bumbling along

So sweet.

Don’t be sad if you were alone on Valentine’s Day, even death didn’t have a date </3 WEBTOON

Sometimes I think about how Posts+ is still a thing Tumblr is trying to get us on board with.

Like “People will pay for your posts!”

DEADASS??? Because they ain’t even hitting Reblog right now.

tfw u owe ur friend money but no one carries cash anymore and it turns into a series of elaborate trades that resurrects the barter system.

#“don’t worry about it just buy me like four coffees”

Our son Sam has told us that the D&D art file we use for a screensaver on various devices bothers him.

Because it makes him frustrated that he can’t look at some of them longer. He wants to know what is happening in some of them.

I told him that is one of the reasons we play Dungeons & Dragons, so we can go find out together, in our collective imagination.

Not really D&D related- but I feel compelled to add to this that not only are these GORGEOUS pixel arts- they are also in fact not animated. There are no frames used. There’s no extra pieces of art. Just one layer.

These pieces are so old that they stem from a time where animating cost way too much memory and/or only 256 colors could be used at one time, so the motion is achieved by ‘color cycling’. Half the available colors would be reserved for that very color cycling. It’s mchecking bonkers, please go watch this video if you feel like learning the technical details of how these artworks were made! They were screensavers that would match the actual time of day that you were in. Somehow. Just by cycling color palettes. Wild shit.

(Especially relevant time stamps for color cycling: 5:50, 9:55, 37:26, at 49:54 he gets into the technical side of HOW this even works)

Yup.

I’ve always enjoyed how they depicted some of the landscapes at different times of the day/weather/season.

Like these two areas. Daytime and nighttime at the village by the waterfalls.

And the high mountains hidden by rain in one and visible in the other.

yall r gonna post a man's entire portfolio of art and not give credit?

anyways these images are by mark ferrari, a color cycling pixel art master, you can check them out in their html color cycling forms, with sound effects and ability to change the time of day of the image, here and here

It’s my grandpa’s birthday next week and he said “I don’t want to be 85” and my grandmother, his wife of 59 and a half years, said “well your only alternative is to die”, I can’t believe how affectionate they are

I was having lunch with them today and my grandpa started throwing napkins at my grandmother, and she balled it up and looked all set to throw it back but then she put it down and said “I will not throw it because I was brought up properly, you were dragged” she has spent ¾ of her life with this man

I thought I’d let you know how they’ve been getting on during lockdown, so here’s some of the FaceTime conversation from today:

“My goodness, the way technology is advancing - in 20 years we’ll be able to shake hands through the screen!”

“Rex, I don’t think we’ll be here in 20 years.”

“Well you can make your own plans, I shall only be 109.”

What’s up friends, it’s been 3 years, grandpa has made it to 88 and they’ve been married 62.5 years! Please enjoy another instalment:

Grandpa: the new packs are.. it’s.. what is it. It self destructs

Grandma : biodegradable, Rex.

I still can’t believe no one told me how hilarious Around the World in 80 Days is. I can’t stop thinking about how funny it is that Phileas Fogg is the most boring, straight-laced person imaginable and is secretly a maniac adventurer underneath. I thought the crazy things about this story would be the over-the-top gung-ho let’s-ride-in-hot-air-balloons adventures they’d wind up in. But no. It’s all because this guy’s insane.

Like, actual canon goes like this:

Phileas Fogg: *literally does nothing in life except go to his club and play whist*

Guys at the Reform Club: They say you can go around the world in 80 days, but I doubt it. 

Phileas Fogg: I can do it.

Reform Club Guys: No, that’s impossible. There’ll be storms and delays and stuff.

Fogg: I’ll bet you 20,000 pounds that I can.

Reform Club Guys: What? No, that’s unnecessary.

Fogg: I’m leaving tonight! See you in 80 days!

[Back at Fogg’s house]

Passepartout: Wow, I sure am glad to work for a boring guy who schedules every day down to the minute and never does anything strange or unexpected.

Fogg: Get in loser, we’re going around the world.

Passepartout: Excuse me, what?

Fogg: No questions. Take this bag full of six million dollars in cash and get to the train station.

And then, when they’re traveling around the world, his solution to traveling problems is invariably:

Person with Mode of Transport: I can’t take you where you need to go.

Fogg: What if I give you a huge stack of cash?

Person with Mode of Transport: Still no.

Fogg: What if I give you a ridiculously enormous stack of cash and also make demands for speed that endanger all our lives?

Person with Mode of Transport: I’m listening.

And then, once they cross the Pacific Ocean, America unleashes entirely new levels of crazy from this guy.

Random Belligerent American: *punches Fogg in the face for no reason*

Fogg: *wiping dirt from his face* As soon as my trip is over I will come back to America and hunt you down for a duel of honor.

[on the train]

Fogg: Hello, Random Belligerent American who had the misfortune to get on the same train as me. Prepared to die?

Random Belligerent American: Sure. Let’s do this right now.

Train Conductor: Would you like to shoot each other inside this train car that we’ll empty out for the purposes of the duel?

Fogg: That sounds entirely sensible and not at all insanely dangerous for the other people on the train.

