checkmark on the far left? whatever, don't let anyone tell you I'm organized. XDD)

Pretty straightforward, it just lets me see easily what's complete and what still needs work. (You'll notice there's no status for editing, because like I mentioned in my other post, I don't ever sit down to consciously edit, I just let it happen as I reread) Obviously tailor this to your own needs! The Order column is sneakily important, because this is what makes it easy for me to keep the scenes organized. I set the Sort on the table to use the Order to keep the scene ordered chronologically. When I make the initial list of scenes I know the fic will have, I give all of them a whole number to put them in order of events. Then as I write and come up with new scene ideas, the new scenes get a number with a decimal point to put them in the spot they fit in the timeline. (you can't see it here, but some of them have a decimal three or four digits deep, lol). Technically you can drag them to the correct spot manually, but if you ever create another View in your table (you can see I have eight Views in this one, they're right under the title) it won't keep your sorting in the new View and you'll hate yourself when it jumbles all your scenes. XD (And if you get more comfortable with Notion, you probably will at some point desire to make more Views) The Part column isn't necessary, but I found that as the fic grew longer, I was naturally separating the scenes into different points along the timeline by changes in status quo, etc. (ex. "this is before they go overseas" "this is after they speak for the first time", stuff like that) in my mind. To make it easier to decide where to place new scenes in the timeline, I formalized this into Parts, which initially I named with short summaries of the current status quo, and later changed to actual titles because I decided it would be cool to actually use them in the fic itself. Since it's not in the screenshots above, here's what the dropdown for it looks like:

(I've blocked some of the titles out for spoiler reasons)

Basically I only mention the Parts thing because I found it was a useful organizational tool for me and I was naturally doing it in my head anyway. Anyway, I could keep talking about this for a really long time because I love Notion (don't get me started on how I use toggle blocks for hiding content I've edited out without deleting it) but that should be enough to get started and I should really, you know, not make this another insanely long post. XDD And if anybody is curious about how the final results look, the fic can be found here.

[meredithgran]

About Newspaper Comics

An ask cross-posted from Cohost, which is not long for this world.

Anonymous User asked: I would like to know your opinions about newspaper comics

This is a very choose your own adventure kind of question. Am I meant to speak about the art or the business of newspaper strips? The current state of newspaper comics or their century-spanning history? Stream of consciousness it is.

Newspaper comics were the original dream for me before all other dreams. I fell in love with Garfield and the story of its success, and wanted to make a syndicated strip at an early age. Later, I fell in love with Calvin and Hobbes - itself a lesson in craft, history and business - and abandoned the syndication dream for “art by any means necessary”, and dove into webcomics. (There were a few more steps along the way, but that’s the basic trajectory and not uncommon for my age.)

In the 80s and 90s when I was dreaming Garfield dreams, syndicated newspaper strips were already dying. They’d been jam packed so tightly into rectangles in the comics section that no room for great cartooning remained. The schedules were brutal, the audience was broad and apt to complain, and the aging comics legends were phoning in or delegating their work, so even the full-page Sunday strips were gridded and lifeless. Even fresh new artists (rare as they were) were hammered creatively into the shape of the paper. The death of most major newspapers from the late 00s onward spelled the end of Garfield Meredith's dream.

The thing is, Garfield Meredith would be very pleased with the present day. Comics are bountiful, they're free to read online, and they're all accessible from a single app. Even better, the creators interact with their audiences day and night. In comics we have safely returned to the late-stage newspaper syndication model, after a brief "art by any means" era, with 24/7 access to the creators as a bonus. It goes without saying that most of the money these comics generate goes to the platform. As more people discover online comics, the memory of any other model has faded. Comics is a pushover industry, easily steamrolled by detached parties with money.

So what do we do? I'm afraid that's not what this post is about. Mom's tired. My heads is not really in the comics game anymore, and big tech & our rotting internet is a problem everywhere. But I think discussions about our history as cartoonists and comics appreciators - and an acknowledgment of what is disappearing - is important. It's no surprise that Bill Watterson's stubborn refusal to license, adapt, or needlessly continue his creation past its prime shocked me and many others onto a different path. I think it is useful to be a high-functioning crank in your own age: to fully accept the now without forgetting past possibilities or drawing a border around the future.

And of course, we mustn't let current trends tame our wild imaginations or our command of the craft. We have been given the tools to create beauty and make sense of life, and these creations - not the platforms that indiscriminately corral them - are worth sharing.

