#this is like a sampler or some shit

[heynhay]

heynhay klance animatic when?? 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨 with all that free time of yours

#I NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO YOU FUCKERS #NEVER SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU SHIT. #the answer to your question is. never. because for some reason i have no problem cranking out 50 separate concept drawings #but having to do 50 sequential drawings within the same concept seriously drains me #like even those mini comics when i finish (and they only have 3-6 drawings) im like WHEW that has a kick to it #im gasping panting on the verge of throwing up from exhuastion #which is all a shame becuase when driving to work i visualize some absolutely bangin ones #too bad you will never see it #ok ok maybe someday id do like. a short one. a sampler. like 30s. #but its also a matter of i dont know how to use/access any of the programs used for boarding on timelines #so it would just be a mess of folders on one psd or a mess of 50 dif psds #its exhausting me to even think upon rn #ask

[elizabethplaid]

toothpaste woes - daily notes, jan 13, 2024

Tonight's meaningless* panic is over the flavor of toothpaste. I've got a Rx fluoride one, and the first tube was fine - tasted better than the Crest whatever I was using! Second tube? Different manufacturer, worse than Tom's of Maine mint, feels like chalk. Barely held off a panic attack and physically gagging when I used it, due to sensory issues.

My first work-around is to do a tiny dab of Rx and a tiny dab of the Crest on my brush. Probably wouldn't bother with the mix if I was still using the fluoride rinse, but I'm on a different one, because of the crown. (Clorhexadine. Pretty sure I'll discontinue it sometime after my permanent crown is installed.)

Long-term solution would be to ask the pharmacist (in person!) if I could just get this one manufacturer from now on. Between an understaffed rural pharmacy and my nocturnal lifestyle, it's probably not going to work if I just send someone on my behalf. I -do- have another refill available, so it's not like they'd make me wait, necessarily.

I hope they laugh at my empty tube, because I squeezed the HECK out of that bastard. Dental stuff is sensory hell for me, so if I like a toothpaste, I don't want to waste it.

*Meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I know I'll get through this issue. Sometimes, though, the panic blinds me to the possibility of it working out, so think of things in dramatic terms. So, like, I'm trying to acknowledge my panic is a big feeling but not a big reality. I have the power to make it a less-big reality, too. (Gotta hype myself up!)

#daily notes #dental stuff #sensory issues #toothpaste #so glad i'm not as sensitive to toothpaste flavors otherwise anymore #like some of that shit is way too minty #like you're calling it sensodyne and the flavor hurts my brain? how dare you #nah i'm just a wuss when i'm over stimulated #that's why i was on tom's of maine #because it is so bland #if i could go back to ye olde kids' sparkle crest of my youth i'd be happy #yknow cheese and wine samplers? gimme toothpaste samplers #i gotta test it before bothering to spend $$$ on something i won't finish using

[qoldwater]

.

#okay today has been absolutely unhinged #in good and bad ways #but one of my partners and i went to lush #we bough 50$ worth of products #and i shit you not we were given 100$ worth of stuff free #i dont know if every lush store does this or not but they certainly dont do it for every customer either #or that much #the man before me bought stuff and didn't get ANYTHING for free #the person after him and before me with purple hair bought some stuff and got only one thing for free #i bought 4 bathbombs and 1 bar of soap #i got another bathbomb for free #i got a bubble bar for free #i got two face and body masks for free #i got a free sampler of some lotion #another free sample of a hair product #another free sample of a different type of lotion #and another sampler for some body cream #i price checked everything online and the free stuff all came up to 100$ #like holy fucking shit??? #is that normal??? #do i care??? not really

[tgcg]

this is my element (+ album)

asking me to pick my fave album is like asking an orphan matron to pick her favorite baby boy

thats some weird and cruel circumstances to put upon me i feel like it changes every damn week like a rota

i mean what if my beats misbehave and i gotta put 'em in time out i cant play permanent on that theyre too cute

but yknow what i can show you one thing thats been on my mind lately

===

so when i was a kid we had this skateboard vid by "element skateboards" on DVD

they were this skateboard kit slash apparel company that was all about progressivism and shit and they did these much lauded comp tapes of dudes riding around on their boards and doing the dopest of macho tricks on the shit

flipping it turnways

putting the rock in the house like a big man

we had some of their merch actually

===

so anyways the one we had back then was This Is My Element

released 2007

mostly clips from cali i think and i mean the camerawork is fucking insane on some of those shots

this is gonna sound lame as fuck but i prob spent so many cumulative hours just peelin through the footage and ogling the shit outta it

that framing was tight

===

so you may be asking yourself or me

dave you genuine dicksucker i asked about your fav album not your favorite sordid ass display of smooth dudes hardcore riding and grinding them boards in public dude you have a problem

ok well that wasnt a question first of all so jot that down

but anyways to THAT i say

listen to the music

the whole thing has an original soundtrack of ambient beats

got some abstract hip hop jams, got some more indie stuff, lots of acoustic sampling

HELLA underground

and basically every track minus one is done by sampler beast david p. madson AKA "odd nosdam"

dude is my hero seriously

he is the master of the beat machine i shit you not hes always been kinda my idol on this stuff

aside from bro obviously

===

obviously.

