#the numbers are kind of the same. a post will still get thousands of notes but everyone is radio silent. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

handwrittenhello · 1 year

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i think its kind of ridiculous to think that homestucks are seriously using bots in this poll because why the hell would they bot this poll instead of the tumblrwoman poll which was the poll EVERYBODY in the hs fandom was actually making a big deal out of . also because im going to be real but i dont think anyone cares about polls enough to rig one? even the bayonetta/miku poll turned out to actually not be vriska voter fraud (most people in the homestuck fandom voted miku anyway) i think people are just unable to comprehend that a lot of people are still dormantly into homestuck & probably just saw vriska serket at the front of the trending disco elysium tag and thought it was funny. like oh my godddd no one cares enough about the outcome of this poll to bot it . somebody with a lot of followers probably just posted about it on twitter or something mundane like that its not that deep . a lot of people on tumblr have read homestuck its not extraordinary that a lot of vriska voters exist. disco elysium fans im sorry your blorbo is losing you’ll probably be back in the lead in a couple hours anyway all of you need to chill out‼️‼️‼️

answering only this ask about the cheating/botting, and no others, because i'm getting a lot of asks about it. congratulations, this contest has officially had all the fun sucked out of it.

here's data i've been collecting for every poll i've run. it's organized by votes the character received per round, then the total number of votes on that poll, for all five rounds. then there are two columns for totals.

the next five columns, Notes 1-5, are the number of notes on each poll. i've highlighted two posts that were circulated with a greater-than-average frequency even after the poll ended (the loki/JC one because people were memeing on JC, and then HDB/Howl one because it gained popularity following a popular blogger reblogging it.)

V/N is the votes to notes ratio for each poll. it was taken by dividing the number of votes when the poll ended by the number of notes on each post. one limitation is that this was not taken at the same time each day, and so older posts will have slightly higher notes. however, i believe this uncertainty isn't enough to discount the conclusions i'll come to.

i've highlighted vriska's V:N ratio in red at the top. as you can see, round vriska's V:N ratio wasn't even the highest; she beat kaeya alberich easily, and the comments in the notes reflected that.

in round 2, things started to get interesting. this is where i and other people noticed a sudden flip, but i didn't think much of it. she was up against izzy hands. izzy was leading all day, and when i queued the next day's poll and went to bed, izzy was leading by 60%. when i woke up, it had flipped to 53/47 in vriska's favor. it's not a HUGEamount, but it is a NOTICEABLE amount.

keep in mind that every single day, there have been other, closer polls, that hovered around 49-50-51 all day, and which also flipped at the end of the day, or remained 50/50 and could only be determined by tumblr. in these cases, the notes also reflect the split. these polls also never swayed more than one or two percent.

in round 3, when vriska faced zuko, there was a clear and immediate lead for zuko, with him leading by 80%. keep in mind that by this point, all 28 other polls i ran, besides vriska's the day before, never swayed more than 1 or 2% once a clear lead had been established.

this poll went from 80/20 zuko to 59/41 vriska. that's RIDICULOUS. the only way that's possible is if an OVERWHELMING amount of people voted vriska and NO people voted zuko. for such a thing to happen, this post would need to spread really rapidly, right? surely this post had tens of thousands of notes and comments!

the V:N ratio for round 3 is TWENTY-SEVEN to one. that's the most out of any poll. the standard deviation for the round 3 polls is 9.0, compared to 4.8 and 4.9 the days before. not to mention reading those notes also does not get us an overwhelming amount of comments rooting for vriska.

today has also been highly suspicious. it started out with an 85/15 lead for harry. i wouldn't necessarily expect it to hold exactly at that percentage, but the flip was immediate and drastic. you can see the trend being tracked on this post. not at all suspicious, right? also note that the comments all day have been 95% rooting for harry and maybe 5% for vriska.

please also look at the GRAND TOTAL column, which has reliably predicted the winners of future polls each day. vriska has received 49,064 votes over the course of the whole contest. harry has received 64,644. that's 24% more votes. and yet the poll is locked at 50/50?

and if this isn't enough evidence for you, then remember the tumblr sexywoman poll. it is a FLAT FUCKING FACT that those polls were spammed by bots. out of respect for their privacy i won't go into detail, but they outright admitted it.

TO CONCLUDE,

it's pretty fucking obvious that something is up, and although i admit that there's simply no concrete way of proving it, there would have to be a really standout explanation for this.

and besides this being super lame, it's also removed all the fun from this contest. it's a stupid tumblr poll that wins literally nothing, congratulations!

also, to everyone making death threats in the notes, BOTH SIDES, you've failed my secret challenge of not being rude which means i'm judging you personally. be fucking nice.

#tumblr's plmm contest #to people campaigning lightheartedly: this post isn't about you you're great and fun #to people actually fighting and taking this way too seriously: what positive impact did you have?#and to people spamming bot votes: get fucked and get a life you're not funny #director's commentary #anon #yeah now i'm fucking mad #long post

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utilitycaster · 2 months

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do you really think the reason Imogen doesnt get as much meta as Caleb (who got every little detail discussed with thousands of notes!) is because people are afraid of a reaction, when its so obviously sexism?

The same reason she doesn't get the exact number of notes as Caleb? No. There's multiple reasons. I'm sure some is misogyny. Some is probably audience size for the respective campaigns, and some is simply accumulation over time - a post about Caleb from 2019 has had 5 years to gather notes.

But also. Are you fucking stupid. You literally showed up because of my tags to be kind of a dick in my inbox. I and multiple people who committed the grave sin of *checks notes* interacting with me were sent hate messages for hours on a Saturday night because I hinted in the tags that I kind of liked Fearne and Ashton as a ship while not being terribly into Imogen and Laudna, and some absolutely deranged loser decided this was an appropriate response. I was called out by someone who had made a blog specifically to block me when I responded to a reblog from someone else on a post I had made stating that Gelvaan was almost certainly not homophobic in canon and that treating Imogen's psychic powers as a metaphor for queerness has a lot of really unfortunate implications. And this hasn't even touched on that one person whose entire raison d'etre appears to be harassing every single person who doesn't think Imogen, Laudna, and their relationship is perfect; and who specifically made multiple alts to harass me. Like, the "It's Obviously Misogyny" people are genuinely putting more effort into being a dick to me than in writing meta about Imogen. You might be one of them.

I talk to many of my mutuals, some of whom really like Imogen, and yes, people do decide "you know, this could be interpreted by someone as too critical, and I don't feel like dealing with the heat" and keep that meta to the DMs or don't share it at all.

You know that post that Matt liked on Twitter that people have been, let's not mince words, jacking themselves off about ever since? If you actually try to say something with substance and evidence about how Imogen has Liliana's fear (the fear that meant that when Imogen begged her mother to leave the Vanguard, Liliana turned her own daughter down, claiming to need to stay with other children) or Delilah's love (which made her cruel, ruthless, and ultimately all-but doomed her) or Ludinus's desire for power (led him to commit endless atrocities) but resists these things in her desire to be a good person - and frankly, I think painting her with the same brush as Delilah or Ludinus isn't even true but I would love to dig into her similarities to Liliana - some asshole who smugly reblogs that post every time someone says "not to be controversial I think Imogen sometimes says things that could maybe be hurtful to other people I think" will throw a full temper tantrum and might send them an incoherent anon calling them a little hypocrite.

It's also fascinating because a lot of the tantrum-havers who will defend Imogen of even the most anodyne "perhaps this is not the most positive trait" and who will cite harassment Marisha received 7 years ago as a reason to not breathe a word of criticism about Laudna - and many of these people joined the fandom about 2 years ago if not sooner - will do this at the very people who have been supporting Keyleth since Campaign 1 was still airing. I mean, seniority doesn't mean anything but if you're lecturing people about something you weren't there for and they were? Clown behavior. Oh and a lot of those people doing the lecturing? Don't really like Keyleth very much, because she does things like "be angry" and "support Orym" and "have a measured viewpoint that doesn't match theirs" and "pretty clearly, along with Allura, who they also barely ever talk about, is directing Bells Hells along a specific path of that pesky moon plot because contrary to a weirdly widespread belief this is the moon plot campaign and not the baking cookies in a cottage campaign."

I mean, half these people forget about Fearne much of the time. The only NPCs I see many of them even talk about are the Vanguard generals and occasionally Abbadina when she's convenient for an argument. Not a damn word for Orlana or Birdie or Dancer or Weva or Rashinna, and they mostly treated Deanna, Prism, and Deni$e as nothing more than implements to shove Imogen and Laudna together but man do they have mountains to say about Bor'Dor. Hell, go to the blog of someone who whines about the way people treat Imogen and look through their meta, if they have it, and the vast majority of the time it's about Ashton and Orym and Ludinus and then they spend the rest of the time complaining about how The Big Mean Fandom is So Mean to Girls but they sure don't have much to say either because turns out if you can't say anything even remotely critical of a female character, it's really hard to write anything, and that's assuming they actually care about writing about female characters instead of just being an asshole, which as stated above is, in my mind, in doubt.

If you have ever spent a single second harassing actual living women online because you didn't like their thoughts on a pretend woman you are, at least in this specific scenario, easily the shittier person. Personally I am confident in my feminist bona fides through, you know, real world activism and how I interact with and support women and feminist causes socially, professionally, financially, and politically in my actual life, but yeah even I sometimes say "you know, I have thoughts about this thing regarding Imogen...but I've had a rough week and I don't feel like having one of the fandom tar pits on my ass" so I'll send my thoughts to a few friends and then idk, write about something else. And I'm pretty thick-skinned (this is the other problem with this strategy; you filter out the more measured and kind and sensitive people first and you're left only with people like me). A lot of people have flat-out given up writing about Imogen (or Laudna, much of the time) because they don't feel like dealing with backlash over some really mild statements. And because you send kind of dickish anons I suspect that it's more likely that you might be part of the problem than part of the solution. So no, it's not the only reason, but it's absolutely a significant one. Congratulations. You played yourself.

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag #cr spoilers

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critter-rarepair-reccs · 3 months

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Welcome to Critter Rarepair Reccs!

Hey y'all! Welcome to Critter Rarepair Reccs, a recommendation list aimed at fics written for ships that are largely under-represented, appreciated, and loved in our fandom! Now, let's address the elephant in the room first; rarepair is a misnomer here, knowingly. Some of the ships eligible to be recc'ed on this list might not be ones you'd consider a rarepair! So, the more proper welcome would be-

Welcome to Critter Underloved Ship Reccs

For brevity's sake, the URL is staying, though.

Now, it goes without saying, but before we get into the details here, let's get one thing clear: this blog is dedicated to spreading love and appreciation to fanworks and their creators. Ship hate of any kind will not be tolerated and will result in a block.

With that said, let's talk about the criteria for an underloved ship and why we're defining it the way we are.

Definition & Explantion

There is one qualifier for a ship to be eligible for this list: less than 100 fics were written for it and posted to Ao3 during 2023.