[goldensunset]

so i guess it didn’t occur to me but like. Yeah. even if the app is offline and only provides theater mode that’s still a real canon kingdom hearts entry. those cutscenes are part of the story. and that app is the official means by which those cutscenes are accessible. there’s youtube of course but that’s all the work of fans… without the uxdr app square enix is currently straight up not offering an actual official way to experience this story anymore. which is. really low. nintendo type move. and like. bad for an overarching story that relies on this and is only going to do so more and more…

i’m betting on this being the first symptom of square enix doing something new with this story in the future but for the time being it’s like. man that really reflects poorly… not that it’s even that irrational to take down an app that’s been dead for years now but what it does is bring to light how ridiculous it is that square enix hasn’t done anything else in that time. no announcement of a remake or other new means of making uxdr available, no warning about the app being removed, etc

not to sound like one of the mobile game saga haters but in the end. when you get practical with it. it really is unprofessional and far-fetched for game developers to expect the masses to get into a story that’s only accessible through a gallery of cutscenes on a mobile app. like i understand there are always gonna be casual fans who aren’t interested in every last side game ever (even if they’re wrong) but in general stuff like bbs and ddd or whatever we’re good at appealing to broader audiences. i think square enix really needs to face the reality that people want real and playable games and the rabid passion of us tumblr weirdos who will gladly watch hours of cutscenes isn’t enough to float their boat

like khux has been around for so long you’d think they’d have realized ‘hmm the cute little online pc/mobile game we made got popular and we expanded the lore a lot hmmmm maybe we should reconsider our initial choice if confining it to the realm of a cute little online pc/mobile game.’ it hurts my heart to hear people dissing the mobile games bc it’s done from ignorance of how good they are but i’m not mad at those people. they’re judging a book by its cover but like yeah some books have unappealing covers. i get it. not everyone will immediately see the hype. the khux superfan in me says skill issue they should try harder. the pragmatic person who wants the series to survive says square enix you gotta do something to appeal to the broader audience

and like only offering the thing in a mediocre form is bad enough but it’s even worse now if they don’t even let you have the thing at all. now it really is up to the fans to preserve this work of art? a set of crucial support beams for the entire mythos’ lore is being curated by youtubers doing this entirely out of passion? and square enix doesn’t see a problem with that? mannnn if you want to be taken seriously as a storyteller. provide access to your stories. ideally make it a good and widely popular type of access but at least do something. nintendo type of move smh . as long as they don’t go full nintendo and start striking down people who upload it online

[thesith]

— Holove

bad batch x gn!reader (platonic), implied crosshair x reader

this is a one shot (1k)

warnings: 18+ for insinuations, cursing

notes: thought this idea was funny! i tried to keep this as gender neutral as possible, let me know if there are any slip ups! this hasn’t been edited or proofread.

summary: you, echo, hunter, wrecker, and tech play smash or pass with your newly made holove (tinder) account.

“Give me your holopad,” Hunter asked you, “there’s a game I want to download.”

You gave him a look, “You have your own, Hunter. Download it on yours.” You pulled your device close to your chest to assure he doesn’t get it.

So of course he tackled you and won, typing in your password to access the holostore. You gave up and opted to watch whatever the hell he’s doing from over his shoulder. When you watched him type ‘Holove’ into the search bar, you attempted to snatch your holopad back.

“Hunter what the fuck? That’s a dating app, not a game.”

His reaction time was fast, pulling the holopad above both of your heads as it downloaded. “It’s called Holove roulette. It’s like Smash or Pass that we can all play!”

“Then why does it have to be on my holopad!” You huffed and crossed your arms, knowing that there was nothing you could do. “Why don’t you use your own? Or Wrecker’s?”

“Our faces are too well-known - you’re anonymous on missions! We’re also… you know… clones,” he attempted to explain, “also it would be fun to know who thinks our teammate is gorgeous, other than us.”

You didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult, but you didn’t care. The game sounded fun enough to play, even if it was just a game. “Fine, at least let me help make my own profile.”

The images you chose consisted of a couple selfies from your bunk, a portrait from Pabu, and an image with a cute animal you saw on one of the many planets you’d visited with the crew. You made sure none of your images had their armor nor faces in them and turned the holopad for Hunter to see.

His eyes widened, “Smash or Pass: Hunter.”

You laughed before getting to work on the remainder of your bio. “What the fuck does A/S/L mean?”

“Let me see.” Hunter asked, to which you handed him the holopad, “Aurebesh Sign Language? I don’t know…”

Tech walked into the room at the perfect time, “Aurebesh is an alphabet, not a language. If I’m correct, which I am seldom not, A/S/L means age, sex, location. Did you coerce them, Hunter?”

”You’re in on this?” You sighed, rubbing your forehead. “Next you’re gonna say Wrecker and Echo are too.”