===

anyways he had an E-mu SP-1200 which is a really oldschool sampler invented by dave rossum in the late 80s

revolutionary to the hip hop scene

nosdam had this mega distinct sound to his music that i always wanted to replicate on my own beats

still do

i dont know for sure if he used it on T.I.M.E. but he uses some of the same samples from "vol. 9" which was exclusively SP-1200 so im gonna get a lil j’accuzi on that

it couldve been a boss dr sampler SP-202 though idk

he had one of those

===

so aside from beating the shit out of the pause/resume button to flip my whole cranium at the cinematography or whatever i would also kinda play it on loop to listen to the soundtrack and space out at 2am

the lonely broner seemed to free his mind at night

ok shit broner is good but i didnt mean it like that

that was goofy lets just keep movin

it was the only way i had to listen to it back then but i mean the video is 50 mins long so its basically just an odd nosdam album with accompanying ambient skater sounds and random expletives and whatever

random car sequence

yknow what i dont think people respect enough?

the dude who catches all the "mad stunts yo" on camera

i swear to god at least half the time hes ALSO on a board and that shit is bananas to me

bros gotta be on some whole other level of zen to skate good AND catch all them glamor shots of his fellow skater

thats like an express ticket to the ER imo

the ambulance is already on the scene watching you like an eager crow watches a half dead dog

===

ok gonna go ahead and lay it out flat

not great on a board myself

kinda dogshit at it actually

so maybe im not exactly an arbitrator of skateboard heinousness

but i always kinda liked watching THEM do it i mean who doesnt?

whats an even crazier layer to stack on the "dave" cake is

and dirk told me this because unfortunately it kinda happened post-2009

he would do all these collabs with one of my childhood favorite underground rappers david cohn aka serengeti

surrounded by daves left and right dude even before all the time travel horseshit

thats like

serendipitous as fuck i think!

===

if sburb was just a revolving door of artists called dave that i could bump fists with

instead of other mes in various states of aliveness tending toward extremely dead

i wouldve probably given it something higher than 2 stars on my TGN review

===

so yeah you ask me my favorite album its T.I.M.E. by odd nosdam i guess

bump that shit on a walk your mind will go places unknown to man

#dave strider #homestuck #comix #this is my element #the way i drew dave posing here is rly heavily inspired by askinsufferableprick btw #welcome to strider infodump hours

[hyenaswine]

when searching for tips on washing embroidery/xstitch sometimes you will find people who are like "ummm i just make sure i always have clean hands when i sew so i don't have to wash my pieces 😇" & i want you to know those people are idiots. you have oils in your skin that come FROM your skin no matter how clean it is; you are a human being & this is perfectly normal. this is how your body is supposed to work - these freaks who think they don't produce oil aren't cleaner than you, they're just wrong.

i don't personally care if you choose to wash your work when you're done - i think maybe there's something about those oils being invisible at first but sometimes staining the fabric over time, idk you'll have to look it up - & i'm not gonna think you're dirty or gross if you don't; it's your art & your choice, & your body is not gross for being human. i always wash my pieces when i'm done just because it makes me feel better about sending them off to other people (where they're no longer in my control), & also because i live with a chronically ill cat who sneezes on anything & everything i own. i just assume by default that everything in my home has cat snot on it whether i can see it or not.

i have a black plastic witch's cauldron which was previously a halloween decoration that i just fill with warm water & a drop of dish soap. i put my finished pieces in there to soak for 10-20 minutes; at least once you should agitate the water a bit, like a washing machine would, & sometimes you might have to scrub a piece against itself if there's a visible mark you're trying to get out (i use this ancient red tailor's crayon on some darker fabrics that i often have to scrub to erase). dump the water out, put cool water in, dump it out, keep doing that until there are no more suds in the water, or just take the piece out & rinse it if you're lazy. you're not supposed to wring it out, but again, i'm lazy & i don't like carrying sopping fabric through my house. then you gotta lay it on a towel & if it's a larger piece, roll the towel up & twist it to wring it out in THERE, which is apparently okay. then iron the piece from the back so you don't flatten your stitches. after that i pop my piece straight onto a high shelf in my closet to dry, so that the damn cat doesn't have a chance to get any of his germs on it.

anyway nobody asked for my advice or details of my personal embroidery-washing routine, but advice that's like "just don't be dirty in the first place 😇" is literally so unhelpful & infuriating. that's not advice cuz you aren't offering a solution to the problem (aside from acquiring a time machine) & you clearly don't KNOW what the actual answer is anyway, or else you'd know that your hands are never truly clean & you're framing work that might end up revealing all your grimy little sins as it ages. washing your work is a pain but it's not so impossible as to not be worth doing if you want to or need to. cuz sometimes your cat plants a fat booger right in the middle of your dainty little sampler & you need to know how to fix that shit, because not allowing your cat to sit on your lap while you're sewing is clearly NOT an option.