We landed on this metric for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it casts a very wide net for pairings while still narrowing the field a fair bit. The gulf of works between flagship pairings, endgame pairings, and some of the larger side/non-canon pairings is significant. Secondly, we wanted to take a look at how the fandom is currently, which is why we pivoted away from using the Wildflower System ( @cr-summer-wildflowers ) of excluding any pairing with more than 500 fics total. There are a number of pairings that were extremely popular at one point in time, but these days get far less love and attention. Let's take Widofjord for example. They have almost a thousand fics total and were in the Top 10 relationship tags for Critical Role on Ao3 for a long time. But last year? Only 27 fics were written for them. They have, functionally, become a rarepair.

So, to be fair to ships that exist in that same, nebulous space, we're looking at totals from last year, not lifetime.

For illustration purposes, here are charts (compiled by the wonderful @spottedenchants ) showing how many fics were written for each PC/PC ship last year.

Ineligible Ships

Which ships, then, don't qualify under that definition? It's not a terribly long list. PC endgame relationships, primarily, a handful of non-canon pairings, and some prospective endgame ships. For simplicity's sake, we'll break them down by campaign.

Campaign 1: Perc'ahlia, Vaxleth, Pikelan, Perc'ildan

Campaign 2: Shadowgast, Beauyasha, Fjorester, Widomauk

Campaign 3: Imodna, Dorym, Ashrym

If one of these pairings is secondary or background to a fic, that's alright! But the fic shouldn't focus or center on them. It's also worth noting that polyamorous ships that include one of these pairs are also alright! Shadowidomauk, for example, only had 61 fics written for it last year, so they're in the clear! The same goes for Dashrym, as another example, as they've only ever had 36 fics written for them.

It is also worth noting all accepted submissions must be respectful of character’s canon sexualities; for example, we will not take fics that feature an M/F pairing of a lesbian character, even if said pairing fits the “rarepair” criteria.

The caveat to the above would be queerplatonic fic! There will be an option on the submission form to specify, to avoid confusion due to Ao3’s lack of a designated QPR relationship tag!

So when does the list open for submissions?

Very soon! February 7th, next Wednesday! The opening theme with be Fluff, and that list will be posted a week later, on Valentine’s Day, February 14th! I hope we’ll see you then! 🩷

#recc list rules & info #cr rarepair recc list

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egrets-not-regrets · 3 months

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Finally Found You. (You Survived.)

Erriox finds the voice in the darkness: Erriox (Iron Warrior OC) meets Lenora (OC) again. From Erriox’s perspective.

Author’s note: I finally finished this! There’s another piece for Erriox and Lenora that I have written and I really wanted to post, but I really needed to get this piece done first since it makes more sense to follow behind Lenora’s perspective of this encounter. Just for fun, here’s the music I listened to while writing this: Yoriichi’s theme from Demon Slayer by Samuel Kim, Middle of the Night by Elley Duhé, and Lend Me Your Voice from the movie, Belle.

Also, dialogue spoken in the Gothic language is in italics.

Tagged: @kit-williams @bleedingichorhearts Anyone also interested in being tagged for these stories, please let me know in messages or your comments.

While he was in recovery, Erriox learned many things about this world he ended up in. This was Terra, ancient Terra. He was currently in what the humans called a hospital. His injuries were extensive enough such that he was sent to another facility farther away which was better equipped to handle his wounds. It would only take longer for him to heal enough before so that his body can take care of the rest. Their own body system still worked the same as before and while they still had superhuman recovery from injuries and diseases compared to normal mortals, it’s just that the medical technology at this time was a mix of ancient and modern technology. Diagnoses and treatments for injured Astartes as well as information on Astartes biology were still in development. Interestingly enough, apothecaries from different legions worked alongside each other and their human companions at these hospitals, observing and learning from each other.

It was also in this hospital where he started to gain a basic understanding of the English language, the language mostly spoken in the current region he was in. He was thankful that one of the apothecaries suggested that. It gave him something to do while in the hospital and a kind medical worker gave him some materials to get started. He managed to get the mere basic grasp of the language. It wasn’t easy to say the least, but it was enough to somewhat communicate with the mortals he encountered.

Astartes warriors from different factions and legions started appearing in this world many terran decades ago. The circumstances of how each warrior got there differed, but the feeling that this was some fevered dream that they haven’t woken up from seemed common across the board. The Thousand Sons of Magnus and Lorgar’s Word-Bearers suspected that warp magic was involved and were delving deeply to research this phenomenon. He wondered if this also happened to any of his battle brothers as well. Not that he was particularly enthused about meeting some of them any time soon.

Many of the Astartes were also bonded to mortals of this world as evidenced by the humans passing through the halls of hospital, some accompanied by their bonded Astartes warrior. Unsurprisingly, a number of apothecaries were bonded to human medical workers there as well. Erriox noticed more occurrences of bonded Astartes warriors as he started his journey to find his human once he was discharged. It was a strange phenomenon, something they had very little control over. The Iron Warrior suspected that the owner of that gentle voice that he kept repeating in his mind was his bonded one. He wasn’t sure if it was a true bond with a mortal or rather some obsession that he hung onto in order to mentally move forward during his recovery, but he strongly felt it was the former rather than latter. It was as if instinct was drawing him to where he needed to go. Otherwise, there was little reason why he would attempt to find this voice in the darkness after he recovered. Despite his doubts, Erriox hoped his human would be receptive to their bond once he found them.

Erriox had joined several roaming warbands as he passed through their territories in his travels. Some Astartes of the same legion or chapter tend to group together, forming their own bases. However, because of the strange circumstances and with how randomly the locations each space marine were transported to, it was more common than not that different Astartes of different legions, Chaos and Loyalist, created warbands and worked together. He was slightly concerned about the chaos-tainted Astartes being among the ranks, but outside of the occasional posturing or disagreements, they tend to stick to themselves and cooperate when needed.

It was in the dimming sunset that he finally came across his human’s home. He wasn’t sure what led him there, but he had an inkling that he was at the correct location. A canid came running from the back to the front of the house, growling and barking loudly at him. He continued towards the house unworried, as he knew there was little the canid could do to stop him. It stood its ground, not stopping the incessant barking. That canid had quite the gumption and Erriox approved of the iron that little creature had. Then the door opened and she came out. It was her. Her voice was the one that called to him in the darkness of his unconsciousness. It was her, his bonded one. He knew at that moment, she was his human. In the depths of his beating hearts, his soul roared out to complete the bond. Iron called for it. Iron demanded for its completion.

Erriox watched with some amusement as his human commanded the reluctant canid to go into the house, leaving her vulnerable against him. Somewhat foolish, but brave, he’ll give her that. Not that she needed to fear any harm from him nor worry about being unprotected anymore now that he was here. Three strides was all it took to get close to his human and with a hiss and click, his helmet came off. He watched her eyes widen with recognition. Not giving her a chance to run, Erriox unceremoniously dropped to one knee and roughly pulled her into his arms. He felt her stiffen, and for a brief moment, he thought she would try to leave. She relaxed and pulled back slightly, smiling at him as if welcoming an old friend, bringing up a hand to gently stroke the scars at the side of his face. Erriox closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. He couldn’t even remember when was the last time he received such warmth. She let out a contented sigh and wrapped her arms around his neck, fully relaxing into his embrace. Something felt complete then, like two parts of their bond finally clicking into place.

He pulled her tightly to himself, saying fervently in Gothic not caring if she understood or not, “It is you, my Iron. When I was lost and weak, it was you who kept away the rust. I finally found you.”

His expression softened when he felt her nuzzle back, catching the words “you” and “survived” in her murmur.

She patted his cheek gently with a quiet laugh, “You came just in time. Would you like to have dinner?”

Erriox started, staring at her in surprise. Did she just speak Gothic?

She laughed again, gesturing to follow her into her (their) home, “Come have dinner.”

The Iron Warrior got up, huffed in amusement, and followed her in. He wondered how much of the Gothic language she understood. What a clever human he had!

#space marine husbandry #space marine husbandry sentience #oc: lenora #oc: erriox #iron warrior #my writing

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linuxpropaganda · 9 months

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Extremely Quick and Dirty Distro Chooser for Complete Beginners

You are a person who might be interested in using Linux, but there’s literally thousands of distros out there and you have no idea where to start. Luckily for you, I am a weirdo who likes to test-drive Linux distros for fun. I have not tested literally every distro out there, but I have tried a fair number (35 according to my notes), and I think I have a decent shortlist of distros for people who haven’t used Linux before.

Note that this is: a) not an Objective List of the Best Linux Distros Out There; and b) not really an objective list at all. These are just the ones that I’ve tested and that I think would be good for people new to Linux.

My recommendations are as follows:

If your computer is a more than a few years old or underpowered/slow, I would recommend MX Linux or SpiralLinux.

If your computer has an NVIDIA GPU, I would recommend Pop!_OS.

Everyone else, I would recommend Linux Mint or potentially MX Linux.

Honorable mentions: Manjaro, Nobara, AV Linux ,Trisquel

I would NOT recommend Ubuntu or any of its variants, Linux Lite, or Fedora at this time.

My reasoning for each of these is below the cut, if you’re interested. If not, then that’s the post, have a great day!

All of my recommended distros are mainly or fully GUI-controllable (no messing around in the command line unless you want to, or for a few specific things), have a full complement of the software you need pre-installed, and a software center for anything else you might want. They’re also very stable and customizable, albeit some of them require more fiddling than others to get things the way you want.

Linux Mint is probably the best all-arounder for new Linux users at the current moment. It’s what I use as my daily driver on my main laptop, and with very few exceptions (mainly caused by having an NVIDIA GPU and/or trying to run ancient finicky software), I’m able to do everything I want and need to do on it without a lot of drama. If you don’t want Linux to be your hobby and you just need a computer that works, Linux Mint is currently your best bet. Use the standard Cinnamon edition if your computer is fairly new and/or beefy, or try the MATE or XFCE editions if it’s a little older.

Pop!_OS is another one that shows up on “good for beginners” lists. It’s based off of Ubuntu, the same as Linux Mint, and it’s got a lot of similar features going for it. I haven’t tested this one as extensively as I have some of the others on this list, so I can’t speak on it as in-depth, but I would 100% recommend it if your computer has an NVIDIA GPU. NVIDIA and Linux do not tend to play nicely together, and Pop!_OS has built-in NVIDIA support. Had I known what a pain it would be getting my GPU to work, I likely would have started with Pop.

MX Linux is another good all-arounder, though it doesn’t tend to be recommended for beginners, and I’m not sure why. It has a very friendly tour that shows you the various features of the OS, and a huge suite of tools so you can manage everything from the GUI. It bills itself as a “midweight” distro, but personally have found it to be much faster on my older laptop than many so-called “lightweight” distros, so it’s a good choice for older hardware. It can be set up to run off of a USB thumb drive with persistence, and I believe there are still programs for managing dial-up connections and old mp3 players/iPods in the repositories as well, if you were to need those. Use the main XFCE edition if you’re installing it on an older computer.

SpiralLinux is the kind of extremely small distro that probably shouldn’t be on this type of list, except it’s “Literally Just Debian But More User-Friendly” so that makes it perfect. The main reason it’s on here is because I am using it right now to write this post on my 12-year-old Dell, and it’s running like a charm. SpiralLinux is the fastest distro I have used on this laptop, except for Trisquel (more on that one later). If you have an older Windows computer that you want to breathe new life into, SpiralLinux is a good choice. Use the XFCE, MATE, or LXQT editions for old hardware.