“You betcha!” Wrecker hollered from the pilot’s seat, accompanied by “it sounds like fun” from Echo. You expected the latter to be on your side, but you were proven wrong.

“What do I even put for location? We’re everywhere…”

Tech glanced at the holopad, “I do not think it’s wise to say Ordd Mantell, even if most of our time is spent there. Perhaps a sector? Ordd Mantell lies on a cross-section of three sectors, Bright Jewel, Qiilura, and Dohu along three separate hyperspace trade routes, Celanon Spur, Burke’s Trailing, and Entralla.”

“Bright Jewel sounds pretty. What’s in that sector?” You asked, hoping you could say a planet from there.

“Ordd Mantell serves as the sector capital, but Aleen, Numidian Prime, Anobis, and Jarnollen, to name a few.”

“Hunter, write down Numidian Prime. That’s a planet I’ve actually heard of.”

Tech fixed the goggles on his face, “your potential suitors will conclude that you’re a bounty hunter if you say that.” He paused to inspect your seemingly content face, “To each their own, I suppose.”

“Now, any ideas for the bio?”

“In my research, I’ve concluded most dating application profiles include things the person enjoys. A very common one is ‘I enjoy long walks on the beach’.” Tech expertly replied, giving you all the right ideas.

“I like shooting things! And running from the Empire!” You gleefully replied, earning yourself looks of disappointment from Hunter and Tech.

“Well, that fits the profile of a Numidian Prime inhabitant.”

Hunter sighed, “maybe we don’t say that. What about flying? You like flying, right?”

That made you audibly laugh, “you two never let me fly the Marauder!”

His reply came quickly, “Hey, it’s a better idea than ‘I like shooting things’!”

Tech thought for a moment, “How about travelling? I recall that you immensely enjoy our times on different planets, even if we are being targeted with less than optimal intentions the majority of the time.”

“That’ll work!” You were getting increasingly more interested in creating your profile, as were your crewmates. Maybe this would be more fun than you thought.

“What gender?”

You leaned over his shoulder to check ‘all’ before leaning back, “also, increase the range to the furthest it will go. More options that way.”

Soon after that, your profile was finally completed. Omega was long asleep, so you joined Hunter, Echo, Tech, and Wrecker in the cockpit to finally play.

You set the holopad on the ground between the five of you so everybody could see the screen. “Okay, ready?”

The first few were straight passes from everybody - you were not into Gungans nor droids.

“Holy shit, is that Fennec Shand?”

The boys laughed as Tech inspected it closer - it absolutely was her.

“Pass.” “Smash.” “Pass.” “Pass.” “Smash.”

“Are we just gonna forget that she tried to take Omega from us? Also tried to kill us? Multiple times?”

Wrecker tried to explain his reasoning as to why he said smash, “She was hired to do that! I like a woman who can handle a weapon.”

“This game is based on looks - we would’ve all said smash if we didn’t know her. Stop shaking your head, Hunter.”

A few more rounds went by before a familiar face popped on the screen, earning gasps from everybody. Hunter grabbed the holopad with a white-knuckle grip, swiping through his brother’s posted images.

“Is that who I think it is?” You asked, the wide-eyed looks from those who surrounded you telling you everything you needed to know. “Holy shit, Crosshair is on Hololove?” You managed to snatch the pad from the Sergeant, looking at Cross’ profile. “Oh, so he can say that he likes to shoot things but I can’t?”

The brothers remained silent, not knowing what to do with this newfound information. You did, though.

You swiped right, “Smash.”

A ding came from your holopad - ‘It’s a match!’

fin.

thank you for reading! check out my masterlist!

[medicetwork]

Mercs if they had modern day cellphones!

Heavy:

The screen is too small and his fingers are too big.

The screen also tends to hurt his eyes after a while but he absolutely refuses to turn down the brightness, saying it would make it even harder to see than before

His main favorite functions are video calls with Medic or his family and listening to music.

His life is complete when he discovers E-books

He can’t read them on the screen but he loves being able to clean Sasha while having his favorite book read to him

Medic:

Really doesn’t use it for much else than phone calls and the occasional google search at first

When he discovers mobile games that takes his interest though!

He becomes a candy crush mom.

Oh you have a broken arm? Wellll…You can tough it out, champ. He’s on level 7,229 right now.

He would make all the other men get Life360

Scout:

Total social media zombie(I say as if I am not one)

Surprisingly he’s very popular on apps like Twitter and Tik Tok. People think he’s hilarious!