#embroidery #cross stitch #xstitch #needlework #sewing

[greed-the-dorkalicious]

All the discussion around AI lately got me thinking about an incident recently in which a guy got his ass sorely beat by the vocal synth community

For those of you not familiar, “vocal synths” in the electronic music sense typically refers to programs like Vocaloid, SynthV, UTAU, Alter/Ego, DeepVocal, etc., digital instruments that allow composers to create, as the name implies, synthesized vocal tracks. The way they work is that they draw from libraries (referred to as “voicebanks” or VB for short) of special studio recorded* vocal samples from singers singing different syllables at a consistent pitch. The program then splices these together and adjusts the pitch to match whatever notes you put in- You want to do All Star, it’s gonna string together “[suh][m] [buh][di] [wuh][n][s] [tO][ld] [mi]” or something like that. Basically it’s an extremely complicated sampler.

(*unless you’re using UTAU or another build-your-own-vocal program in which the “studio” is only metaphorical, and is sometimes somebody’s basement with a Rockband mic plugged into a laptop.)

Now, there is no threat of vocal synths putting actual singers out of a job. Even the best vocal synths always have a bit of a robotic sound to them, and the voicebanks take hundreds of hours of recording time from you know, actual singers. Any piece made with vocal synths has to be worked by a human hand in a process called “tuning” in order to sound any good, whether you’re trying to make it sound human or leaning into the robotic sound. This isn’t something that’s being done on a corporate scale to cut costs- This is something pretty much exclusively being done by small scale indie music hobbyists because we fucking love Hatsune Miku and her weird buddies. Most folks are less interested in doing something that sounds 1:1 like a human voice and more in going beyond what humans can do to make shit like this

One of the leading vocal synths right now is Synthesizer V (SynthV), created by a company called Dreamtonics. SynthV offers fancier versions of some of its voicebanks, which are called “AI” voicebanks. These use machine learning trained on, again, professionally recorded and legally licensed vocal samples to help make songs sound a little bit more smooth, a little bit more in line with whatever singing style you’re aiming for. Everything else previously mentioned still applies: They’re still painstakingly recorded and programmed, you still need to tweak it yourself to get it to sound just right, and it’s still never going to sound 100% like a human. And that’s fine!

For this next bit y’all are gonna have to trust me because the tweets all got deleted, though if anyone wants I’m happy to pull up screencaps of talking shit about it with other vocal synth folks when it happened lmfao

So basically. Since ChatGPT type grifters have convinced people that “AI” means “magic plagiarism button”, back in April some dipshit NFT guy on Twitter started complaining on an official SynthV update post that SynthV (which he apparently believed to be called “Dreamtonics”, the name of the company that makes it) should allow people to make voicebanks from “their own voice”, insisting that it would be easy and PROFITABLE!™ to do so. He also clearly did not actually mean “their own voice” but rather “the voices of celebrity singers shamelessly lifted without their consent”, which was made extra obvious from a tweet on his own page that was like “Teehee people in monitored Twitter spaces don’t realize their voices are being recorded and fed into AI!” which he then deleted after I linked it on the thread about SynthV. lol.

Dude proceeded to get whupped by actual vocal synth people basically saying shit along the lines of “Yeah we can all tell you just want to commit cheap plagiarism, jackass” and “Dude why are you here when you clearly don’t understand the very very basics of what this software even is” and “Go make an UTAU voicebank if it’s so easy then”. (UTAU being a Japanese freeware program that hasn’t been updated since 2013. Creating an UTAU voicebank is complicated and takes a lot of time and technical knowledge.) He still refused to learn the basics of how vocal synths work, and proceeded to ask if “UTAU or Diff is most compatible with Dreamtonics”, a question absolutely no one could make any sense of? Lol.

Anyway, I don’t have anywhere in particular I’m going with this, I just think AI grifters are morons, and it’s obnoxious how the vague and misleading term “AI” has gotten nigh-mythologized by shady tech companies to the point that people can’t tell the difference between perfectly reasonable assistive technology and magic plagiarism.

Btw, fun fact for anyone who’s wondering, there do in fact exist legally/morally questionable UTAU voicebanks spliced from outside vocals. These are called “jinriki” voicebanks and not only do they take the same amount (if not more) of hard work as any other voicebank, they’re far from the insta-Beyoncé this dude was aiming for, and instead they sound um. like this

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 1/30/2024

a good 60% of my brain is screaming in unemployment terror at all times so these will be somewhat abbreviated until that situation resolves itself

listening

sleeping on the ceiling by friday pilots club. this is a song by a five-piece alt-rock band from chicago that could EASILY open for mid-aughts fall out boy. i would like to think it is from the point of view of a freshly-turned vampire. listen this slot isn't about the best song i heard this week it's about the one that got stuck in my head the most

Hey, I swear I'm okay Honey, I been sleepin' on the ceiling all day Yes way, like hey I swear I feel great Looky, looky, love the feeling of being okay Yes way

spotify.