That’s not even the most insane thing that happens in this story! The man stages a mutiny to cross the Atlantic! And reveals hitherto unforeseen sailing skills! The other characters are just as baffled as we are!

And after the story is over, the ending boils down to:

Fogg: Boy, I sure am glad that I managed to win that wager that I made for literally no reason. I barely came out ahead because of all the money I spent, and not winning that wager would have left me penniless, but I have proven that it is possible to travel the world in 80 days if you’re a maniac who has six million dollars in cash with you.

Reader: Okay, cool. Now are we going to get some backstory that explains where Fogg got all his money, or why he’s pathologically OCD, or where he got those mad pirate skills that were never hinted at before?

Jules Verne: LOL, no. Why would we need that?

Anyway, this book is wild and hilarious in an entirely different way than I ever expected based on what I absorbed about it from pop culture (there’s not even a hot air balloon!) and I’m kind of upset no one told me how much fun it was to follow this maniac around the world. 

mothers are insane they'll come into your bedroom exhibit mental illness then just leave

What… you mean… adults have actual real issues that they don’t magically grow out of just because they became a parent? They have memories that haunt them and thoughts that tear at them just as much, if not more so than children do? God forbid. I’m positive none of you have ever, ever been toxic to anyone close to you, anyone you love. I’m positive your voice isn’t an echo in someone else’s mind in a traumatic and volatile way… and I’m positive that none of those people are your parents. Relationships are destructive. People are imperfect. You are the only person who can save you. Learn empathy. Understand you cannot possible grasp how others suffer. And more than anything, learn that other people’s problems with you can tell you more about them than it ever can about you. Compassion. Love. It’s not one way. We are all broken.

^moms will come into your room, say this, and leave

Some people? Impose their trauma on their children instead of going to therapy or talking to their adult friends and family? To cope?

me every month: has my period AGAIN 

me every month: 

Welllllllllllllll periods suck(trust me, I was emotionally close with a woman, in fact close enough to feel her goddamn periods. Fuck I fucking hated it, men, don’t get that attached. Be supportive, feed her ice cream and whatever else she asks for, but don’t get attached enough to feel them. It’s not worth it.

Anyway, I hate to be callous but that’s just your body telling you to hurry up and get pregnant. Of course birth control also makes them not as bad, depending on what kind. Of course you find out that there’s more kinds of birth control than there are types of oil, which is a pain. There are more period blood containment things(yes, tht includes tampons, pads, cups, etc.) than there are types of oil according to my dad who actually knows his shit about the oil,saying there’s like 4 types.(Yes, talking about motor oil here)

So ladies, find what’s right for you. Ask a doctor. Test some different period things out. It’s for your own good

What the FUCK are you talking about

I thought I couldn’t fucking read for a minute

What

Did. This guy just. Assume women didnt. Know that. Did he just mansplain periods

Did he imply that he could actually feel someone else’s period??¿¿?

MOTOR OIL??????

literally cannot stop laughing at this

#and remember maryland (unhinges jaw as black smoke pours from my ears and mouth)

The “take place tonight” in the middle of the elder god monologue is the most ominous part.

i haven’t stopped thinking about this since last night

Now that Britney Spears is free, she’s inevitably going to do something weird and off-putting because she was in a long term traumatic situation with very little control of her life and getting your shit together is hard in the best of times and that does shit to a person and I’m genuinely afraid the public who has been rooting for her for so long is going to turn on her and even start questioning whether or not it’s good for her to be free of the conservatorship and people are gonna need to remember that the answer to that question is unequivocally yes

I’m ready for anything. Black Metal Britney Spears, competitive knitting Britney Spears, cave explorer Britney Spears, full-time mom Britney Spears, anything

Brittany doing everything a la Barbie is perfectly fine

i get y'all’s spirit and I agree that we should support whatever art she makes now that she has the freedom to make what she wants; but i’m pretty sure that’s not the point of the post. perhaps think less “off-beat production that i can consume” and more she is likely going to say something on social media, or in an interview, or a video, that is going to make people uncomfortable. She is going to show symptoms of her trauma and mental illness and people are going to use that as an excuse to demonize her once more. It is incredibly and painfully difficult to resocialize yourself when you have been deeply socially traumatized, and even more so when you have a burning spotlight on you. It’s not “stan this celebrity’s career” it’s “protect mentally ill people from systemic abuse even when their symptoms make you uncomfortable”

“kids these days are always on their phones, kids these days never go outside” ok how about kids these days have less freedom of movement & access to public spaces than any previous generation, forcing them indoors, forcing them to rely on electronics, when many would prefer to be outdoors hanging out with friends

this isn’t about the pandemic btw, this trend has been going on for like. 20 years now. it started with millennials and gen Z only has it worse

kids these days:

kids these days want to spend time outside, time in public, time hanging out with friends in person. kids these days do not want to constantly rely on the internet as their main source of socialization & leisure. but you have stolen all their options.

you have locked an entire generation indoors and thrown away the keys, and you have the audacity to complain that the prisoners spend too much time in their cells.

