crimes and misdemeanors

I was compelled by some sort of curse maybe to do nothing but make this for the past day and a half.

"Okay, I got you."

*Removes the B from the BREAD sign*

Paid service with no ads: Well, if they're not funding it with ad revenue, they need to charge us something.

Paid service with ads: Well that's bullshit.

As we all know, thanks to the support of the good people of Tumblr, Tylenol has experienced a meteoric rise to second place. Even though her competition is stiff, I believe in Tylenol's ability to go the distance.

But let's take a look at the competition:

Elmer seems to be a lovely boy. I have no qualms with Elmer, and think he would look fantastic on a beer can. But what about Elmer's campaigns? Who is the power behind the throne here, and how have they managed to find such breakout success on this competition?

A handful of wealthy donors are trying to buy this competition.

At the end of the day, all donations are good donations here. This is a charity event so every penny earned is going to help animals in need. But it's not lost on me that Elmer's current ranking is thanks entirely to a few individuals with the financial means to put their thumbs on the scale.

Tylenol's donors, comparatively, are small and numerous, mostly $1-10 donations from many passionate believers in what she stands for (autism and pain relief I think).

Overall, the donations tell a very different story than what the base ranking shows you. Elmer is held aloft by just 24 donors and bolstered by a few wealthy patrons, whereas Tylenol has won the hearts of literally hundreds of people. Even the current third place, Abby, owes her ranking to numerous small contributions rather than one or two large ones.

They really took EXTRA EFFORT to make this scene SIGNIFICANTLY MORE lesbian as compared to the 2 pages (or rather, 3-4 panels) it had in the original manga:

Imagine having THAT depicted in an anime 20 years ago that would have been - rightfully - presumed to be the iconic flagship show of the entire season, and that purely on the whim of the studio direction without being able to hide behind the source material.

if you've followed me for a while, you've probably seen me mention Underside, my dark cape TTRPG inspired by deconstructive superhero stories like Worm, Astro City, Watchmen, and the first season of Gen V.

it's a project i've spent a lot of time on, trying to build a system that tells the kind of superhero stories i like; the shit that treats them as a subculture with a body count, that digs into the dissociative tension of the secret identity, that asks what it means to feel so completely ejected from regular society that you can only go out in a mask and costume.

for a while now, a playtest edition of Underside has been available on my patreon; now, as it's slowly become more and more complete over the course of a year, i'm putting the most recent one up on itch.io

i want to be clear: while this playtest edition is enough to play a full campaign and contains all the mechanics that are going to be in the finished book, it's still a playtest. there's no fancy layout and an entire section (guidance for the Administrator, the game's GM-equivalent role) hasn't been written yet. but for a while, every time i talk about Underside i get the question: "where can i get my hands on it?". so here's an answer to that question; right now, while it's still in beta--if you want to support the project and help me get it over the finish line, or you just can't wait until it's out For Real, you can get it here.

No, that woman is using her generational wealth to fund an academic career where she writes dense tomes on late antique heresies. She and Magnus are only validly married in the eyes of the church because they have a very, very good canon lawyer. They acquired the teens through a dubious international adoption and have maybe not kept them quite as in touch with their culture as they ought. Is she just really into her field of research, or is she dabbling in the occult in a way that requires knowledge of at least two dead languages and at least one archaeological artefact of questionable provenance?