Unfortunately somewhere along the way he says something less than respectful about something and his account gets banned

Eventually he’s on account number 6 and trying to regrow his following

It never recovers

He finds out about NFT’s

Sniper:

Mainly uses it to watch youtube and play music

His phone is always on silent and Do Not Disturb

He loves those videos where those guys go out into the middle of the woods and just start building a fucking house out of clay and sticks.

He prefers texting to calling, finding it much faster(he just like me fr)

Baffled by just how much porn he has access to now….

But he’s not complaining.

Soldier:

He doesn’t use it because he just keeps breaking his phones.

They’ve been dropped, blown up, set ablaze, dropped in water, eaten by a bread-tumor monster, eaten by Soldier(???) and run over.

Even if they didn’t get destroyed within 3 days he still wouldn’t use it for much else besides setting alarms and sending confusing group texts.

However, with each new phone he has gotten he asks Pyro for stickers and sticker bombs his phone just for fun

Has an American flag wallpaper

Pyro:

Watches a lot of Youtube!

They love art tutorials, cooking tutorials and those videos with the guys that put molten hot metal balls into water and those videos of people crushing things in Hydraulic presses

Their search history is so fucking strange:

“my little pony free episode”

“my little pony movie free”

“how to draw clouds”

“gasoline cheap prices”

They follow Scout’s pages and always send him nice comments and like his videos

Engineer:

Loves listening to music and watching movies on his phone

Eventually learns how to code and make his own apps

This is also how he discovered he could jailbreak his phone and turn it into a universal remote for his sentries

Very slow texter

Uses way more emoji’s than needed

“Hello yall 👋🏻 going to the hardware store today 🔨let me know if yall need anything while im out👋🏻🚶🏼”

His most used app is the settings app

Spy:

Of course all of his phones are burners.

He never uses one for more than one week

Loves pirating movies on it and watching them in bed

He has no contacts. No personal information and keeps his location off at all times

Likes to pretend to be different people and play around with Google and Youtube’s targeted ads and algorithms

One day he’s an 86 year old woman that’s recommended nothing but metal bands and funeral home ads

The next week he’s four years old and getting recommended Mario and Minecraft let’s play videos

He uses twitter

He’s doxxed many people on Twitter

Like Scout he has MANY banned accounts and has also hacked and stolen many accounts

…He hacked one of Scout’s accounts and got it permanently banned

Demoman:

Loves watching Top 10 videos

Also loves having so much ease and access talking to his lads

He video calls his mother often even she just nags him the whole time and keeps accidentally hanging up

Is frequently texting the other team’s Soldier and laughing at what he says back

Uses Discord and Reddit and is in many servers and communities that focus on paranormal activity, urban legends and cryptids

Actually makes his own youtube videos searching for said cryptids

Frequently comments “cringe” under Scout’s posts

[theresattrpgforthat]

How do you know so many games to recommend? I feel like I’m always scrambling to find games on a certain topic, and itchio’s search function is tricky at best.

Hello friend! I have a few methods, and I think they all tie back to my pretty big obsession with games. Let's take a trip through my indie RPG journey, because this is kind of the result of approximately 5 years of interest.

DriveThru RPG

When I first got into TTRPGs, I didn't have a lot of money (let's be real, even right now I don't really have that much spending money) but I did have a little more time, so I combed the net for free tabletop games. I got acquainted with DriveThruRPG first, and I took everything I could that was free and put it into little folders on my computer. Since then I've realized that I can access my folders through the DriveThru App, so there's much less on my computer and more just waiting to be downloaded and perused.

I also get notifications from DriveThru about deals of the day, and occasionally I just browse the storefront to see if anything catches my eye. DriveThru's navigation system is not great either, but one of my friends does some of his own sifting and has directed me to some real gems. I learned about Pandora London, Swords of the Serpentine, and Savage Worlds this way.

Podcasts

I love TTRPG podcasts but I didn't want to listen to D&D podcasts. I found Fandible first, when I was looking for a play through of Changeling: The Lost. I walk to work and I also like to listen to podcasts when I clean my house, so I usually get through one episode a day. I usually look for podcasts that play in multiple systems, although you'll see a number of podcasts here that focus on just one non-D&D system. Here's a few that I recommend:

Fandible: Just a group of friends who love playing games together. All of them are GMs, and they all GM different games. Jesus is the most adventurous, and is constantly bringing new games to the table. I found Slugblaster, Numenera, and Unhallowed Metropolis through them!

Character Creation Cast: I started listening to CCC last year, thanks to a recommendation from a friend, but I fell in love quick. The hosts focus only on the character creation aspect of games, and they also spend time talking to other gamers about the parts of play that each guest feels is important. I found out about Descent into Midnight, Nova, and Blue Planet this way.