Honorable mentions: people who know Linux will notice that all of the distros above are based off of Debian and/or Ubuntu. Do I have something against Fedora, Arch, etc? Nope. I just think the Debian/Ubuntu lineage has a real knack for making beginner-friendly distros, which is the focus of this post. That said, Manjaro is also said to be fairly beginner-friendly, though I haven’t tested it extensively, and Nobara might be a good place to start for a Fedora-based distro. Nobara is a little more niche than I would usually recommend, but it is really nice and pretty user-friendly.

If you do a lot of video or audio work, AV Linux may be worth a look. It’s based off of MX Linux, and has the same features, but it also has a lot of audio and video tools built in, and uses a different kernel.

Trisquel also makes the honorable mention list for being incredibly fast and having an interesting premise. Trisquel and all of the software in its repositories are 100% open-source. Normally I wouldn’t recommend this kind of niche distro for newer users, but it is based off of Debian so it’s pretty stable, and it runs surprisingly fast on my old Dell laptop. It’s also a fun crash-course in open-source software and what it can do. I would not necessarily recommend it as a daily driver, but if you want to get started in the Linux and FLOSS worlds and have an old laptop, you could do a lot worse than Trisquel.

What I DON’T recommend:

Ubuntu has historically been considered THE user-friendly Linux distro, and also one of the most popular. I don’t recommend it (or any of its official variants: Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc) because of some really poor decisions and doubling-down on those decisions by Canonical, the company that develops Ubuntu. As you’re currently reading this on Tumblr, I doubt I have to tell you why the company in charge making decisions their users hate and then refusing to budge on them is a bad time. That said, it’s not a terrible OS in and of itself. If you really don’t like any of the distros listed above, or can’t get them to work, you could give Ubuntu a shot...but personally, I wouldn’t, when there are so many other options.

I am anti-recommending Linux Lite, even though it often gets touted as a good “lightweight” beginner-friendly distro. In my experience, it’s very slow compared to something like MX or Spiral, and it’s faithful to its Ubuntu base to a fault. Also the app store is terrible. I think the Debian-based “light” distros are almost always better than the Ubuntu ones. If you feel like you absolutely NEED an Ubuntu-based “light” distro, consider Bodhi Linux as an alternative. It’s still pretty slow, but it has some clever features (the app center is browser-based so it’s much faster) and lacks some of the anti-features that Linux Lite has.

Fedora is my final anti-recommendation, less because of the OS itself and again, because of the organization behind it--in this case, IBM. IBM has been pulling some Typical Corporate Fuckery by closing off their source code to the public. Needless to say, this is...bad. Again, assuming that Tumblr users aren’t big fans of Corporate Fuckery, I would advise people to steer clear of Fedora for now. If you want or need a RHEL distro, I would consider AlmaLinux instead.

So that’s it for my recommendations. If none of these are to your liking, then check out DistroWatch. It has thousands of different Linux distros and a few other OSes listed. If you use Ventoy, you can easily test-drive many different live versions of distros without a lot of fuss...but that’s another post ;) Have a great day!

#linux #gnu/linux #getting started with linux

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princeanxious · 8 months

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Hi! I was wondering about your Lost Guardian au from ages ago, do you think you’ll ever plan on updating it and if not, could someone else take up the fic?

So heres the thing. If someone wants to write a fic *inspired* by The Lost Guardian, i’m not gonna stop them, and i’d probably feel super honored so long as the inspiration was correctly credited!

As for ‘taking up the fic,’ the short answer is no.

I have active drafts and the rest of the story already planned out to its finish, notes, even a branch-off fic set post-story that will likely go up on my nsfw blog if i ever get around to editing it. The Lost Guardian hasn’t been abandoned, it’s simply on hiatus. (And yes, i recognize 3 almost 4 years so far is a really fucking long hiatus. The Chapter 9 draft doc was made in december of 2020, and last edited in July 2022)

I started writing that fic whilst still in highschool, a time where I was 17 and didnt have to worry yet about getting my license or maintaining a part time job, i had an over abundance of freetime even partially to my detriment, the fandom was booming and I had plenty of feedback, and this fic was (and still *is*) a story im proud of.

But i’m 22 now, working a full time job to pay rent and account for a number of minor ‘disabilities’(best word i have for them atm) that I cant ignore or push to the side nor treat poorly, from the lasting effects on my body of stunted growth to celiac/glutent intolerance to adhere to that directly determines how easily my body functions for the week, to dealing with glasses i cannot afford to break and taking care of teeth i cannot afford to fix, taking care of my mental health and using the free time i have to do what brings me the most joy at that time.

The sanders sides fandom has heavily quieted down with the season finale hiatus and I’d like to think I did pretty well for going six long years dedicated solely to that without cracking under the silence, because *I knew* when I caved to something else it’d be a long while before I had the drive to come back with any sort of resolution to my active works. Thats just how my hyper fixations work. I cannot focus on multiple at once, it’s too much to process simultaneously and takes away my enjoyment bc I tend to watch/consume things repeatedly to catch every little detail i missed. And it doesn’t help when one loses steam because their content barely breaks 100 notes(80% of which are likes, 15% are reblogs with the occasional comment, and 5% are self-reblogs) when back in the height of it all, a few thousand notes was pretty average interaction. This blog still has about 11.5k followers, almost all of which came from the height of the fandom period. So for now i’ve moved onto the FNAF DCA fandom, bc it is fresh and new to me.

I know you didn’t mean to poke the bear here, I get it, but like.. C’mon. Any other fic of mine likely wouldn’t have gotten the same reaction in full but, still. I’ve had to answer this question a handful of times over the years at the point, which might be why this response feels so charged, and i’m sorry.

I don’t mean to come off as snippy or rude, but it *is* kind of invasive to offer to finish one’s creative work when it’s taking too long and theres very little payback for it. I’ve got adhd, delayed satisfaction isn’t a thing I experience. Just guilt that it wasn’t finished in a way for me to post it in time before I broke and lost all motivation to share it.

In my head, TLG has been long finished and held the ending for years, theres just been no energy to put in the effort of finish writing it for others to read. I’m still trying to get my life together to change that, don’t get me wrong, but the American economy is literally in shambles so who knows how or even if i’ll manage that. Call me selfish for being content with only mentally having my creative story’s ending and a collection of rambles and notes to show for it, but at the end of the day, it’s still my story, and i dont feel comfortable with people trying to ‘take up the mantle’ to finish it, when they don’t know how it ends.

I’m glad you like it enough to want to, though, I really *really* am. I’m just sorry I haven’t been able to finish it for you all. And i just don’t know when that will be, I just know that I *want* to do so, however long it takes.

#luka answers #sanders sides #tlg fic #the lost guardian au #luka’s aus #luka rambles #luka rants

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versilperihelion · 2 months

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alright i don't tend to post stuff if it's not already part of an existing thread cause i don't believe people would care but i promised @demifiendcruithne i would write this up as a separate thing if anyone asked about it, and well @pteren did so here we are.

if you come across this and don't like math, this is your cue to move on to the next thing on your dash.

the context is that for pteren's month-long physical challenge i decided to also find some fun properties for each daily number of reps i do. and for 37 there were three such properties:

if you take any 3-digit number that is divisible by 37, and you shuffle its digits one space to the left (so e.g. 148 → 481), you'll get another number divisible by 37 (yes shuffling them to the right also works but it's the same as going left twice so it's just one of those cases that matters)

if you take any number divisible by 37 and insert into it a string of three of the same digit (so e.g. 148 → 147778, or 166648), you'll get another number divisible by 37

if you take any number divisible by 37, reverse it, and add a zero between every digit (so e.g. 148 → 80401 or 1147 → 7040101), you guessed it, you'll get another number divisible by 37

so i said there's already enough math i'm putting into the physical challenge thread so if anyone's interested in how to prove something like that, i'd put it into a separate post. so here we are. this is what i got myself into.

note: there will be quite a lot of images here. all of them, every single one, will have some math formulae and nothing else, cause it'll be much easier to read if that math will be neatly formatted and such using latex (the math kind, not the kinky kind) rather than somewhat put into plaintext of a text post. all those images will have added alt text but i have no idea how to best do image descriptions for that, so i'm kinda winging it. i know i said i doubt people would read this, but i'm still not gonna half-ass trying to maintain accessibility.

in fact there are enough images that i need to split it into the main post and a rb with the second half cause the limit is apparently 30. if for some unholy reason you came across this before i paste in and format the second half, and for some even more unholy reason you decide it's something you want to rb, please just wait until i add the second half. if there was a way to make a draft and an immediate rb of said draft, i would've done it.

also note: i'll be using the letter i as the index in a sequence. there will be no imaginary unit mentioned anywhere or needed for anything. there's no calculus either, the most complex arithmetic involved is knowing that if you multiply two powers of the same base, you get the sum of the exponents (2^5 x 2^2 = 32 x 4 = 128 = 2^7). and even better than that, basically every single number featured and labeled with a letter will be a positive whole number. we're not even going into fractions here.

also also note: i'm not gonna try to be 100% rigorous here. that's for academia, i was just bored with hellsite access.

so, given this includes some fuckery on the digits of a number, i think best to start by something we don't consciously think about too often: what does it mean for a number to look some way in base 10? let's take, say, number 1438:

1438 = 1 x 10^3 + 4 x 10^2 + 3 x 10^1 + 8 x 10^0

almost exactly the same way we'd pronounce this in english, it's one thousand (10 to the third power), four hundreds (10 to the second power), three tens (10 to the first power), and eight ones (10 to the zeroth power - anything other than 0 raised to 0th power gives 1. we are not getting into why not 0 here).

so in general we can write what this means, symbolically:

where x_0 is the ones digit, x_1 is the tens, and so on, which can also fancily be written using the sigma notation which if you have any programming experience, is basically just how in math you'd write a for loop: for i that goes from 0 to k (including k), where k is any natural number you feel like, add together the digit at the i-th position times 10 to the i-th power.

kinda seems like overcomplicating it, but this can be applied to any number base other than 10 (and the capital sigma notation helps avoid writing too much because laziness is the source of inventions).

many people will already have known all this, but it's still useful foundation to lay down before we start fiddling with the digits, so we are actually aware of what we're doing. now we can move on to the first thing to prove.

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a) the first thing was that if we take a 3-digit number that is divisible by 37, such as 148 (it's 4 x 37), and we shuffle the digits one space to the left, wrapping back to the ones space, what we get is another number divisible by 37, such as 481 (it's 13 x 37. leet).

so let's write down some general number we're starting from.

i called this number a_s because it's the number we start with for proof a). subscript s for start, n for new.

x_2, x_1, and x_0 are just the digits in the hundreds, tens, and ones places. this starting number is a multiple of 37, so it's 37 times some natural number n. we don't really need to know or care what n is, only that it's a whole number. it's all whole number turtles all the way down.

how would we then write a_n, the new number we create from our shenanigans?

should make sense. we move the tens digit to hundreds, ones to tens, and hundreds to ones. cool. but how do we go about proving it's divisible by 37? we can't really reason much about what we have there so far, so we should try to rearrange it so we can find several parts in there that each is divisible by 37 - a multiple of some number plus another multiple of it gives you yet another multiple of that number, like 30+70=100, 30 is 6x5, 70 is 14x5, and 100 is (6+14) x 5, so 20x5. and same if we were to subtract them. so lets pull a fast one on that number and add and subtract the same thing to it.