reading

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and the Amulet of Power by Mike Resnick. it was in a dollar book bin and i got it as a joke gift for a friend. mike resnick is a remarkably prolific writer who's done a lot of tie-ins. i don't have anything particularly notable to say about his star wars books but they are a sort of minimum viable product? they feel star warsy and don't annoy me on every page.

this book was published in 2003 and treats the people of the Nile delta and their beliefs with all the delicacy you might expect from a 2003 video game tie in novel. i do think the twist is being telegraphed way too hard. perhaps i should say instead of sending a telegram mr resnick has simply set the telegraph office ablaze as a signal fire. the titular triangle-pointed woman herself ms croft is VERY insistent she's just as good as the boys. this is pretty on par for my experience of 2003 empowering womens' feminism AND my experience in a male-dominated field so i can't really ding it too hard? aside from the racism, in the notably racism-free fields of archaeology and video games and archaeology video games, this book is aging a little strangely overall. i do not know if i will finish it before i mail it out to my friend, but despite its sins it is a very fast read.

watching

watched the four dungeon meshi episodes. it's cute! ProzD was an unexpected delight! it made me want to make something fancy for dinner but alas i still have to go food shopping!

some posts on my dash were talking about how the episode with the mollusks inside the living armor really got them hooked and i have to agree. i also saw the full potential of the show's speculative biology unspooling before me. i don't know if i currently have the brainwidth for the manga but it is going on my reading list for after i finish berserk. which is kind of like saying i'm going to watch chopped after i finish up hannibal

playing

forgot i had an original gen switch, given to me through a complex series in a complex series of friend barters back in uhhhh late '21? early '22? i got through 3/4 of the divine beasts the first time around and then could not crack the camel. it was well past time to create a new switch profile so i could start a new game without losing the old one.

omg twinnsssssssss

i did forget how goddamn big the map is. i have just now unlocked the camera and the memory quests, i have not really. done much more than basic tutorial and beginning of game stuff.

making

anxiously junebugging between a whole bunch of shit. finally figured out the correct charger/extension cord setup for my bedroom. replaced all the fluorescent lightbulbs and took them to be recycled. fixed the hall door enough so it latches closed and an irritated cat can't claw it open. tidied up the balcony and patio and repotted the surviving houseplants.

in textile news, started this cross stitch. this is a Bless This Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy Star Wars themed sampler, i have made two as gifts and had to throw out a mostly-completed one i made for me bc of the moths. but i now know exactly where this will go in this apartment and i already have the frame and i bought all the floss pre-being fired, so might as well? the real bitch of the situation here is backstitching the buildings. it's so start and stop. it's so much tan. i talked about this on the weekly siblingchat facetime and now my brother has requested one lmao. that's his christmas gift settled. i suppose.

i had somehow forgotten how loadbearing textile crimes are for me. i haven't done much of anything since the moth debacle, and that was almost two years ago. last night i found some suspicious holes in a camisole and i'm really really hoping it's just cat claws and not moths or carpet beetles or any other fun things that eat clothes.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem #feeling unsettled. feeling petulant.

[docholligay]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is when I'm supposed to tell you about the weight of history and what it is to see the human experience of the human experience all collected into a large building, and how it being labyrinthine is a part of the art itself, giving one the feeling of the human journey, up and down and backwards and lost, always lost, but surrounded by beauty and blah blah I'm sure it would have been very evocative and I'm clever as shit or whatever but honestly one of my FAVORITE things to do in museums is play games with myself. I like to pick categories, and find things that fit them, and here's a sampler of what I found

Something I’d like to steal: 

This punch bowl could very possibly hold two gallons of my sangria in one go, which would enable me to be an even better hostess, not having to constantly be looking to see if the sangria needs to be refreshed with the jugs from the kitchen waiting in the wings. There’s such an intensely organic feel to it, I just think it would feel good to carry this. I feel like I always pick a serving piece for this category--I always spend a lot of time in the functional arts--but in fairness, that’s the things I like and also, it sounds very frivolous to say that I love throwing parties, but it’s a part of connecting with my community, and I think, in some way, serving them. Genuinely, I would love to host something like a Sailor Moon mixer or something if people could teleport in. That’s what I do for my congregation, is basically catering for the shabbat meal. Anyway, I would use the SHIT out of this for the Shabbat meal, and also for parties. 

Something that moved me:

This is The Angel of Death and the Sculptor, and I must have stared at it for five solid minutes. My mom was wondering what in the hell I was looking at, and it was hard to describe. There is something so beautiful about the way the young sculptor is caught by his wrist, in the middle of his art. It will ever be unfinished, but no less the beautiful for that imperfection. The look on his face, as I moved around the piece in the corner of the Parisian-style square set into the Met, that horror and knowledge all in one. The Angel of Death cannot look him in the eye. He does what she needs to do, and then moves on, but that in no way means that each work is wanted, and this is not the act of calling an ill old man home. He was scultping the sphinx! He was doing greatness! But that matters not at all, when Death comes to call. I thought about it a lot then, if I had been alone I might have sat there and written down every fool thought that came into my head, but I wasn’t, and so I moved on, but it was lovely, and I was really touched by it. 