The Gauntlet Podcast: This Podcast no longer releases episodes but I learned so much about safe game play through this podcast. Once a month the hosts would sit down with guests and highlight a game of the month for each of them. Often they would talk about games that they adored even before those games made it to publication. I found out about Brinkwood, Apocalypse Keys, and Poutine through this podcast. I miss it so very much.

I would also recommend My First Dungeon, Party of One Podcast, The Eternity Archives, One Shot, and +1 Forward for exposure to many indie games.

Itch.io

I didn't interact much with Itch.io at first - I thought it was mostly for indie video games and generators - but when the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality came out I went feral. I sorted through each and every page of games in that bundle and put all of the TTRPGs into folders - which I am still refining to this day. As you can see, I get very excited whenever a big bundle comes out, as it gives me a lot of exposure to games that people have made.

I also sort through the most recent additions on Itch every one or two days. I usually categorize my folders via genre and rules system, but I'm currently in the process of curating folders for duet and epistolary games. If I think a tag will help me, I usually use https://itch.io/physical-games/tag-[tag] and then insert what I'm looking for in the [tag]. It doesn't get everything but it gets me started.

Often if a game was entered in a Game Jam, there's a tab that you can click to see other entries in that same Jam. So occasionally I'll browse Game Jams for other games that I might find interesting. And for games that I know that I'm personally passionate about, I have a Games that Intrigue Me folder to flip through for when I'm choosing which game to play, or if I want to spotlight a game that I've been itching to put on a rec post.

Other Avenues

I am actually subscribed to you on Youtube, along with a number of other great reviewers!

The Gaming Table is a wonderful Aussie creator who reviews copies of indie ttrpgs. She started a year ago and already has a truly delightful backlog. I recently listened to her review of Bluebeard's Bride and it was wonderful!

I found 11dragonkid when I was looking for Lancer content and was pleasantly surprised to find other ttrpg reviews for games such as ARC and Gubat Banwa.

I watch A.A. Voigt's and Talen Lee's (@talenlee) mini-essays about games and the pieces of those games that speak to them not just to learn about new games but also to learn about what makes those games matter. I found the videos on Capitalites and Girl By Moonlight very informative!

I also watch Dave Thaumvore for reviews for big-print games (Vaesen, Symbaroum), and Questing Beast for updates on what's happening in the OSR scene (Vaults of Vaarn, Mothership).

I'm also subscribed to a number of newsletters and RSS feeds! Bundle of Holding has a blog announcing new bundles, the Indie RPG Newsletter has some great indie rpg coverage in their monthly updates and associated links, and I have an RSS feed on Feedly for game musings on whatever blogs I can find.

In Conclusion...

Much of my TTRPG knowledge comes from constant osmosis. I talk to friends about games, spend a lot of time on Itch.io, and I'm also finding new games here on Tumblr. I have an RPG server where me and a bunch of my friends play pretty regularly, and I'm constantly introducing them to new games. We finished up our Monster Squad Arc a month or two ago, and we're currently getting geared up for a Galaxy Games arc - this time with games that other players are bringing to the table!

I started sorting games for my own enjoyment - I love having all of my little boxes that I can go back to when I am hankering for my own game. I started this blog because I found there were too many games that I was excited about and I was never going to get through all of them just gaming with my friends.

[queerprayers]

any tips/advice for someone who is not catholic who wants to participate in lent? like how to choose what to give up etc?

Cheers to not letting Catholics have a monopoly on Lent, beloved! Last year I answered a similar ask that might be helpful. Here are the thoughts I have right now!

[CW: discussion of eating/fasting in italics] My most important note/disclaimer: Fasting is not for everyone. It is a beautiful tradition (for Catholics and non-Catholics) that can change people's lives, but if it's going to be a part of your practice, do it on purpose, knowing yourself. It inherently changes your relationship with food--and for people who have always had enough to eat, who have never struggled with disordered eating, who have never been seriously ill, there can be a solidarity and new perspective in fasting, in realizing how sensory experiences and comfort and mortality go together, how privileged you are to have the choice to go hungry. But for those who have struggled with food insecurity, or have lived through/live with eating disorders/disability/illness, or any other experience/relationship with food/the body that changes your perspective, fasting will often be a re-traumatizing or triggering practice that doesn't change your perspective so much as reinforce unhealthy ones. Something I think about: why fast if you cannot feast? Lenten fasting brings us to Easter feasting--if that's not accessible to you, if that wouldn't be joyful or affordable or healthy, fasting probably isn't either. Okay, all that said:

There is so much diversity in what a Lenten practice can look like, and I can't tell you what will be most meaningful for you, but I'll give you some ideas and some questions that have been helpful for me to ask myself! Lent existed way before the Catholic/Protestant divide, and exists among so many diverse communities, and there is a path here for you if you want one.