(at this point i must also note that the interface for making a new post is incredibly stupid for short wide images where the cancel button is overlapping the button where you go to add image description. hellsite, pay your qa department more)

we added and subtracted 1000 times x_2 so we still have the same number. what was that for? if you look at the first three terms, they are in descending order in both which digit it is, and what power of 10 they're multiplied by, which looks just like our original number, but all times 10. meanwhile, the other two terms both have x_2 on them. so we can extract the common factors there.

in the parentheses of the first part we have that original number a_s, so this whole first half is divisible by 37, cause that was our premise. the other half is some single-digit number x_2, multiplied by 1000-1. so by 999. well, it just so happens that 999 is a multiple of 37, being 9x111, and 111 is 3x37. so we have

so here's the secret: this is not really a property of 37.

it's a property of 111. the reason it works for 37 is exactly because 111 is a multiple of 37, so when it works for 111, 37 just tags along for the ride. in fact you might note that it works the same for the other divisor of 111, 3. as you may know, a number is divisible by 3 if (when written in base-10) the sum of its digits is divisible by 3. when we shuffle the digits around, the sum doesn't change, so the new number is still divisible by 3.

and you can show the same way that the other two properties work for 3 just as well as they do for 37. if we reverse the digits and sprinkle some zeroes in, the sum stays the same, so new number is still a multiple of 3. if we insert three of the same digit somewhere in the middle, we're adding 3 times something into the sum, so the new sum is still divisible by 3. sneaky.

but let's show that the other two properties work for 37. spoiler alert: 111 is the key player in those as well.

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b) if you take a multiple of 37, and insert a string of three of the same digit somewhere in the middle, the new number will also be a multiple of 37.

new year, new me, new starting number, just that it oddly looks exactly the same. except this time we are not restricted to just 3 digits of the starting number, so we need to consider any number of digits, so the laziness notation comes in

so how would we write the new number?

so i don't know if there is a proper notation but i went for square brackets here to mean "i'm not multiplying those together, those are just digits arranged from highest power to lowest". so we have the original digits going up from index 0 (right to left cause that's how we write numbers), and then three of this new digit y plopped in the middle, displacing the l-th digit and each next one up to index k three spaces to the left.

next we can write this as a sum as before, but because there's more terms it'll be useful to immediately split it into smaller, more manageable pieces.

because we added the three extra digits, everything to the left was effectively multiplied by a thousand, so the powers of ten there each grew by 3, while everything to the right is unchanged. so, as before, if we can show that each of these three pieces independently is divisible by 37, we'll have succeeded. and we'll start with the inserted part, b_insert, cause it's the simplest and i imagine some of yall already see where it's going.

that one was simple, it was straight out 111 times that digit y times some power of ten. so that's one place where 111 showed up. now, we can probably somehow get the original number somewhere out of the remaining two pieces to leave us with just one last bit to prove, if the previous proof is any indication. b_rest looks like it'd be useful but it's missing some terms, so let's look at b_front. there we'd have a neat match if not for all the powers of 10 being 3 bigger than the corresponding index. so, let's extract the common factor from all those.

now the stuff in parentheses is what we'd need to add to b_rest to complete the original number. it's just that there's a thousand of it, when we need just one. so let's separate one from the thousand and-

oh hey, and what we're left with is 999 times something, which we already know is a multiple of 37. let's call it 37 times m where m is stuff in brackets times the pieces of 999 after we pulled 37 out of it. cause we don't need to write it any more than that if we already know it's good. "i don't care" is a very powerful statement to use in math.

and now we can put those back together again.

and as a final cherry on top,

yay. so, just one left. should be smooth sailing, right?

yeah to be honest for this next one i needed some time to get one specific insight, and the road there lead through first proving something simpler, which is quite an effective problem solving approach. let's go through it and see.

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c) if you take a number that's a multiple of 37, reverse the order of digits, and then put a zero between every two digits, you get another multiple of 37.

so a good place to start will be once again defining what we mean in math symbols, cause while we can put it into words and write an example, those math symbols have been quite useful in solving this.

nothing new here but this time i also wrote the sequence of digits cause it'll be useful in building up the new number. so we flip the order and then add zeros.

so reading this from the right, in the ones place we have x_k. then we skip tens. then in the hundreds we have x_k-1. we skip thousands, and in ten thousands we have x_k-2. that's 10^0, 10^2, 10^4, and so on that have a digit from the original sequence - the even powers of ten. the number of original digits didn't change, but we doubled each power of ten used, so the highest power should be 2k.

yeah it got a bit more complicated, with the indices all the other way, and the exponents doubled, nice mess we got ourselves into. if you can already see where the proof is going, that's great. quoting Grant Sanderson of youtube channel 3blue1brown, pause and ponder. if you don't, fret not, it took me a while too. so how about for now we ignore this bigger problem and solve a much simpler case.

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d2) same as point c, but we're looking at two-digit starting numbers. there is no point d1, i gave it a 2 cause 2 digits.

there are only two numbers that are 2-digit and are multiples of 37 - 37 itself and 74, so we could just plop 703 and 407 into a calculator and see what they divide into, but we should do it in a general way like we did before. we're already deep into the math, might as well

so, we swap the digits, double the exponents, and add a 0 in the middle just for now to remember it was there.

last time we were in a situation like this (back in case a) we added and subtracted one of the digits times 1000. let's do it again.

looks familiar. let's extract 10^2 from the first two terms and -x_1 from the other two.

yep, that worked, and we got the original number and 111 in there. that's promising. let's try three digits.

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d3) same as d2 but the starting number has 3 digits

okay, so last time, and back in case a, we were able to restore the original number in the correct ordering of digits by adding and subtracting one term, and we did that in d2 as well. here we'd need to add and subtract two terms each. you know, worth a shot.

so we can do that, and the stuff we subtract each can pair with one of the remaining terms. let's do the usual and see what we're left with

so we got two of those as freebies, what about the last one? 10^6 is one million, so the brackets equal 999,999. is this a multiple of 999? why yes, it is, and the comma used to bunch digits of large numbers into groups of three helps us notice. and, well, so does saying the number out loud. 999 thousand, 999.

alright, i think we're warmed up enough to get back to our general case

which as i mentioned before i need to split into a separate followup post. 2/10 literally unplayable. i know there is the option "post privately" and there is the queue and schedule, but i'm sure as hell not gonna experiment when if something goes wrong i need to either redo the whole thing or have to wait to add the second half or whatever, i just want to drop it and move on.

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queerfables · 8 months

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It's really funny to me how I still have absolutely no sense of which of my posts will resonate with people. I talk a lot of nonsense here that goes completely unnoticed (just as the god of shitposts intended). And then sometimes I write a silly off the cuff posts to amuse only myself it gets thousands of notes. And every time I'm like "oh. uh. hi there."

I never really know how to talk about this, to be honest. It feels like a faux pas to acknowledge the attention but I'm also sincerely touched that people are interested in what I have to say. The last time I got anywhere close to this kind of exposure I was in a very niche subset of a very large fandom and after a couple years of being pretty active I had about the same number of followers as I've gained in the months since Good Omens came out. It's weird!

Anyway if you wanna be friends but don't know how, please feel free to drop me a message or add commentary to any of my posts, I love chatting with people.

#fable talks good omens #fable talks

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marjorierose · 6 months

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Went out this evening after a day of working from home and had a rather thwarted city mess-around.

The pharmacy in my old neighborhood (my new neighborhood does not have one) wouldn't give me a flu shot; they said to call later and make an appointment. I've never needed one there before, but they've gone through some changes, especially since they burned down in the 2020 uprising and rebuilt. I still like them better than CVS, because they don't treat customers like de facto shoplifters and make you ask a staff member to unlock the bath soap, so I'll try to remember to call back.

The library next door to the pharmacy is closed pending a demolition and rebuilding, but I knew that already. I looked over the signs posted in the door, but they just had QR codes and no expected opening date. I walked from there down to my old house. It's been repainted, and there was a light on inside, but it looks similar otherwise, down to the rather dangerously uneven front steps. I had kind of expected the new owners to totally gut it. I wonder if they have re-hung the windows; they needed it.

The coffeeshop around the corner from there was closed--it looked so dark that I was momentarily alarmed, but it was just because it's Monday. The oddball new shop next to that which has a manifesto in the window but no clear idea of what they sell--tarot decks maybe--is closed on Mondays too; so's the small indie bookstore I've never yet made it to. I could have gone into the new Taiwanese tea shop but I couldn't think of something I actually wanted in cold weather.

I did remember that Ducks was supposed to be available at the library that I actually use nowadays, so I caught a bus there and looked on the shelf for it, but I didn't find it, and neither did the librarian. He put a hold on one of the copies from another branch for me.

I just barely succeeded in catching the next bus onward from there. There was a fender-bender at the stop where I got off, so I skirted that and, rather than wait fifteen minutes for a connection, walked on ahead and periodically checked if a bus was coming yet. Eventually one came and took me the rest of the way to where I live now--except that the staircase from the major road down to my block is closed off, which I guess I would have known already, if I hadn't been getting around mostly by car lately. It was quite decisively blocked. I guess they're replacing it. I went the long way around and finally returned home with nothing I hadn't had when I left, except a post-it note with the phone number of the pharmacy, and a large packet I found in my mailbox that told me my insurance policy has been renewed even though I called them weeks ago to tell them I have a new job and they should cancel it.

Still and all, I got in several thousand steps, read a few chapters of my current non-brick book on the bus, saw that the Megan Rapinoe beer garden is now done with construction, got to sneak a peek at the ink drawing the librarian was doing in between patrons, and walked past a garden where someone had chalked I HOPE SOMETHING GOOD HAPPENS TO YOU TODAY on the brick retaining wall. And I didn't spend twenty-four hours straight in my home, which is something I've been somewhat prone to doing lately. When my routines get dull I always start thinking is this just how it is going to be from here on out, but if I go observe anything it's obvious that nothing stays the same for all that long.

#marjorie prose

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angelwonie · 1 year

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2022 is already over but i still want to make this post because i love you guys and you made this year more bearable, so...

dear followers...

you guys are what keeps me going. thank you so much for supporting me, liking my writing, and filling out every stupid form i post on impulse. thank you for always being patient and discussing your thoughts with me. thank you for choosing to stick with me of all people. i am so grateful for all of you and my time on tumblr!! tumblr is like an escape from reality for me and you guys make it so much fun <3

dear mutuals...

@cosmic-railwayxo - you fucking loser i think youre the best thing that happened to me all year (except guesung's abs). thank you so much for being my friend, for talking to me literally everyday, for giving me something to look forward to when im at uni and want to die. i love facetiming u, i love sending u reels, i love how we r literally bffs even if there are thousands of km between us. that much doesnt matter when we gossip or talk abt kpop men fs BAHAHAHA. anyways i could probably write an essay abt u and how much i love your colossal cock, but this is getting long so all im gna say is i love you.