Something I learned: 

I did not know this kind of multi-shelved thing made to hold mostly objects was called an étagère! I had seen them plenty in interiors, but hadn’t connected a name to them.

The ugliest thing i saw: 

This fucking??? “Display platter”??? So it’s a platter, but you can’t use it as a platter because you have the ugliest fuckign fish this side of Billy the Big Mouth Bass over here blocking every useful part of the platter, joined by his good friend why the fuck is there a crawdad desperately trying to escape this place, and several venomous snakes circling the place. This looks like something my beloved and very sexy wife would buy at a garage sale for 2 dollars and put up in the garage because I deemed it too ugly to hang by the dead animal skulls in our house.

#doc travels

[londonfoginacup]

Hello! Based on your fics I consider you to be someone well-versed in the arts of coziness and comfort and as it is now the cold and dark part of the year where I live I wanted to ask you, do you have any recommendations?? Favorite brand of leggings? Slippers? Best candle? Best fairy lights? Coziest foods and drinks? Wishing you much warmth and light! X

ohhhhh my god OH MY GOD what a SWEET ASK! And also you are sending this very sincere ask to someone whose main mode of being cozy is burrowing under her roommates for warmth and then yelling at said roommates for turning the temperature up, so i dunno if i'm deserved but here's my best cozy shot--

first of all -- hot chocolate with lucky charms. I'm usually a strictly white chocolate hot chocolate person, but the JOY at being able to eat the melty delicious lucky charms out of it cannot be comprehended. 10/10 warm and cozy and sweet.

Second-- get rid of the heated blanket. Heated blankets are not it. Get yourself heated mattress pad!!!! This bitch makes you toasty like you would not BELIEVE, PLUS if you're someone who tends to kick off blankets in the night, at least half your body is still toasty warm! 1000/10 cozy plus cats will love to snuggle u also dont use this at the same time as a heated blanket bc u will die i think

Now in terms of candles, I think that scents are very personal! I'm a slut for bath and bodyworks because I can be a bit basic, BUT there's something more important than what kind of candle you get -- and that's to have a CANDLE WARMER LAMP! You see, unless you're getting a very expensive candle, most candles, especially ones from the drug store or target, have mOST OF THEIR SCENT in the top like half an inch! SO they smell really good when you buy them but you barely smell them after you light them! But if you get a CANDLE WARMER LAMP, then you can stick your good good smelling candle in there and it will heat it FROM THE TOP and you will get some LONG LASTING GOOD GOOD COZY SMELL

holy shit wait hold up scratch that, I DO have candle recommendations. Cantrip Candles makes candles for like, D&D games to set the mood. But I don't play D&D and just burn the candles instead. The Library candle and the Bakery candle are my FAVORITE, but you can get a sampler pack and try them yourself to see which scents you like. 10/10 cozy bakery scent fuck yes

I don't really have cozy clothes because I wear business casual 24/7 i am DRESSED TO FUCKING IMPRESS (no im not, im just lazy and only own 5 pairs of the same pants), and tbh if I want to be cozy I just throw on a hoodie. I own five and they are ALL Louis Tomlinson.

And for blankets -- the coziest blanket is the one you can steal from someone else. The old crochet blanket that your mom had since before you were born? Snatch it. The blankets your roommates left when they moved out and got married? They're yours now. The blanket someone loaned you at a fireworks show and you accidentally went home with? Coziness factor goes up 1000%. BARRING STOLEN GOODS THOUGH, every blanket I've ever bought is from ikea. I'm not joking. I have one in my car and one in my office and two on my bed and two in my living room.

Okay FINALLY. The SECRET to my uber cozy lifestyle.

It's having a lot of roommates, and forcing them all to cuddle with me.

but if you dont have homemade roommates, storebought are fine

ANYWAY THERE'S MY COZY GUIDE, THANK YOU FOR THE COMPLIMENTS ALSO TO BE REAL EATING A WHOLE LOAF OF SOURDOUGH FEELS COZY BUT YOUR TUMMY WILL BE MAD SO DONT DO IT

[cyber-corp]

Part 2: Dave

Oh shit. The coolest guy alive. A briefing of what he does in Act 2;

This here is Dave Strider, and he doesn't have any time for funny names.

After briefly contemplating bleating like a goat ironically and pestering John about the sick ass juice he found, he makes some sick beats on his sampler (which is another really cool way that HS uses its medium).

He allocates his katana to his Strife Specibus, nearly takes a SWIG of the juice (but doesn't because of monster piss, curse you Egbert) and then captchalogues the sword, spilling the juice on his copies of the SBURB Beta in the process.

He decides to hang them out to dry, before they get stolen by a RAMBUNCTIOUS BIRD.

After accidentally throwing his word out the window and ridding his copy of the beta in the process, Dave decides to venture into his brother's room to get his copy instead. He chills with Lil Cal for a bit.

He guesses the password to his brother's computer, and goes on Plush Rump, his brother's successful and ironic website.