"Giving up something" is the most common language used for Lent--fasting technically refers to anything abstained from--and generally that's really useful! Jesus's forty days in the wilderness was time that he had nothing but God, and during Lent we can get closer to that experience. I give things up not as punishment or a test of self-control (those ideas trigger unhealthy behavior patterns for me), but as a letting go of something that is in my life but doesn't need to be, and may deserve reconsidering. Sometimes it's a bad habit, but sometimes it's just a conscious allowing of my life to grow simultaneously smaller and bigger. There is space for grief during Lent, but we're not just making ourselves feel bad--I've never found forced emotions to be spiritually helpful. Emotions come and go--we're doing this on purpose, and whatever we feel about it, we make space for that.

Ideas of things to give up:

eating out/getting coffee/buying drinks/little treats

impulse buying/nonessentials (you could pick a category, like clothes, or go all out)

alcohol/drugs/smoking (if this would be starting a recovery journey, I am not the person to ask for advice on that but please do seek help)

social media (you could choose one app to give up, or set time limits--it doesn't have to be all or nothing)

scrolling-on-your-phone time before bed/another time when you get sucked in

another form of casual entertainment (like TV/video games--again, you can limit this rather than cutting it out)

sexual activity (I talked about this here)

makeup/other appearance-related thing (I must confess I have considered doing this and always chickened out. I know that's because it would force me to rethink too many things, which is a probably a sign I should do it one of these years.)

a social habit, like gossiping or getting into arguments online

overscheduling/not having rest days (this is often unavoidable, but rest is necessary and holy, and perhaps this is the season for sacrifice in honor of rest)

single-use plastics/another environmental choice

Note: I don't think any of these things are inherently bad things. This is a list of things we can change/investigate our relationship with or have a season without them as a distraction, not things I think we shouldn't be doing or we should feel bad about.

One of the most important things I've realized is that so often I have given something up and not done anything about it. Like I didn't watch TV for forty days and was mad about it and then Lent was over and I watched TV again. Perhaps this strengthened my self-discipline, or made my life better in a way known only to God, but ultimately nothing happened. I didn't consciously do anything else, I didn't learn anything.

Now, when I give up something, I purposely do something with whatever space it leaves. If I'm not watching TV, what am I going to do when I would usually watch TV? Am I gonna pray? go to bed earlier? call my grandmother? Am I gonna cancel my Netflix subscription for a couple months and donate that saved money? Or maybe I'm gonna give up watching mindless TV, and find stories that resonate and make me think. Don't give things up to check a box, but to reexamine your relationship with them, make everyday things sacred, fill the space/time/money/energy you now have with God, and ultimately to set this time apart.

The other way of looking at Lent practices is things you can add. Often, as I mentioned, they go together--you can pair up something you're no longer buying with somewhere to donate to, or give up an activity and replace it with a new one. I always caution against Lent-as-self-improvement--obviously I can support improving our habits, but I've seen too many people use Lent to restart their new year's workout plans, and while exercise can be a way to care for ourselves, if new year's and Lent are treated the exact same way, what's different about this season? What makes this Lent?

One of the questions I've been asking myself recently is: What are you gonna do about it? When I'm investigating a belief, or learning something new, or reframing an old thought process, I ask myself: What am I gonna do about it? Lent is a path to Holy Week--something I and many others commemorate as the week when God was put on trial and literally killed. I genuinely believe God died and was resurrected--how does this affect my life? Believing something like that and not letting it change you is, to me, inauthentic. When I'm considering a belief, I think, if this were true, how would it change me? Would it lead me to Love? Lent (and Christianity itself) over and over asks us to do something about what we say we believe. Faith without works is dead--and faith is a work, something I do.

It's almost Lent, which is preparation for the Resurrection, which fundamentally changes our understanding of what it means to be alive--so what are you gonna do about it? Not because doing something will make God love you more or make you a "better person," or even because you'll succeed or change your life, but because how can we not? We are of course welcome at Easter having done nothing, but I can't imagine knowing what's coming and not letting it change me.