@hwangyeonjun - rels my bae ur 97' liner smau is what gives me oxygen to breathe (on that note,, I NEED AN UPDATE). thank u for being my mutual and slaying with me even tho im a little insane. i love you!!

@hwajin - kATHY GIRL u were the one that had to listen to me scream about arisu and u literally wrote me a fic for him???? we r besties for life atp. we should write each other fics sometime again bcs that was sm fun. ure so hot and nice and ur hyunjin series slays. thank you for being my friend and always giving me the same energy back!! kisses for u

@hoshologies - moon omg we've known each other so long but it feels so short??? i hope ure slaying all ur days away bcs ure fucking amazing and u deserve it. once every month when it's a full moon i lay down on the grass and think abt how much i miss ur writing and u actually. hope we keep in touch in 2023, i love you bestieee

@jjkeverlast - lati thank u sm for being my friend!! i love talking to u about everything and nothing (read: the dilf from aib) and ure so kind honestly (when ure not stealing kento yamazaki from me BOOOO). i hope we interact a lot in 2023 and i wish you all good things this year!! you deserve it.

@jayzdaze - kay u queen. ur fics never dissappoint and ure so??? mature and cool i think of u as my older sister fr. im so happy to be ur moot and friend and i hope we remain close in 2023 as well. love you bae!

@jenoslutie - nabi i swear i followed u bcs ur name is the same as that girl from nevertheless HAJASJKAJKA but i fell in love with you and your sexy brain too. ur fics always deliver and i miss our convos sm :/ we should start talking more again!! either way im so happy to have you as a mutual and ily.

@kookiecrumb - ISA MY FIRST MUTUAL OMG!!! there's so much i want to say to you but i dont even know if i can put it into words. youre so amazing, talented and intelligent. i think you might be the most intellectual person i have ever met. i am never bored when we talk to each other, and i always leave our conversations in a happy mood. i love your passion for bts and i love your big sexy brain. i hope we stay friends forever.

@mingirn - mars idk abt u but im ur number one fan forever. like idc if we dont talk for a month, the moment i see mingirn on dash or in my ask i SQUEAL. i love you so so much and ure so funny and delusional (omg ure just like me) and im so happy we r moots. i would literally fight w armys for u. thats true love i'm telling u.

@neochan - sam ure like that mutual everyone is afraid of bcs theyre just so. cool. i love you so much and i love talking abt nct with u bcs ure the only one that gets my obsession with their cocks. thank you for being my mutual (and friend, i hope) and for blessing me with your fics!!

@planetdream - dreamie i swear to god you were the second blog i followed on here (i unfollowed the first so ure technically the first tho hihi) and i literally have flashbacks whenever i reread ur fics kskasksska. we've never talked like super much, but whenever we do i feel happy, and im glad that feeling hasnt faded throughout all those months. u will always hold a special place in my heart and im so glad to be ur friend!!

@shmooooo - isa u were literally my savior when i was in my cha eunwoo phase. like there is no one on tumblr that simps for that guy and im like??? hello wake up. thank you so much for talking to me about him and my fics, i appreciate you bae!!

@wuahae - cat i love you so so much!! ur writing is so alluring and beautiful, and your personality is too. i always have sm fun talking to u and whenever i see you on dash, i smile. we need to talk more bcs i NEED to hear your thoughts on every picture mingyu and hoshi post on instagram.

#end of 2022 post!!

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sreegs · 1 year

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I posted 2,632 times in 2022

That's 1,578 more posts than 2021!

831 posts created (32%)

1,801 posts reblogged (68%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sreegs

@kilgorezouzou

@red-mercer

@howling-techie

@iamoutofideas

I tagged 2,367 of my posts in 2022

Only 10% of my posts had no tags

#tumblr - 378 posts

#star trek - 132 posts

#hell - 106 posts

#meme - 75 posts

#world heritage post - 74 posts

#ds9 - 63 posts

#guy fieri - 58 posts

#tumblr ads - 54 posts

#feliz jueves - 54 posts

#ai - 51 posts

Longest Tag: 132 characters

#the memories april fools was kind of one of these things that made it through as a joke about features that every social network has

My Top Posts in 2022:

35,469 notes - Posted June 6, 2022

who's so busy they have to tag a two second video "watch later"?

38,396 notes - Posted March 18, 2022

Years ago, when Tumblr was still owned by Yahoo, Yahoo wanted Tumblr to use their video player, rather than Tumblr's own video player. This was partially to unify analytics, but mostly because Yahoo planned to put pre-roll ads on Tumblr videos. You know those unskippable Youtube ads? That's what was going to happen to Tumblr videos.

The only reason it didn't happen out is because Tumblr staff pushed back on the idea, saying it was absolutely idiotic and would anger users beyond their breaking point.

The next time you're angry at staff for fucking up something a lil bit, or trying to make money in some optional way, keep this in mind.

84,463 notes - Posted February 25, 2022

As the staff post about ad-free tumblr continues to get thousands of notes telling staff to fuck off in the tags, I wanna remind you that this website's days are numbered. Tumblr is still unprofitable and by some modern-day miracle none of its acquiring companies pulled the plug on this money pit. But it will happen if it continues its trajectory.

Whether you like it or not, Tumblr needs to make money off you somehow in order to stay up. It either serves ads or asks for money to use it. This has been a paradigm on the web longer than many of you have been alive. It's Tumblr's job to make money right now because it's well past its grace period of being a black hole for cash. This has actually always been Tumblr's job, since it is a corporation, but that's capitalism for ya.

If you want Tumblr to be here for free and you want to continue to use it, you do yourself a disservice by opposing any changes Tumblr makes in order to pay for its costs. When this site finally goes belly-up then you're gonna be Tumblr-less until whatever startup takes its place and the cycle repeats itself.

If you think it should just ask for donations Wikipedia-style, remember that if and when that happens, there will be users repeating the same tired bullshit about giving Tumblr any money.

105,961 notes - Posted February 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

ah you can't tip yourself

123,340 notes - Posted March 30, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #oh did i manage to feliz every jueves??

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strawberry-metal · 8 months

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I just wanna get something off my chest real fast because it's bugging me and I'm sure it's something people can relate to. The internet is not as artist friendly as it used to be. It's just so hard to get anyone to see your work anymore. I've had a tumblr for 5 years now, and I post I'd say fairly often enough, I add alot of tags to my work, I work at least an hour or more on everything I make, I avoid tumblr's blocked tags, and still I only get 1 or 2 notes on every single art I ever make, and it's the same person always.

I've had an instagram for two years now, and I don't even have 100 followers and I barely get 5 likes on my stuff. It's the same people always.

On deviantart, the views went from thousands down to either the hundreds or barely 1k, and on youtube I am LUCKY if I even get 100 views and 5 likes.

It's just so....heartbreaking I guess is the word? Like you try several sites, and several art mediums (mine being 3D, animation, digital, or traditional) and still nothing works or gets attention. I know you should make stuff for fun and I try to but when the art in question gets next to no attention it just kinda sucks yeah? And I don't mean to say that I'm not thankful for the same people who always stick around and enjoy my stuff! Because I love you guys, your input and reactions and all of that! All I mean is... it just feels like it's gotten harder and harder to build an audience as an artist, and sometimes it feels like I've never had a chance because the numbers have hardly changed? It also just kind feels like not as many people like my art as much as they used to. I just don't really understand what I'm doing wrong.

I just wanted to get this off my chest because sometimes just getting things written down can help take away stress and help ya feel better.

#mun #vent #artist struggles #artist problems #art

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lumpyrock · 1 year

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This is going to be a very long post about Pufnstuf. It has some unpopular opinions. I had no clue where my DVD copy was, so I watched it on Internet archive, some of the notes will by biased because of that. You have been warned.

My notes on H.R. Pufnstuf from August and September of 2022

Ranking of the episodes

The Birthday Party (episode 7)

Jimmy Who? (Episode 17)

The Visiting Witch (episode 14)

The Golden Key (episode 6)

The Magic Path (episode 1)

The Wheely Bird (episode 2)

Tooth For A Tooth (episode 13)

The Almost Election Of Witchiepoo (episode 15)

The Mechanical Boy (episode 4)

You Can't Have Your Cake (episode 9)

The Stand In (episode 5)

Show Biz Witch (episode 3)

Dinner For Two (episode 11)

The Box Kite Kaper (episode 8)

Flute, Book, And Candle (episode 12)

Whadda Mean The Horse Gets The Girl? (Episode 16)

The Horse With The Golden Throat (didn't even watch it, episode 10)

I took statistics, because of course. (This discounts episode 10, because I am kind of scared of it, (and also I am an imperfect human) so take this with a grain of salt)

Number of times "witch" was said (discounting Witchiepoo but includingthe intro): 245

Average per episode: 15.3

Number of times "Flute" was said (including the intro): 86 (why so low?!)

Average per episode: 5.3

Number of times someone got whacked (as in a witch (including Jimmy in that one episode and the lackeys) hitting someone else): 70

Average per episode: 4.3

Number of times someone (Freddy) said "I'm scared" (again, discounting episode 10): 10

Average per episode: 0.6

Number of times it was the full intro: 13

Number of times it wasn't: 3

"I sure hope so": 7

"Keep those cards and letters coming": 8

This is already so long. ☆ means I thought the episode was notable. W is how many times "witch" was said in the episode, F is same for "flute", WH is for whacks. (This means I'm adding context or new notes), 'this means it is not a quote from the show but is supposed to be said by a character', "and this is a quote from the show". Let's get this long post even longer. Will use shortened titles, and the notes are in order of The Magic Path to Jimmy Who?. I have no clue what I was thinking for a lot of these, please forgive me.

Magic Path notes ☆ (full intro)

Why don't ya just get rid of the witch? You're the mayor!

Pufnstuf seems really fed up with Dr. B (Blinky) in one scene.

Dr. B is comedy gold!

This song feels really close to home.

Judy! *starts screaming*

The idea that those skeletons are real.

Even though we never saw him in the real world, it feels like he was actually there. (I think that was in comparison to the movie)

Unlike the coloring book, the order they run out of the castle Jimmy, Judy, Pufnstuf. (Had just done a coloring book video)

Other episodes have more characters, so it's harder to say goodbye, they've been here like a day.

How does the Magic Path work?

It didn't dissappear! It's still there!

Just runs away.

Racist. I love Jimmy's reaction shot right after.

80's freeze frame in 1969.

I sure hope so!

I love this, I love this so much.

W 16, F 10, WH 5

Wheely Bird notes ☆ (full intro)

It's wheely bird, not whirly bird.

Are the other candies alive?

"Nothing, we wanna do nothing."

'I would die for him', that sounds pretty gay.

"I just gotta protect Jimmy", that sounds pretty gay.

Forget about Freddy song.

I think Dr. B is just like that.

"All the good guys (...)", thousands died because of them.

And the trend of using real fire goes on.

Cling and Clang seem like toddlers.