Cal has mysteriously appeared behind him, Dave gives a nervous fist bump, and he moves towards the "kitchen". By this point it's very clear to the viewer that someone is moving Cal around to screw with Dave. He captchalogues a variety of things during this time, including box of fireworks, shurikens, some nunchucks, a "wheeled ride", a battery pack, a jumble of unbelievably shitty swords, some red spherical salutes, and a whirling blade pitcher. Jesus.

However, Dave notices a note from his brother on the hatch to the crawlspace, a very obvious reference to a certain horror franchise. He makes a fort on the turntables, pulls the cord, and gets absolutely smothered in puppet ass.

Luckily, he bursts out of the pile like "The One" and reads a note from his brother, telling him to go to the roof and to bring Cal along. So he does just that, but really coolly and sickly.

(this goes fucking hard)

We don't really get much of Dave in Act 3, but the glimpses we do get are of him getting absolutely knackered by his bro.

"bro just kicked my ass" indeed. In the aftermath, Dave mourns the tragic loss of Cal, shoves the beta into his sylladex, and tells Rose he's going to install it, which he will.

We get a brief lil' flashback on Dave's famous shades, the ones worn by Ben Stiller in the 2004 retro-mania remake of Starsky and Hutch. They were gifted to him by John, as a way of getting out of his bro's shadow and being his own cool guy.

In present day, Dave gets a troll message on Pesterchum, from a guy who definitely types like a total tool (but I feel they'll definitely come back later).

And then, with the help of Rose, Dave successfully installs the beta. Shit is now taking place.

The last point in Act 3 we see (presumably) Dave install SBURB and help Rose in her own sticky situation, before he gets swarmed by more birds. How ironic.

Homestuck is becoming increasingly difficult to read because you can never pick a favourite character. But Dave is definitely up there. His overall chill vibes are admirable. His fight scenes, although his ass gets whooped every time, are insane. I really hope we get more of him in future.

On the topic of Rose (and John I guess)

She helps him out, John gets a prophecy and a sick new hammer, her house nearly burns down, she has a weird mutant cat thing named Vodka Mutini, her old cat becomes a Kernelsprite and gets saved by it, and then possibly blows up in the house's meteor explosion. I don't know. Maybe.

John does more RPG stuff, gets some new drip, and at the end of 1149 jumps through a portal, where Act 3 ends.

I feel like John and Rose are the best duo so far. Any time they interact, either through SBURB or Pesterchum they bounce off each other's conversations like nothing. It's very fun!

I'll talk about these three later.

#we probably will see more of dave #these are getting really hard to write #i shouldn't do whole acts #dave strider #lil cal #rose lalonde #john egbert #homestuck #gecko boy #Youtube #summary #review

[liverobinreaction]

Hello stranger! Do you perhaps know of any "Tim kicks Jason's ass" stories?

I'm afraid I only know two! If people could comment their own suggestions then that would be great!

Home Alone: Christmas at Titans Tower by Miss_Lazy_Tuesday - Tim gets deaged while Jason is at the Titans Tower, and goes Kevin McCallister on him.

Sticks and Stones by @envysparkler - Tim basically calls Jason a bitch and makes him cry.

Otherwise, I have some that are a bit like that? Where Tim baffles or otherwise stops Jason in his tracks.

The Threads That Bind by SpaceWall - Tim gets a grimoire as a child and becomes a thread witch about it, stopping Jason when he tries to attack him

Overnight Proofing by an orphaned account - A series where Tim baffles the shit out of Jason

Bird's Night Out by Calamityjim - Another series where Jason is petty and Tim decides to get revenge in increasingly ridiculous ways

Jason Todd's Costco Sampler of Hell by OberonBronze - While not quite what you asked for, this one has Jason getting fear toxin'd and making it Tim's problem, resulting in a shitshow and Tim being petty later on. Genuinely one of my favourites, so I'm rec'ing it anyway!

Feel free to add other recommendations!!!

#bug replies #ask #anonymous #batman #fic rec #bug recs #tim drake #jason todd #fanfiction

[villagesmartass]

Andrew and I went into some antique store in the middle of nowhere and it’s all rainy and they had a shit ton of perfumes mostly super old Avon ones which was so fun to look at all the cute bottles but I care more about the scent than the bottle and they smelled like formaldehyde so I got this flowerbomb impression called petal pop and I got “my mulberry” which smells like a Burberry knockoff and a small Pacifica bottle and small Michael kors and Dior samplers. I also got three shirts a mug a pin and a framed photo of a baby fairy and it was all $10. He got a picture frame for our old timey picture and a small rolling tray for me

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Top 5 best videogame soundtracks

(Hey babu <3 )

Kind of a hard choice but I'll do my best lmao

Brütal Legend

Brütal Legend is probably the most blatantly, indulgently, unapologetically pandering game I've played in my life, which I'm not saying as a bad thing bc it happens to be pandering to people with my tastes and, most importantly, happens to do an extremely good job at it. Like it would've been extremely easy for a game like this fall flat on its face and feel all "how do you do fellow metalheads" but luckily it was made by people who have a genuine love for the genre and know their shit, and the soudntrack reflects that. The licensed soundtrack is a great sampler platter of a bunch of different metal subgenres and has a pretty decent mix of mainstream and slightly more obscure bands.