Ideas of things to add to our lives:

start a prayer/Bible routine--I can now wholeheartedly recommend (as a Protestant who connects with ancient traditions but not always Catholicism) Phyllis Tickle's Divine Hours books! For Bible study, I like The Bible Project's videos.

read a book--it can be anything that connects you with God! (I had a lovely experience with Lenten Lord of the Rings last year, and this year I'm properly going through the Quran)

pick a subject to research (theological or anything else)

start to attend worship services or commit to attending more--this could include going to several different places if you don't currently belong to a church

research places to volunteer for or donate to

do something politically active, like calling your representatives, researching the next local election, or attending a protest

donate to the next [insert number here] posts you see online requesting mutual aid

start a physical practice like taking a walk or stretching

write a letter or call someone regularly, especially with people you've been wanting to connect with more or have unresolved conflict with

start/commit to more regular therapy/other health treatment

ask for help--maybe you're the one who needs mutual aid, or reaching out to, or support cleaning your house or with your kids. there is no shame in this.

These are all obviously things we can be doing year round, and certainly we can use Lent as a season to start something we want to keep with us! I'd also encourage us to have something that's only present during Lent, or something that we do more or in a different way.

You asked how to choose, and I don't have a one sentence answer to that (...obviously), but perhaps in these days before Lent you can look at your routine/habits, the places where God is present, the things you do to distract yourself from life (not a crime--just something to be mindful of), and you can see where Lent might be able to come in and change you. The thing that's nagging at you that you know might be helpful, the thing you're not in control of and just do, the time you take up or the money you spend that might not be bad but also doesn't lead you anywhere. We can't expect every aspect of our lives to be purposeful and present, or to be continuously improving ourselves (in fact, that sounds terribly stressful and unsustainable)--but we can look around us. We can have a season that looks different because everyone I've ever known has a brain that craves ritual in some way--and either we do it on purpose, or we fall into it. Do something (or don't do something) a little more on purpose this season.

Another think to think about is what Sundays will look like for you--the "forty days" don't count them. There's no fasting on Sundays--my mom says every Sunday is a little Easter. "Sundays in Lent" is such an interesting concept because it's very much Lent, but the rhythm of our weeks breaks through. When I give up soda, I'll have one as a celebration on Sundays, but a prayer/reading practice I'll continue through. It's up to you and depends on what your rhythm/habits ask of you.

Ultimately, let God interrupt you. Let Them seep in the cracks of everything you do and let go of. To be loved is to be changed. Even the smallest thing--like wearing a cross necklace every day--can cause our lives to be filled with noticing God's presence. I keep saying to do this on purpose, but know that I find Them much more often by accident.

And an obligatory note: starting Lent late, stopping your practice halfway through, not meeting a goal, whatever comes up--Easter still comes for you. Lent is for paying attention, for making space, not for perfection.

I also want to add that while a lot of Lenten practices (including most I've mentioned here) tend to be personal, ultimately what is asked of us is interpersonal. We make space in our life and be more present in the name of Love--which we cannot do alone. If a practice is not specifically about other people (like volunteering/donating), ask yourself how it will serve the ways you love others? This isn't a trick question, just something to think about. Personally, my study of the Quran this season will connect me with my Muslim siblings through time and enable me to more fully love the Muslims around me, and my rhythm of the divine hours will connect me with the wider Christian community and center me as I go about my day, allowing me to be more present in my relationships.

Easter comes whether we're ready or not--and I don't think we can be ready. But we can look at the small parts of ourselves, set this time apart, see what we can change our relationship with, and perhaps when Easter comes, we will every year have come that much closer to understanding what it means to live out the resurrection by honoring the death that came first.

Wishing you a blessed almost-Lent, and praying for you and your practice (as well as all those reading this)!

<3 Johanna

[babykin25]

DS Games for Littles <3

Hi there! I wanted to make a post on DS games that I think are nice for littles, how to download them and how to play them! I'm on Android so I'm not sure about IOS, but I'll be using melonDS for this :3

Step 1: Download melonDS

This is the first step! Though the app is early access, it's still the best emulator I've tried for ds games and the only one so far I know that the microphone works (works choppy but at least it does something compared to drastic)

Once you've downloaded it, make sure the in-app microphone is set to your device's microphone! Go to settings and then audio to change it.

NOTE: I'm not sure about other devices but on my phone, the microphone only works with headphones on, and when entering the app with them on. If I enter the app without them on, it doesn't seem to work unless I restart it with them on. Do check on your phone how this works!

Step 2: Look for ROMs you like and download them!

Roms is the file name of DS games, and I always download mine from here.

The first step to getting games is downloading them! Look for games you like and tap the download button. It'll move you lower on the website, and start downloading! I recommend downloading through Chrome :)) downloading on for example, Opera Touch is hard because the downloads screen there is broken.

Once you've downloaded it, head to where it's located in your phone's files or the downloads screen. Tap on the file and it'll lead you to your phone's files, with a button that says 'extract'. Touch that button and extract the files! It'll then show up on your emulator, if your emulator and roms are under the same directory :))

I recommend making an alternate folder in the device for the games! It's what I do and all of them show up just fine!