Pufnstuf flirting with Orson joke.

Orson is one of those people.

"It worked too well, he's fallen in love with us!"

"Now, how do we get rid of our boyfriend?" (Not sure if that's an actual joke)

'I'm kidnapped and my first thought is Jimmy', these jokes write themselves.

'I would die for you!' 'I would die for you more!'

Another gay joke.

Are wands guns?

Forget about Freddy song, again!

This episode was gay.

I sure hope so!

W 10, F 12, WH 1

Show Biz Witch notes (full intro)

Judy's in the background doing what I do. (I think I ment stimming, but I'm not sure)

Jimmy's face.

They don't tell you about buttons until episode 3.

Jimmy says MC.

Pufnstuf saying weird things.

Love yourself like a witch.

A pear isn't square. (What?)

Dr. B and LL (Ludicrous Lion) are the only two that don't run off and instead hug each other.

I never realized how gay this show is.

Breaking up the band will come back later.

The idea that Witchiepoo has killed and is willing to kill.

Assault the guards, great morel for a kids' show!

'I cannot live without Jimmy.'

'We just threw someone into boiling water.'

Pufnstuf and Jimmy are kinda jerks in this one.

I sure hope so.

W 11, F 7, WH 4

Mechanical boy notes ☆ (full intro)

Wow, the Jimmy Diaries were based on something. (Old fanfic I wrote when I was 12)

First time (pretty sure only) Jimmy gets misgendered.

"Big dumb-o!"

Again with the real fire.

Cannon, Cling and Clang make bubbling sounds.

"I am sorry, I can not give out that information!" (ICONIC!)

How the hell do you know it's a time spell?

First time Jimmy gets brainwashed.

'Here Dr. B, take Freddy!' *throws Freddy*

Outside of backgrounds, first time we see the clock people.

"I have 24 hours." 'Jimmy, sit down.'

Pufnstuf is cute to the women of the island.

Time dohicky, only works once!

I love the Cuphead music in the background! (???)

I sure hope so.

W 15, F 10, WH 4

Stand in notes (full intro)

Very jarring, all of a sudden in wide screen. (That is on internet archive)

There's a second floor to Pufnstuf's cave.

Hi Shirley, thanks for confusing Pufnstuf lore.

The only Pufnstuf girl I didn't want to date.

It's as if they took all the pink and put it on her, she sticks out like a sore thumb.

"If it wasn't for this man," turns to Puf, "my producer, Toadinof!"

Shirley with her dead arms.

Jimmy's face.

Jimmy always plays the bad guy in Shirley's films.

Make up!

Jimmy and Pufnstuf saying goodbye makes me sad.

"I don't think of you as a woman, I think of you as a witch!"

Sweet karma with setup and payoff!

Again with real fire! At least it has a cute story. (Cute long story.)

Keep those cards and letters coming!

W 17, F 4, WH 7

Golden Key notes ☆ (full intro)

(This is a better magic path, sue me.)

This is hyping up a lot more than magic path, and we aren't even a minute in!

"A secret, genuine, escape map which leads to the golden key which opens the magic golden escape door." (Magic Path never that world building!)

"Quick, let's hide!" Someone found them in two seconds.

"Makes every war sound!"

Use the magic compass key!!!

At the end of the road, halfway through!

Does Witchiepoo use Amazon? (No!)

Jimmy sounded like he was in a horror movie.

They said it! They said it! (What did they say?!)

I sure hope so!

I really like this episode!

W 9, F 8, WH 3

Birthday! Notes ☆ 💔 (full intro)

Jimmy Diaries was based on something.

The camera's shaking like crazy.

Oh Jimmy, be happy! It won't last long.

This makes me feel really happy!

I love this song!

Now I'm mad cause Witchiepoo has to ruin it!

We're getting the band back together!

I'm really sad now.

Why can't this episode just be happy?

"When the witch finds out, *ha ha*, she's gonna kill me!" *laughs then faints*

This got really dark really fast.

At least Judy's in this one.

The witch is willing to kill a flute!

Very relevant.

The freaking puppets wear it (the masks) right.

Witchiepoo seems like such a Karen.

I sure hope so!

This broke my heart. 5 stars.

W 10, F 8, WH 2

Box kite kaper notes (full intro)

How much is a gold button worth? Is it like gold standard? (Fun fact, a normal button is worth $2.50 USD!)

LL is a gambler!

LL would pay off the four winds. (What context would lead to that?)

'Hey dad, can we get a box kite? For going home reasons.'

Jimmy just looked at Puf like he said an F bomb.

I love the Witchiepoo costumes.

There's a top level entrance. (Huh?)

(Drawing of a wand being broken I think?) Does it snap? (What?)

She's drugging them, again!

Like I said, it'll get harder to say goodbye.

Kite pun.

Don't say anything until you're safe!

Bomb an 12 year old!

Almost murder a 12 year old!

Joke from the movie.

I sure hope so!

Not very good, too much filler.

W 4, F 9, WH 2

No cake notes ☆ (full intro)

Judy! Moon walk! Argh!

When measles wasn't almost gone!

Maybe I should memorize it! (Refering to the moon walk, if I need to prove my endurance, I'll do it.)

Clang's hat tip.

"How stupid do they think I am?" "Very." "Very what?" "Very stupid."

"That's what I think, I think."

First full Judy episode since Magic Path!

"He's drunk with power!"

'I'm just gonna jump out and scare some toddlers!'

'Let's defeat them with dancing!'

And Judy is safe!

Keep those cards and letters coming!

I rank it Judy, I love her!

W 4, F 4, WH 10

Dinner for 2 notes (cut intro)

Time dohicky: probably not gonna go right!

Is it bad I can relate? (I think it's a note to loneliest witch but I'm not sure)

Jimmy, you're never going home.

Alright, it is stated he's 12.

"At least I think he's alive."

"Is that your nose, or are you eating a banana?"

Hot milk and cookies: the way to Jimmy's heart!

Find the witch a man! It's for your own sake!

Witchiepoo was a baby at some point!

Keep those cards and letters coming!

Meh, not very notable.

W 16, F 2, WH 1

Flute, Book, & Candle notes (full intro)

Terrible video quality. (This is on all platforms)

Mushrooms, just mushrooms.

Books can have siblings.

His name is just Candle.

Artful Dodger reference.

*kicks them* "Bye now!"

The book has a beard.

It just cut off half the song!

There was no see you next week!

Worst episode so far.

W 9, F 2, WH 3

A Tooth For A Tooth notes ☆ (cut intro)

So a love potion?

The fact that a witch raid is par for the course.

A doctor has to treat a patient.

"Yoo hoo, feathered medicine person!"

7:08 (on internet archive), this scene cracks me up.

The origin of the 'oh, my poor ace friend' meme. (Meme I created. It's not a real meme.)

Witchiepoo's face.

This episode's giving me tooth rot.

This was the closest he ever got to going home.

Keep those cards and letters coming!

I like it but I don't know what to say about it.

W 22, F 0, WH 11

Movie Episode notes ☆ (cut intro)

Slowed down, yay! 🙄 (on internet archive.)

Judy! And others.

Yay! Their gonna kill off horse!

If I get a kiss from Judy, Hell yeah I'll go! (No. Shut up. Don't don't do this to us.)

Stupid bat and horse have the same voice.

That means Judy has to leave... 😥

Another kiss?! Sign me up! (SHUT UP!)

Why do they have to say witch so much?

Buy our Pufnstuf plush!

Judy is the idea frog!

Jimmy does drag!

'How dare you say I'm not pretty.' (I think it was supposed to be an incorrect quote, but I'm not sure.)

*lifts up wand* *recoiled*

*breaks wand*

"I hereby banish you from Living Island, forever!" (Why can only boss witch do that?)

Keep those cards and letters coming!

W 69, F 0, WH 10

Election notes ☆ (full intro)

Slowed down (on internet archive), again!

No one wants to run against Pufnstuf.

"If a lumpy dragon can be mayor, why can't a pooped out pigeon?" (I'm not a dragon, I'm changeling!)

"We women have a right to change our minds!" Take that as you will!

Jimmy writes his own songs.

Judy!

Yeah, but Judy kissed you too! This is why I don't like horse. (No, you hate him because he's a backstabbing hypocrite and because of episode 10.)

"There's only one thing to do... PANIC!"

Jimmy shrugs.

'I'm a shooter and I'm running for president. See? I didn't bring my gun.'

The witch just did a Trump move.

'Uh, uh, he's honest!'

I love Pufnstuf sobbing.

You went down to her level!

Keep those cards and letters coming!

W 10, F 2, WH 2

Western Horse notes (full intro)

Horse has a crush on Shirley. Ugh...

You need to make money to get rid of the witch?

Freddy's a background character nowadays?

I forgot about the witch.

Nothing about Freddy. It's the forget about Freddy song all over again!

This is why I hate horse.

'Jimmy doesn't need to go home, let's make a movie!'

Not even a word about Freddy.

"I ain't Mary Poppins!"

"What happened to Horse and Shirley?" And Freddy.

Suicide joke! You know, for kids!

What happened to Freddy? I want my dude in distress!

"Now, I got the whole gang." What about Freddy?!?!

Keep those cards and letters coming.

😒 0/5

W 10, F 2, WH 1

♡ Jimmy who? Notes ☆ yes! (Full intro)

Jimmy falls and almost cracks his head open.

Horse.

"No, who's Jimmy?"

Yay! Freddy's back!

I love a jump cut.

"I'm an owl, I'm supposed to say who!"

'Jimmy, sit down.'

Birthday flashback.

'I'm getting outta here.' 'Jimmy, sit down.'

Artful Dodger flashback.

'Let's leave the kid who wants to leave alone! He totally won't leave!'

And Freddy's gone. Well, it was fun while it lasted!

The trees go into the castle.

They mentioned him! (Freddy)

Mechanical boy flashback.

Milk and cookies. Our hero, lady's and gents!

"Why did you break in here? Leave this poor lady alone!"

He chooses wrong!

'Witchiepoo who?'

Keep those cards and letters coming!

W 13, F 6, WH 4

And that is all my notes. That was so long. I'm sorry.

#long post #like seriously #this post is so long #hr pufnstuf #sid and marty krofft

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litgwritersroom · 2 years

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ANGEL FOOD CAKE

A spinoff of Ashes and Lilies in which Corporal McKenzie hopes for a chance at love.

Written for this month's Character Spotlight, submission from banirareiko

Pairing: Bobby/MC

Word count: 4900+

Note: Post WWII AU. There may be some inaccuracies for the sake of plot and dialogues. Contains major spoilers for Ashes and Lilies (but can be read as a standalone).

Shameless Self Promo: Click here to read Ashes and Lilies (recommended before diving into this oneshot).

Seeing Kaminski fall in love during the war and going through all the stages of emotions that came with it made Bobby realize that he, too, would like to experience love himself.

C-rations had always been notoriously known for tasting like absolute crap, and to Corporal Robert, or Bobby as he preferred to be called, McKenzie, that kind of crap would make for perfect culinary experiments when he wasn’t on the battlefield. In fact, testing out weird and borderline inedible concoctions from military rations had been the one thing that had helped him stay sane and positive during his deployment to Japan towards the end of the Second World War. The operation in Okinawa was simply too harrowing, too bloody and deadly, with too many casualties from both sides, and in honesty, he would’ve lost it long ago had he not picked up this odd hobby of his and had someone to share the results with.