this just in: the worst person you know making a good point for once

hey, i know it’s a fun meme and all, but when you add this comment as a reaction to something a real person says you are literally punishing the behavior you want to see. and that’s part of a wider cycle of internet toxicity and abuse that I and others have written about at length.

and the thing is, I see this meme added to my posts–to my best posts–not infrequently. to my most serious and earnest posts, the ones I write when I’m angry because I care about something, and I want other people to care too.

and it’s incredibly disheartening when i take 45 minutes of my time to write and edit a post about an issue i care about, measuring and re-thinking my words, doing my best not to be ignorant or make mistakes, reading the comments to learn from and consider other people’s viewpoints, trying to keep an open mind—when I do all that, and this is the response i get. someone taking the opportunity to insult me for doing something right. someone tearing me down casually, for fun, for a joke, despite the fact they think what I’m saying has value.

yes, it’s a funny meme. but humor is all about context. it’s funny when The Onion does this for an article, a headline. it’s not so funny when used to harass random internet users in response to positive behavior. because how is that helpful? how does that make our online world in any way a better, more inhabitable place, for anyone? if you damn people no matter what they do, what gives anyone the incentive to do better?

just. please think carefully before adding stuff like this to people’s posts. Do not punish the behavior you want to see in the world. 

tip jar

Now that you have been reminded of it, check out oldgamesdownload.com or even archive.org, both of which have heaps of old games, to see if you can get it there instead. Some are executable files and but others are in ISO format, so you can add a virtual CD drive to your computer and play them just as you would off of a disk.

this movie is so fucking creepy jesus fuck

It’s by Tim Burton, what did you honestly expect?

Actually, it’s Henry Selick, who was the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The book was written by Neil Gaiman, though, and is far…far….worse.

Sorry, I’m about to geek the hell out.

The movie is captivating, but the book is twenty kinds of terrifying, even now, ten years after I first read it. As disturbing as the movie may have been to some, the things Selick added really serve to cushion just how horrific the story really is.

First of all, the character of Wybie does not exist in the book. Coraline is facing all of this nearly alone, with her only help coming from the sly comments of the cat, a warning from the circus mice, and the stone given to her by her neighbor, presented with no comment but that it “makes the unseen seen.”

Second, the Other Parents are never quite as warm (and, dare I say, normal) as they are in the gifs above. They’re described as having paper-white skin and the Other Mother’s hair is said to move on its own, and her long, red, claw-like nails don’t ease any uncertainty that she is absolutely, positively up to no good. The first time Coraline meets them, they (and the rest of the Others) seem to be playing roles (for whatever reason, Coraline does not seem to pick up on this), like they all know what to say and what to do and are simply waiting for Coraline to make her move in their terrifying play world. This is shown to be partly true when the Other Parents tell her they know she’ll be back soon after she refuses the buttons - this time, to stay.

Third, the Other Mother commits atrocities that really should not have been in a book for anyone not fully grown up. She physically deforms the world around Coraline to slow her progress in their game beyond any mild traps the movie portrays, and, instead of turning the Other Father into the wandering pumpkin-thing seen in the film, she simply ceases to use him and throws his body away in the cellar, leaving him to rot with whatever bit of sentience he has left. She begins to lose her touch, as Coraline gains the upper hand. Her world doesn’t just become a nightmare - it falls apart completely. No creepy but oddly cool bug furniture here, just the house that now appears to be a child’s drawing. Whatever the Other Mother is (a beldame, but something tells me she’s much more ancient and powerful than that), she does not give half a hump about what she has to do to ensnare Coraline. Destroy the supporting characters of her twisted creation? Done. Allow herself to be dismembered to ruin Coraline’s life in the normal world? Not even gonna bat an eyelash.

On a final, personal note, imagine eight year-old me, ignored by my parents, absorbed in the story and identifying with Coraline from the start. Imagine me finishing this bloodcurdling book and immediately thinking of my basement, where there is still a locked door that my grandmother swears up and down is nothing more than a storage room, but has not once in my (or my mother’s) lifetime unlocked.

Can you see why this book still scares me?

Fun fact I learned from seeing neil gaiman speak: when he first wanted the book published, his editor said it was too scary. He suggested she read it to her young daughter, and then decide. So she did, and her daughter wasn’t afraid, and it was published. Years later, Gaiman was sitting next to that daughter at an event and told her this story, and she said “oh I was terrified I just didn’t want to tell my mom”.

Coraline WAS too scary to be published, but exists anyway because a girl lied to her mother.

@neil-gaiman, is this true about the publisher’s daughter?

It was my literary agent, Merrilee Heifetz who read it and said “you can’t seriously expect this to be published as a children’s book.” So I suggested she read it to her daughters. And she called me back a week later and said “They love it and they weren’t scared at all. I’ll take it to Harper Children’s.”

A decade later, at the Opening Night of the Coraline musical, I was sitting next to Morgan, Merilee’s youngest daughter, and told her how her not being scared had made the book happen. And she said “I was terrified. But I needed to find out what happened next. So nobody knew.”

So, yes.

This website can be toxic at times, but the fact that people can just tag Neil Gaiman to get his input, like a sorcerer invoking a benevolent spirit, is definitely a bright spot.