But the original soundtrack composed for the game by Peter McConell is also amazing like holy shit. Like. Way better than you'd expect from the funny haha Jack Black metal game.

Hotline Miami

Literally not much to say, it's the hotline Miami soundtrack. The music is a huge part of the experience and the track selection knocks it out of the park.

APE OUT

I was conflicted on including this because it's less of a soundtrack and more of a game-long procedural jazz drum jam, but it's like. The music makes the whole experience. The way the drums sync up with and respond to the action onscreen is extremely viscerally satisfying and the choice to have the title cards syn up to the music and to have the entire soundtrack be just drums and then have the rest of the instruments come on during the credits are extremely inspired.

Terraria

Idk what to say about this one it's just. An extremely solid soundtrack. Extremely varied, each track kicks ass and sets an extremely unique and distinctive atmosphere for each biome.

Doom (both classic and reboot)

See above about how Brütal Legend is extremely, blatantly, unapologetically indulgent and I love it because it does a good job at it? Yeah.

Fave track from classic Doom:

Fave track from Doom reboot:

Honorable mentions:

Katana Zero: It was a close call between this one and Hotline Miami but ultimately I went for Hotline Miami

Undertale/Deltarune: Objectively it's probably one of the best videogame soundtracks in recent memory, I just haven't spent enough time with the games for it to have a big effect on me

Earthbound/Mother series in general: Same as above. If I had played more of the game I'm sure it'd be on this list no doubt.

The Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind: I legitimately think it's some of Jeremy Soule's best work, and Nerevar Rising is such an iconic melody that it went on to become the main theme of the entire series from that point on. However... It's just not enough music for a game as big as Morrowind, meaning you'll be hearing these tracks over and over and over again. By the time you're halfway through the game it will have lost a lot of magic through sheer repetition. Also the fact that the music system lacks any location detection and instead just plays the same exploration tracks regardless of if you're exploring a city, a peaceful field, or a creepy tomb means that often the soundtrack ends up taking away from the atmosphere of the game.

Any NES Megaman game: Legitimately some of the best music on the NES and one of the best examples of working within system limitations, but sadly I kinda don't like Megaman.

[senorablack]

Eddie Munson: Live at The Laugh Cafe (2022)

Words: 3577 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson Additional Tags: stand up comedian eddie munson, heckler steve harrington, Comedy, Fluff, Humor Summary: Eddie tells jokes for a living. Steve does it for free. or Steve's got some thoughts on Eddie's stand-up routine of the night.

“I’d like to preface this next story with—I am not a liar.” 

Eddie adjusts his mic. Reworks his footing. Holds back his grin as the audience collectively call him on his bullshit. 

“See, people who actually tell the truth don’t usually give out disclaimers.” Someone says louder than the rest. 

“No, listen, I’m not some compulsive liar. I swear! Buuuut, I’ve been deemed what 30-somethings who are totally not looking for love right now call their new corgi placeholders outside of their Instagram stories—‘a little shit.’ Been called ‘a little shit’ and sometimes being ‘a little shit,’ it like, requires some creative fictions.”

He breaks when the audience does. Smiles with teeth. Surveys the crowd for familiar faces. He finds some. He gifts them winks. He receives eye rolls. 

Tonight they’re filming his special, but it certainly smells like a regular Friday at The Laugh Cafe. Like high end perfumes and colognes. The hot-honey brussels, blistered shishito, and the in-house hummus sampler. Like beer has already been spilt off tables belonging to all the wild gesturers and pre-gamers. 

And it definitely feels like a Munson show. Where people are loose and loud and trading praises for his performance. It’s addicting. And tricksy. Eddie’s held at gunpoint—conned by the collective commendation. He knows it. Knows that he’s got nowhere to go or nothing to do but put his hands up and comply. 

He throws his shoulders back and extends a hand out in plea.

“Let me explain.” He says.

#steddie #my steddie fic

[yeah-yeah-beebiss-1]

my friend was asking me about Gundam and mecha, I'm not familiar so I thought I'd get your opinion on a good one to start with

Depends on what you want out of it, to be honest. Gundam is a very long-running franchise with a lot of different creative teams and visions (Star Trek is probably the best comparison I can think of, both have been sci-fi juggernauts for decades), to the point where they eventually split projects off into the original canon (Universal Century) and self-contained AUs to make it easier for newcomers to give it a shot. As far as good starting points go:

War in the Pocket: A 6-episode OVA set around the same time as the original series, but is self-contained and provides relevant context. Gorgeous late-80s animation, and a heartbreaking story about childhood innocence colliding with the realities of war. Between its short length, relative accessibility, and overall quality, this is probably the best sampler.

Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy: The original 1979 anime recut into three movies with some animation updates. It's very dated visually (whether this is a good thing or bad thing depends on personal taste) and introduces a lot of the eccentricities that would define the franchise for better or worse, but this is the most digestible way to start from the beginning. To go with the Star Trek analogy again, this is like jumping in with the original series - it shows its age in many ways, but its impact on science-fiction as a whole can't be understated and it still holds up when viewed with that context in mind.

The Witch from Mercury: The currently-airing series, the one people have been talking about as "the lesbian Gundam" for reasons that are quite obvious by the end of the first episode (technically the second if you watch it in the intended order, there's a prologue episode). It's a completely self-contained AU and takes on something of a slow burn, with the first half using the backdrop of an academic institution to slowly build up a setting of political tension, class conflict, and cycles of revenge. There have been comparisons to Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Revolutionary Girl Utena thrown around. The second half will begin airing next month, and seems poised to be the point where the tensions boiling in the first half boil to a head. Maybe it'll shit the bed as it goes on, that's the risk with jumping in to a currently-airing show, but I remain optimistic based on what's aired so far.

But yeah, Gundam is a daunting beast to stare down because there's so much of it and the quality can vary. There's no shame in picking and choosing/asking for recommendations. And moving out to mecha anime in general is a much, much broader affair - Gundam is to mecha anime what Dragon Ball is to shonen anime (a long-running, genre-defining franchise that is still just part of a much larger genre).

#sleepy-yung-mane #customer support

[dilf-din]

Yeehawgust Day 11: Wicked Horns

TLOU (Pre-outbreak)

WC: 675

Rating: T

Characters: Tommy and Joel

Warnings: light language, alcohol mention

A/N: consider this my first contribution to the Bi-Tommy agenda! 🩷💜💙 (also Ace!Joel if you squint 😗)

Joel didn’t know why he agreed to go out tonight. He didn’t like dingy bars or drunk people or noise in general, but Sarah was at a friend’s house tonight, and, well, Tommy begged him. Said they weren’t getting any younger and all that shit. So Joel agreed, mostly to keep an eye on his little bother. Tommy had a knack for getting into trouble. Whether it was drinking too much or shit talking a guy playing pool and losing his boots, it was always better when Joel was there to steer him in another direction.

Tommy had found a new bar that just opened in downtown Austin. Joel wasn’t a heavy drinker, not anymore. He was fine nursing a beer or two throughout the night. Tommy, however, might as well have ordered a sampler platter of their fancy cocktails considering he had tried just about every one.

“Maybe let’s slow down there, big dog,” Joel said, leaning directly into Tommy’s ear trying to combat the blaring music.

Tommy tilted his head back to finish his drink and left it on the high top they had been floating back and forth to.

“Nope. I’m about to ride that bull, and I don’t want to feel my face when it hits the floor,” he said matter of factly.

“There is no way in hell I’m letting you on that thing.”

“Relax, I’ve done this before,” Tommy batted him away with a boneless hand.

Joel sighed and folded his arms over his chest, following his brother to the center of the room while he got in line. Joel looked at the ground awkwardly while a group of girls went first, each only staying on a few seconds, cheering loudly the whole time. After witnessing a string of failures, Joel figured Tommy would be flat on the floor in no time. He thought one last time about trying to talk him down, but figured having a story to tell Sarah about how he got that bloody nose would be funnier. He pulled his phone out of the clip on case on his belt and flipped it open, squinting in the dim light while he tried to find the camera button. He hit record just in the nick of time, seeing a small, grainy Tommy mounting the bull with a flashing red dot in the corner.

“Don’t slip,” Joel called out with a smirk.

“I won’t, jackass,” Tommy said with a wide grin.

The group of girls who had just tried and failed were now gathered around the rail to watch Tommy. Each of them whooping and shouting encouragement that no doubt filled his ego to do this and do it well.

The operator stepped back behind the railing and watched as Tommy settled into the saddle confidently. He breezed through the lowest setting, causing the operator to cock her eyebrow before cranking it up a notch.

Tommy was the picture of cool. Toothy smile on his face scattering his freckles, one hand firmly on the horn, one arm loosely beside him for balance. The bull bucked and spun, but his grip didn’t waver. His hips moved in time with each rolling motion, even as the operator upped the difficulty level. A large crowd had gathered now chanting in unison, “Go! Go! Go! Go!” Once he showed signs of faltering, the operator slowed down the ride allowing him to hop off and bow dramatically in front of his new fans. The bar erupted in cheers for their new champion, and Tommy was milking it for all it was worth.

“Well, I’ll be,” Joel said, clapping him on the shoulder.

“You can go on home. I’m gonna go get some drinks and phone numbers,” Tommy grinned, patting his brother’s hand before heading towards a group of flustered looking guys and girls at the edge of the pen.

Joel’s mouth gaped while he stood stunned for a second.

“Now wait just a second, I ain’t leaving you here!” he called, weaving through the crowd.

#yeehawgust 2023 #Yeehawgust #wicked horns #the last of us #the last of us hbo #the last of us fic #tommy miller #joel miller #Tommy and Joel