It was during this operation that he befriended Private Kaminski, one of his underlings that he considered his own little brother, and the only one person in the unit he was leading who was willing to eat whatever bullshit it was that he had put together from the ration packs they got. Truth to be told, Bobby had been a bit suspicious when Kaminski suddenly became obsessed with finding out about the Okinawa Lily Corps nurses when they returned to Japan under General MacArthur to assist with restoration. Still, he didn’t want to ask about it, and simply offered to pull his back alley connections to help his junior out.

He didn’t need to ask anyway. Kaminski ended up confiding in him on their way back to the United States that the younger man had fallen in love with one of the nurses who had perished, and he had finally accepted that she was truly gone after having that information confirmed to him twice. Or so he had thought.

When Kaminski came back from his little trip to Japan with the nurse who turned out to have survived, and their daughter, and the nurse’s entire family in tow, Bobby was so happy for his junior. If there was one thing Bobby could say about Kaminski, it was that this little brat truly had a heart of gold and deserved all the happiness in the world after an entire year of painful heartbreak thinking that he had lost the love of his life forever to the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki last year.

But at the same time, seeing Kaminski with a wife and a child shortly after the war got Bobby realizing that he, too, would like to experience love and meet someone who would be his other half in life.

—

“Yes! Free money!”

Erin Kimura gave her older brother a look as he screamed on top of his lungs while their father pulled out a check from an envelope addressed to the family from the United States government, but soon found a huge grin stretching across her face as her eyes fell upon the numbers written on the slip of paper.

“Now I don’t blame you anymore, Willem,” she elbowed her brother playfully as he slinged an arm across her shoulders, “That is indeed a lot of money.”

To make up for the horrible treatment the Kimura family had been subjected to in the Japanese internment camps during the war, the government had sent them a whopping twenty thousand dollars now that they had been allowed to return to their small but cozy apartment in Manhattan. That was more than enough for Erin’s family to last for an entire year, if not longer.

“Do you want to get a cake or something?” Will winked at her as their father went to tell their mother about the money, “Seeing that now we have some extra money and we finally can get something nice for ourselves after a whole year of eating shit at camp.”

That, and because Will knew that his baby sister had a massive sweet tooth.

“That sounds good honestly,” Erin smiled at her older brother, “Angel food cake?”

“Angel food cake,” Will nodded and threw himself onto the couch and kicked off his slippers, “Can you go pick it up? My back hurts after carrying all those document boxes for dad.”

In all honesty, Erin had always had a love-hate relationship with her older brother. She loved him to bits because he was, well, her brother. A good one actually. But at the same time, he was extremely annoying because his head was always somewhere else. He meant well, but he could be inconsiderate sometimes because of how much of an airhead he was and that frustrated Erin to no end.

For example, right now, she just wanted to pull his ear hard for making her go get the cake by herself.

“Willem where–

And as usual, her brother was already dead asleep on the couch before even telling her where he would like to get the cake from. So much had already changed since the end of the war, and it pained Erin to have to accept that the bakery her family usually would frequent had closed. The Kimuras never got a chance to try a different place before being hauled off to the internment camp, and had never had the opportunity to go around much since they were released only two months ago anyway.

Erin supposed she had no other choice but to walk around the city to look for a new bakery. She really wanted that cake.

Ugh. Fine.

—

Since being honorably discharged from the military after his service in the war, Bobby had been slowly but surely reintegrating himself back into society. The war had been traumatizing, but he was trying his best to take it one day at a time moving on with his life, and he was more than grateful that he was able to do so doing what he loved.

In the past couple of months, he had opened a small bakery tucked away on 42nd Street, between 6th and 7th Avenue, near Bryant Park, and lovingly named it “The Cake Man.” Business had gone surprisingly better than he had thought; even though he wasn’t exactly making bank, he did have a steady stream of customers who loved his baking, and to him, that was more than enough.

Kaminski and his wife sometimes came by, too, and seeing his junior feeding cake to his lady made Bobby’s heart warm and ache at the same time.

He was still waiting for love to come to him, but so far, he had never really felt that spark with anyone just yet.

Sighing as he finished up dusting powdered sugar on top of a freshly baked angel food cake, Bobby forced himself to smile,

Well, just stay positive and–

He was cut off by the chiming sound of the bell on the bakery’s door, and immediately thought maybe, just maybe, today would be the day for him after all as his eyes fell upon who it was that had just entered his store.

It was a girl with shoulder length dark hair and wide dark eyes in a baby blue and white polka dot dress, looking a little lost as her eyes scanned the rows of cakes in the glass case against the wall.

Hot damn.

—

Erin literally had no idea how she ended up in the Bryant Park area during her search for her angel food cake despite having gone past a couple of different stores in the past hour. In all honesty, there was just something not quite right with those stores. Not that there was anything wrong with them, it was that to Erin, something was just missing.

Something that she somehow felt like she probably could find in this tiny bakery on 42nd called “The Cake Man,” even when she was a tad bit disappointed that there was no angel food cake to be seen in the glass display case in the bakery despite the heavenly smell of freshly baked sweets and pastries, or so she thought.

“Welcome,” a cheerful male voice said and snapped her out of it, “I’m the cake man who owns The Cake Man. How can this cake man help ya?”

Erin almost snorted at the term “cake man” being repeated three times in two sentences, but held herself back as she looked away from the glass case to address the source of the voice, and immediately felt a little giddy inside as her eyes met a pair of warm honey eyes.

Cute.

The man who had just introduced himself as the owner of the bakery was tall and very attractive with a lean but toned body, light brown skin and fluffy textured hair, and Erin would be damned if this man wasn’t the most eye-catching man she had ever seen in her entire life.

“Like what you see?”

The man grinned, snapping Erin out of it as he waved a hand over himself and then continued, “Though I’m not sure if it’s me or the cakes you’re thinking of right now anymore.”

Erin felt heat rush onto her cheeks as the man winked,

Oh, definitely not the cakes. Not anymore.

But she supposed she should still ask if he had some angel food cake in the back somehow and get going. She couldn’t afford to stay much longer in this bakery and get distracted by this good-looking man, as much as she found him a total babe on the eye. She didn’t feel ready to entertain the thought. Her family literally just got released from prison not long ago, and she wanted some time for herself to get back to normal life–

Why am I getting all rational right now? Just get the cake and go home.

But when Erin finally got her shit together, the man had already disappeared into the door leading to the back of the store. He wasn’t gone for long, though. Before she could call out for him, he emerged from the kitchen, carrying a box of–

“Angel food cake–

“Freshly made,” the man grinned happily, “Did I guess right?”

How the hell–

As much as Erin was resisting herself, a smile broke across her face as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear,

“How did you know that?”

The man simply laughed, and Erin decided that the sound of his laughter was the happiest sound she had ever heard beside her own brother screaming “sweet freedom” the moment her family was released from prison. His laughter was light and cheerful, but at the same time, there was something Erin couldn’t quite put a finger on. Something warm and hearty. Something she knew deep down she wanted more of, yet her mind refused to let herself accept it.

“You didn’t seem into any of the cakes in the case, and the only thing I usually make that I haven’t put out today yet is angel food cake,” the man shrugged, “So I thought I might as well try my luck.”

That’s actually kinda adorable.

“Oh. And here I thought you had the power of mind-reading,” Erin raised an eyebrow at the baker teasingly, “You just got lucky today, then.”

The man simply shook his head with a chuckle, “Damn right I did. It’s not like everyday a pretty girl like you comes into my bakery.”

He just called me pretty– Wait… He just called me PRETTY?

Erin honestly didn’t know what to do next besides standing there dumbfoundedly with her jaw dropped and her eyes wide opened in shock as the man smiled and began wrapping the cake box.

What the hell? Get yourself together. You came here to get your cake, not to flirt with the baker.

Erin was so screwed. Will would have a field day when he heard about this.

—

“There you go.”

Bobby handed the girl her cake box with a huge smile plastered on his face, but in reality, he was shitting himself inside. Especially when the girl was in her trance for a second there, probably shocked that his big mouth had just slipped that he thought she was pretty.

Real smooth, Bobby. Real smooth.

Having the box presented in front of her seemed to snap the girl out of it, though, as she bashfully smiled and accepted the cake from him, a lovely shade of pink bloomed across the pale skin of her face.

“How much do I owe you,” the girl asked, “for the angel food cake?”

Don’t do it, Bobby. Don’t do it. Just don–

“It’s on the house, sweetheart,” Bobby grinned, “consider it an attempt to win you over.”

Damn it, Bobby. You just did it.

As much as Bobby was cursing himself inside his head, deep down, he just knew that he had to take this chance. There was just something so intriguing about this girl, yet also quite familiar, that he just wanted to find out more about. She was pretty, but he doubted that she was just a pretty face. If he wanted a chance at experiencing all the magic Kaminski had told him about, then he had to take that leap of faith now, before losing the opportunity to do so forever.

The girl simply blinked at him, but then shook her head. Just as he had thought.

“You don’t have to do that. Let me pay for it.”

Might as well take the plunge then.

“No,” Bobby smiled, “I insist.”

To his disappointment, though, the girl shook her head again, “Please don’t. Let me pay.”

Bobby supposed he shouldn’t overstep the boundaries, then.

“...Alright,” he sighed, “That will be a dollar. Thanks.”

His heart broke a little when the girl handed him the bill, if he was being honest. He kind of hated himself now, actually. Maybe he shouldn’t have flirted with her that openly. Maybe he should’ve saved the jokes for another occasion. Maybe he shouldn’t have placed a bet with his heart just like that.

Still, he steeled himself and forced a smile back onto his face as he pocketed the bill.

“Thank you,” the girl smiled before turning to leave, “I appreciate it.”

Oh well, I shot my shot.

Bobby sighed inwardly as he watched her go out the door, but then, he almost had a heart attack when she turned back to look at him with a bright smile on her face. And to Bobby, that smile of hers was the sun itself– brilliant and warm. That was more than enough to lift his mood, if he was being honest.

“I never got your name,” she called out, “Can’t keep referring to you as Cake Man when I gush about your cake to my brother.”

Bobby supposed he should take what he could get. At least for now.

“Call me Bobby,” he grinned, “though Cake Man works just fine.”

The girl giggled, and Bobby decided that it was the most angelic sound he had ever heard in a very long time.

“Let’s save Cake Man for when we’ve been acquainted for longer–

What does she mean by longer? Wait– Is she…

Bobby felt his heartbeat quicken again.

“Nice to meet you, and I’ll definitely come back,” the girl smiled at him one last time before leaving for real, “I’m Erin. See you soon.”

Bobby could only manage to wave at her with the smile still frozen on his face as she turned and walked out the door, the cake box safely cradled in her arms.

Erin… Her name is as pretty as she is.