*If the list below is too much to skim over, I recommend Hamtaro Ham-Ham Challenge, Zhu Zhu Babies and the Smart Boy's/Girl's games <3

Cooking Mama

Games I recommend:

Build-A-Bear Workshop (a little laggy when you color the house! otherwise plays well)

Crafting Mama

Gardening Mama

Crayola Treasure Adventures

Dogz

Dogz 2

Dora's Cooking Club

Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Snow Princess

Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Mermaids

Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue

Diego's Build and Rescue

Go, Diego, Go! Great Dinosaur Rescue

Aquarium by DS

Fantasy Aquarium by DS

Hamsterz Life

Hello Kitty Daily

Hello Kitty Party

Hello Kitty Birthday Adventures

Hello Kitty: Big City Dreams

Littlest Pet Shop: City Friends

Hi! Hamtaro Ham-Ham Challenge

Lalaloopsy: Sew Magical! Sew Cute

Littlest Pet Shop: Garden

Littlest Pet Shop: Winter

Littlest Pet Shop: Beach Friends

Littlest Pet Shop: Jungle

Littlest Pet Shop: Spring

Littlest Pet Shop: Country Friends

Loving Life with Hello Kitty and Friends

My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party

MySims

Prism: Light the Way

Smart Boy's Gameroom

Smart Boy's Gameroom 2

Smart Boy's Toys Club

Smart Boy's Winter Wonderland

Smart Girl's Playhouse

Smart Girl's Playhouse 2

Smart Girl's Playhouse Party

Smart Girl's Magical Book Club

Smart Girl's Winter Wonderland

Toy Story 3

Yoshi's Island

Zhu Zhu Pets

Zhu Zhu Pets: Quest for Zhu

Zhu Zhu Babies

Zhu Zhu Puppies

Magical Zhu Zhu Princess: Carriages and Castles

Hope this helps you download them and have fun! Let me know if you have any problems and I'll do my best to help <3

[pointyfruit]

Hi, I'm Pointyfruit! Or Pointy! Oor Fruit! (They/Them)

I mainly reblog silly stuff and art! I also draw stuff sometimes. A lot of stuff overall. This is a very active, multifandom account.

Free Palestine 🍉

More than halfway to their goal!

--------------------‐‐--------------------------------------------

Been bouncing around with my sona. This is the go-to reference if you want to draw me very pretty or shred me in a blender idk

Interests

After 7 years of unsupervised internet access, I've picked up a ton of interests! (Some of them are still being unpacked.../j)

Fandoms (roughly most to least active):

•DCA fandom

•Cult of the Lamb

•FNAF

•TSBS-> tsams -> tlaes -> teaps

•The Amazing Digital Circus -> tadc aus

Other stuff I like that I'm not kneck deep in its fandom for:

•Poppy playtime -> smiling critters

•Little Nightmares

•Undertale -> sans aus

•Minecraft

•Art in general

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Boundaries

We all got them and they are super important. I don't want to start off on the wrong foot, so let's get a few things clear.

Do not repost anything I make without my permission.

Do not upload any of my art or writings to ai

Do not make sexual comments about me or my art

Do not make suggestive comments about me or my art (this rule is slightly bendable for my art, but only if it's warranted and light.)

If you message me asking to reblog your stuff, there is a high chance you will be blocked.

Refrain from calling me derogatory names. Even jokingly: Bitch, bastard, hoe, ect.

Be respectful. Bigotry of any kind will get you blocked.

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Miscellaneous

My Tags

Pointy posts: Posts I make about whatever-have-you. Not reblogs.

Late night posts: Stuff I post super late at night which means I'm proobbably not in the right mind. Prone to be deleted after.

Pointy art: art of my ocs or anything non fandom

Pointyfanart: art of someone else's characters/stuff

Pointy doodles: art I don't deem worthy of the tags above. Messy/unfinished/silly stuff

Lmao this made me smile: laugh haha funny feel good tag

Mutuals/mutual: Usually when something of note happens in an interaction between me and a mutual... or to simply flex that the person I'm reblogging from is a mutual of mine.

Fun/game: Fun stuff I'd encourage people to join in. Usually a reblog game.

Q&A

Q: What app do you use to draw?

A: Ibispaintx all my life

Q: What device do you use to draw?

A: Phone and fingers babeeyyy

Q: How tall are you?

A: I'm 5'6

Q: Who's your favorite FNAF character?

A: Aside from the blaringly obvious answer the dca, I like Bonnie, Ft.Freddy+BonBon, and Glamrock Freddy! I appreciate more, but I can't think of of them off the top of my head.