Pinfeathers and Pocket Watches

I made an art/anatomy tutorial about birds! I hope people will find it helpful!

Dream

@dsudis asked for overalls and it IS spring.

Imagine these two silly gooses owning a flower shop and Hob walks in looking for some daisies.

Spent 20 minutes editing the Casino Royale poker scene to be chutes and ladders instead of finishing my English homework.

That one treasure planet scene between captain Amelia and Doppler

Some night, he flew above the twinkling lights of Blüdhaven’s buildings, wind rushing through his hair and the feeling of weightlessness pushing at the curve of his back.

There were a multitude of things that Dick Grayson appreciated, loved, Bruce for. One of those things would always be that his adopted dad allowed him to fly once more, even after his parents’ wings were cut.

In the air, he was home.

In the air, Dick Grayson felt like he was living up to, flying alongside, the Flying Graysons. Every flip, every trick he used to go faster, to fight better, felt like his parents were there guiding his every move.

Time healed his hurt, but still, the hole in his heart remained.

So when one of his best friends, a ghost vigilante by the name Phantom, asked him if he wanted to see his parents, he froze like a deer in bright white headlights.

“What…?”

Phantom did a flip in midair. “Wanna see your parents? They’ve been asking if they could talk to you.”

“My parents… are ghosts?” That was the least pressing question he had right now, but it was all his mouth could speak.

“Kind of. It’s complicated,” Phantom side-eyed him. “It would require going into the zone.”

And just like that, Dick understood. After the Amity Park came onto the map and the Justice League fixed the human and alien and meta rights violations that were happening right under their nose, Phantom had permanently closed all access to the Zone. Save, of course, for himself and a few magic users, who all refused to anger the King of the Dead.

“The only way you’re getting to my people now, is through me. Should anyone try to get into the zone, without my permission… I will make sure that you and your family’s afterlives will pay the appropriate price.”

No-one wanted to test his threat. The afterlife is something few fucked with and came back whole.

The Phantom they’d seen on the news then was incredibly different than the one in front of him now. Dick knows, understands now, that it was because Phantom trusted him. After years of being denied help, years of struggling all by himself to keep reality from collapsing while avoiding getting experimented on by humans understandably closed his heart.

“You’d take me into the Zone?” Dick didn’t know what he was feeling. Hope, fear, trust, touched, happiness, something.

A lot of things.

Danny shrugged. “Yeah. I trust you,” he said as he glanced back at Dick-at Nightwing. “Only you, though. No one else.”

The question that remained was whether Dick trusted Phantom too. And considering the fact that the ghost king ironically saved his ass from being killed a couple of times meant, “Yeah. I- I’d love to.”

Danny smiled, all pointed teeth and solemn trust. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“Now?!” Dick stood up anyways, his heart in his throat. Danny held out a gloved hand.

“Yeah, now. Haven’t you heard that death waits for no one?” At Dick’s concerned look, Danny added, “Don’t worry. You won’t actually die. You’ll come back whole and alive, I promise.”

“Oh, okay. Let’s go, then!”

——

Clark Kent threw himself out of the window, Superman suit already on.

Seonds later, he was hovering in front of Bruce’s shadowy form on top of a gargoyle.

“Clark,” Batman greeted in his gravelly voice, irritated. “What.”

“Batman, Nightwing’s heartbeat- it disappeared!”

Bruce’s heartbeat stuttered.

$122,000. And the thing is so shodily designed that the accelerator can become that easily stuck. It isn't even all one piece.

$122,000. That's more than my entire household income, and we're 3 adults with full-time jobs.

If you gave that $122,000 to Feeding America, that would provide over 1 million meals.

That's $122,000 more than Tesla paid in taxes.

SHE THINKS HER LAUGH IS A SONG SO SHE SINGS BACK

Jin says he only eats things he killed himself…

Book your guided tour today!

To understand what's going on here, know these things:

It's absurd and horrifying at the same time.

I read somewhere, and believe it, that inkjet printers work on the modified Gillette razor principal: sell the initial product cheap and profit by selling the always-needed refill that keeps it working.

Except that - and here's where "modified" comes in - while safety razors will take any blade of the correct shape, printers can be DRM-chipped (looking at you, HP) to ignore anything but the manufacturer's own refills. Those can then be priced as that manufacturer pleases, and discount sources can do only so much to ease the sting.

They can also be chipped to stop working when one colour runs low, no matter the state of the others. (Looking at you again, HP). This can be annoying enough with individual colour cartridges; it's bloody infuriating if the four colours are in a single unit that has to be replaced en bloc before the damned thing starts working again.

We had one of those (guess what brand) and it didn't take much simple arithmetic to realise that it would take very few refills before we reached the price of a more expensive but much better device.

So we sold the HP and got a Brother mono laser 3-function for heavy work, and a cheap-ish Canon colour inkjet 3-function for everything else.

*****

Best move ever.

It cost about €130 more than a printer-only inkjet, was bought in April 2018, is only on its second toner cartridge (generic, not branded), works reliably on the house network and so can print from any device from PC to phone.

*****

For colour work @dduane has that non-network Canon, which continues to print well when required - cross fingers, spin three times and spit to foil the gremlins - probably because its 4 x individual-colour (we made sure of that) cartridge consumption is more balanced by doing only colour printing rather than heavy black-only use for docs.

*****

The Brother we got was DCP-L2530DW...

...which may be available at discount since it's been discontinued and replaced by DCP-L2660DW...

...though IMO this other current model, DCP-L2620DW...

...is better for home use.

The specs suggest it's a more direct replacement for our device, and that flat top is far less intrusive than the angled feed hopper (which also prevents use as, inevitably, a part-time shelf).

DD's Canon is Pixma MG2550S...

...and AFAIK is still current.

This info is provided for reference; we're not shilling for Brother or Canon, just passing on satisfied-customer opinions, so all of the above is IMO and YMMV

:->

Part 2: A Dream of an Autumn Garden

A few more photos of Mr. Morpheus, continuing from my post here!

As I said on the other photoset, I'm very happy & proud of him! I'm happy I decided to take my time to get him just how I wanted & edit the photos I took nicely. I hope you all love him too. Sweet dreams~

I have included a bunch of Cool Facts about how I made him under the cut if you are so inclined!

Kwisatz Haderach

So, thanks to President Biden’s Infrastructure Bill, remote locations on the Navajo Nation Reservation will be receiving electricity for the first time — ever.

Also, water treatment devices are being developed to help the tribe access clean running water. After decades without.

#controversial opinion: the infrstructure bill was one of the most important bills passed in the past decade (or even... longer)#the fact that biden got it passed can never be understated. that bill sat in congress for YEARS.#we're fixing problems that have been problems for decades because of this bill