—

Erin had been cursing herself the entire train ride home. She knew that she had hurt Bobby a little bit by refusing to accept his gesture to give her the cake for free; he wasn’t actually that hard to read, in all honesty. He definitely was a jokester, a flirty one if anything, and despite her brain telling her that this was the last thing she needed right now, her heart fluttered at the recollection of his cheerful voice and warm smile. And for that, she mentally kicked herself for having been a tad bit mean to him, even when she knew she didn’t do anything wrong.

Oh well, I have no idea what to do now.

She knew she liked Bobby right away. He was a fun person to be around, and she felt like maybe, just maybe, hanging out with him could teach her how to enjoy life again after being held in prison for a whole year.

The rational side of her was slowly losing, if she was being honest, and she wasn’t actually as scared of that as she had expected herself to be.

Should I confide in Will?

As much as Erin hated to admit it, her airhead brother probably would have some surprisingly insightful advice for her.

Because only between the Kimura siblings, Will had actually been secretly spying on Japanese spies for the American army during the war from the internment camp, and therefore, had met all kinds of people around him and had a lot of experiences interacting with different people.

Nobody besides Erin and Will himself knew this. Not even their parents.

—

“So what you’re saying is that you could’ve gotten this amazing angel food cake for free and you turned down the offer because you were being a prude?”

Erin honestly just wanted to chuck her napkin at her brother, who had just deadpanned the statement as he shoved a forkful of cake into his mouth and raised an eyebrow disapprovingly at her.

“Missed opportunity,” Will shook his head, “This cake is so good.”

“I know,” Erin glared at her brother, “Shut up.”

As much as she was annoyed at Will, what he said made sense. She could’ve just taken the cake for free. It wasn’t like Bobby’s offer came with any strings attached anyway. She just let her initial shock at Bobby calling her pretty cloud her judgment, and honestly, now she felt a little silly for that.

The cake was indeed amazing, though. It was so light and fluffy and not overly sweet, and the arrangement of berries and dollops of cream just made the entire thing so balanced and refreshing. This cake was probably even better than the ones she and Will used to get at the old store they used to frequent if she was completely honest.

“So, what made you turn down free food?” Will asked before shoving another forkful of cake into his mouth, “Besides you being an idiot and panicking at someone calling you pretty?"

“I don’t know, honestly,” Erin sighed, “I guess I’m an idiot. Bobby was really nice and I’m kinda into his jokes. And his looks, to be honest.”

“Dear sister,” Will chuckled, “you are indeed an idiot. Loosen up, we’re not in prison anymore and I’m here to help us get back on our feet too. Let yourself enjoy a bit of fun. Who knows. He could end up being my brother-in-la–

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Erin held up her fork in between herself and her brother, “I literally just met the guy today.”

“So?”

“Too soon.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Will shrugged and cut himself another slice of the fluffy cake, “I’d say follow your heart and give it a go. I’ll even come with you to get another one of this treasure of a cake later this week if it helps.”

Erin gave her brother a half smile.

She supposed her brother had indeed been a good brother despite being a prick most of the time.

—

Will kept his promise. He did, indeed, accompany Erin to pay Bobby’s bakery another visit a few days later to get another of that heavenly angel food cake.

“The Cake Man, really?” Will snorted the moment he saw the colorful sign hung on top of the door to the bakery, “You weren’t kidding.”

“Shut up,” Erin punched her brother lightly on the shoulder, “I never said I was.”

As hard as Erin was trying to keep herself still, her heart had begun slamming hard against her ribcage the moment her nose caught the wafting scent of freshly baked cake all the way from the corner of 6th and 42nd as she and Will were heading to The Cake Man. Sure, she was excited to get another one of Bobby’s amazing angel food cakes, but she would be lying if she said that the cake was the only reason why she felt absolutely giddy and bouncy right now.

The thought of seeing Bobby again sent butterflies straight into her stomach.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Will smiled reassuringly, “If he does anything indecent I’ll beat him up for you.”

“Will you, though,” Erin snorted, “Somehow I doubt it.”

Her brother only shrugged as he opened the door to the bakery, “Let’s hope I won’t have to prove it to you, then.”

—

For the past four days, Bobby had held out hope that Erin would make good on her words. Every single time he heard the bell chime, he got excited for a second there, but instantly became disappointed that it wasn’t Erin who came by.

Well, except the one time that Kaminski and his now-pregnant-again wife dropped by. Bobby was always happy to see a friend at any time.

“Well, have a little faith. At least you know she’s alive,” Kaminski had told him (and immediately got his ear pinched by his wife). And in all honesty, the younger man was right. The war was over. There was no need to be anxious about not being able to see someone ever again for good.

Bobby supposed he should be patient.

And patience did pay off today when he saw Erin in a yellow sundress walking into his bakery, accompanied by a man who he hoped was the brother she had mentioned to him.

“Hey, you came back!”

To his pleasure, Erin’s face lit up immediately the moment her eyes fell upon him. But before she could say anything, the man with her stepped forward and offered his hand to Bobby, an amused smile twisted on his face,

“You must be Bobby. I’m Erin’s brother. The name’s Willem Kimura,” the man grinned, “Pleasure to finally meet the mastermind behind the best angel food cake I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Thanks!” Bobby laughed in response, but then something just struck him.

Willem Kimura… Wait–

“Are you by any chance,” Bobby suddenly dropped his voice low enough for only Willem to hear, ignoring the way the other man raised his eyebrow quizzically and Erin frowning in confusion, “Whisper Kimura?”

When Bobby was still in the military, he just couldn’t help it but hook himself up with several contacts in order to give himself a leg up when he was deployed to Okinawa. If he was being completely truthful, doing so was the only reason why he managed to emerge unscathed from the war and get his hands on classified information on both sides, and also how he managed to get Kaminski the information his junior needed in the search for his beloved nurse back then.

One of his points of contact was an American-born Japanese who moonlighted as an American spy by pretending to be a Japanese spy in the United States, who was named Willem Kimura but went by the code name Whisper.

Willem’s face didn’t give anything away, but the way his grip tightened around Bobby’s hand told Bobby all he needed to know.

“I see,” Willem nodded and mumbled through gritted teeth, “Your name is Bobby… You must be the Corporal Robert McKenzie that I was in contact with, then. Not that hard to figure out to be honest.”

And to Bobby’s surprise, Willem instantly laughed right after.

Erin just stared at them with confusion written all over her face, and Bobby immediately felt guilty. However, before he could say another word, Willem cut in,

“Erin, sister, I know this guy. Never met him in person before, though, but never expected him to be a baker now.”

“Wait a minute,” Erin frowned, her eyes flitted between Bobby and her brother, “How on earth–

“He’s a veteran. I sent him codes and all that when he was deployed in Japan,” Willem laughed again, before turning to Bobby, “She knows about all that. Only her, though. But it doesn’t matter. The war’s over."

Oh.

Wait–

Before either Erin or Bobby could react, Willem patted Bobby on the shoulder as if they had been drinking buddies for ages and grinned at his sister,

“I’m gonna take a smoke. Behave, you two.”

With that, he headed out, leaving both Bobby and Erin staring at each other awkwardly.

That’s some serious whiplash that just happened.

—

“So…”

“This is… interesting.”

Erin had never expected that her own brother turned out to have known Bobby all along. But to be fair, in the war, the only contact Will and Bobby had of each other was through sending codes, so it would make sense that they never really knew what the other person looked like until just now.

What a coincidence it was.

“I did not sign up for this when I tried to give you the cake,” Bobby grinned bashfully, and Erin found the way his cheeks turned red was just so adorable, “I guess it’s a bit weird to know that I flirted with the sister of my informant, if anything.”

Erin smiled, “I guess so.”

Bobby shrugged, “Oh well, that was funny at least.”

“It was.”

Despite her last attempt at reasoning with herself, Erin found the way her heart warmed at Bobby’s awkwardness pleasant. She supposed she did owe him an apology after all. Even when she technically didn’t mean to, she did come off a little rigid the other day, and the slight sadness in his eyes that she saw when she refused his offer was something she didn’t really want to see again.

Especially now that she knew he was a veteran who had seen the horrors of war. He deserved happiness, and if she could give it to him, even as a friend for now, she would gladly do so.

As Bobby gave her a tentative smile while arranging cakes on the display case, she broke the silence,

“Hey Bobby. I’m sorry I was a bit rude to you the other day. You only wanted to be nice and I just wasn’t used to being called pretty, you know.”

That stopped him in his track, and he instantly turned to face her, a good-natured smile on his face as he waved her off,

“It’s all good. Don’t worry about it sweetie.”

His smile was still warm as he continued, “You are objectively pretty, though. And look, no harm done. You did come back and I’m happy to see you today.”

Oh damn it.

Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies. That was all Erin could feel blooming in her stomach and spreading all over her body from the inside.

Maybe Will’s right. This could be the start of something good actually.

“I’m happy to be back here, too. That cake was amazing!”

Giving Bobby the brightest smile she could give, Erin reassured Bobby as she locked eyes with him, and immediately allowed herself to get lost in the sea of warm caramel and honey behind the long lashes on his eyes.

Bobby’s face broke into a grin. Erin’s heart fluttered again.

“Glad you liked it.”

And then, his face dropped into a more serious look. As if he was nervous. But Erin was certain that he had nothing to worry about again this time.

“Erin…” Bobby forced another smile onto his face, “Would you like another angel food cake?”

Of course, you goofball.

With an encouraging smile, she nodded, but clearly, that wasn’t what Bobby was anxious about, because right after that, his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard and found the words to ask her another question.

“And, erm… Is it alright if I put it on the house this time?”

Called it.

The Erin of last week would’ve turned him down again. But the Erin of today was different. She supposed she could give him a chance and try. Who knew, this could maybe lead to a solid friendship.

Or, she hoped despite her prudish brain, this could blossom into something more than friendship. Something beautiful. Something she had never experienced before.

Something she would cherish forever.

“Sure.”

The way Bobby’s face lit up happily at her response was definitely worth it. And Erin wanted to make his day even better.

An idea crossed her mind. An unconventional one, too, but to hell with gender roles. She was Willem Kimura’s sister after all.

Oh what the hell? Let’s do it.

“Nothing is free, though,” she winked at him, “Let’s make this even. How does going to the movies together next weekend sound? I want to get to know you more, and Will certainly approves of this idea.”

Bobby froze for a second in shock, but then, the biggest smile Erin had ever seen from him stretched across his face as his eyes twinkled excitedly,

“Glad to hear your brother approves, darling. I want to get to know you more, too. It’s a date, then?”

Erin chuckled at his adorable reaction, not realizing that her eyes themselves had already begun to reflect the twinkle in Bobby’s,

“It’s a date, Cake Man.”

—

Kaminski’s gonna want to hear all about this. I hope I can find what he found in Kana with Erin. Ah, screw that. I know I can find it with Erin. She literally laughed at the joke I made at the movies earlier about how a pornstar skipped a filming day because he couldn’t come.

Erin Kimura. I just know that she’s the one.

It’s always been her.

#submission #litg bobby #litg bobby x mc #character spotlight #litg character spotlight #love island the game #litg #litg fanfic #litg fic #alternate universe #post ww2 au #litg will #litg bruno #litg writers room #writers room

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