Apologies In Advance

and the post begins

because otherwise it gets kind of visually confusing to parse, which is annoying to some folks, including me

GRANTED not everybody uses the same theme or even the same update. you might have noticed my version of tumblr is earlier than yours (I don't like the new button setup)

but still, it's just about being polite

He finally rose to address this gathering of “weighty Quakers.” Many Friends in Pennsylvania and New Jersey had grown rich on Atlantic commerce, and many bought human property. To them Lay announced in a booming voice that God Almighty respects all peoples equally, rich and poor, men and women, white and black alike. He said that slave keeping was the greatest sin in the world and asked, How can a people who profess the golden rule keep slaves? He then threw off his great coat, revealing the military garb, the book and the blade.

A murmur filled the hall as the prophet thundered his judgment: “Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures.” He pulled out the sword, raised the book above his head, and plunged the sword through it. People gasped as the red liquid gushed down his arm; women swooned. To the shock of all, he spattered “blood” on the slave keepers. He prophesied a dark, violent future: Quakers who failed to heed the prophet’s call must expect physical, moral and spiritual death.

The room exploded into chaos, but Lay stood quiet and still, “like a statue,” a witness remarked. Several Quakers quickly surrounded the armed soldier of God and carried him from the building. He did not resist. He had made his point.

The article also describes Lay throwing tobacco pipes at fellow Quakers at a meeting in Philadelphia, while loudly protesting the slave labor upon which tobacco growing relied. At other Quaker meetings, whenever anyone who owned slaves stood up to talk (which is how Quaker meetings work), he’d jump up and yell things like “There’s another n****-master!” to shame them. He regularly said slaveowners bore “the mark of the Beast” and were basically Satan incarnate.

It came as no surprise, to Lay or anyone else, that ministers and elders had him removed from one gathering after another. Indeed they appointed a “constabulary” to keep him out of meetings all around Philadelphia, and even that wasn’t enough. After he was tossed into the street one rainy day, he returned to the main door of the meetinghouse and lay down in the mud, requiring every person leaving the meeting to step over his body.

Lay was disowned by the Quakers’ Society in 1738 because he just wouldn’t stop calling out elders and rich members for their hypocrisy on the issue of slavery.

Also that year, Benjamin Franklin published one of Lay’s anti-slavery pamphlets, “All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates.” But Franklin owned a slave and later bought two more. Lay called his ass out.

Lay refused to eat or wear anything produced in any way from slavery, and was a vegetarian. After his wife died he lived in a cave, kept goats and bees, farmed vegetables and fruit trees, and grew flax so he could spin it to make his own clothes. He had a library of 200 books in there.

Oh PS and he was barely over four feet tall and was disabled (kyphosis). He called himself “Little Benjamin” and likened himself to David going up against Goliath.

See, it's not just that he writes mediocre, churned-out thrillers; there are many, many authors of mediocre, churned-out thrillers out there, he ain't special.

It's also not that he "writes" them with "coauthors" and slaps his name on them - again, this is not unique.

It's not even - though this is starting to get there- that he chases every publishing trend and creates His Version of everything from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Nicholas Sparks, which nobody likes as well as they like his thrillers but still buy because they have His Name on them like a summoning charm.

No, what makes James Patterson uniquely loathed is the combination of the frequency of publication and his popularity. Because, to be honest, I'm not sure that anyone even likes his books anymore, but it doesn't matter, because if they have the James Patterson name on them then readers will be queuing up like zombies desperate for a fix of decaying cerebral matter. Which would be tolerable if he had the decency to only write one book a year like most other bestselling authors, but "James Patterson" (quotes VERY intentional) puts out roughly two books per month. So as a librarian, not only do you have to buy every new book James Patterson puts out, you have to buy multiple copies in order to fulfill demand. Somewhere around 5% of my fiction budget is spent ENTIRELY ON JAMES PATTERSON. Every new James Patterson that comes out means a dozen or more queer romances, inventive sci-fi novellas, unique cultural viewpoints, etc, etc that you can't buy because YOU HAVE TO BUY JAMES PATTERSON INSTEAD. (See also, you just weeded and shifted the Ps in fiction to make room and now it's full again oh god why.)

And the clincher - the absolute clincher - is the knowledge that the publishers will be "finding" "unfinished manuscripts" by "James Patterson" for a minimum of fifty years after his death, so even if some right-minded bibliophile with a claymore takes one for the team, we will never, ever be free.

Absol and Darkrai (canonically maligned, targeted, and ostracized for no good reason, and then its attempts to protect or isolate itself are only leveraged as more proof of its danger)

Mimikyu (pretty self-explanatory)

Type: Null, Silvally, and Mewtwo (living weapons that exist in the shadow of a more perfect counterpart)

Ralts line (obvious)

Chikorita and Popplio Line (standard 85% male starter gender ratio yet distinctly feminine and famously unpopular because of it)

Cascoon and Dustox (turns out "wrong")

Shedinja (the shape of something that should be there but isn't)

Latias (literally takes the form of a girl)

Dragonite and Goodra (hated for being "gay" dragons instead of "cool" ones)

Ceruledge (chuuni)

If you're a longtime Spore enjoyer like myself, I'm sure you've seen these videos or others like them, where invisible limbs (either with vanilla glitches or from the Dark Injection mod) are utilized to make creatures that float above the ground, giving them the illusion that they're flying (or swimming).

But the most well-known, "tried and true" method has always felt a bit...

... janky.

This is achieved by attaching a single invisible limb to the front of the creature, which causes it to walk by hopping on that invisible leg. The single-legged walk cycle gives the appearance that the creature is flapping itself up and down, either flying with its wings or swimming by propelling its tail. The length and angle of the leg changes the stride, and in turn changes the speed of the "flight".

However, I'm not satisfied with my dragon being so floppy. It might work fine for some creatures, but the exaggerated animation is simply too exaggerated for my tastes.

So I've done some experimenting. The method I came up with a couple years ago isn't too different, but it has three feet instead of one.

This smoother motion is definitely an improvement, and it's what I use for most of my floaty creatures. Yet, I still wasn't satisfied with this dragon's flight. The tail still feels a bit too floppy, and it looks like it's leading with its chest rather than flying with its wings, as if it's being dragged along by something.

This design proved to be a winner! The wings look more like they're providing powered flight, and the floppiness level of the rear is more appropriate. The legs are a bit cumbersome, but since they're invisible limbs, they won't render when the creature is encountered in-game.

But as I was composing this post, I thought to myself...

can I make the wings truly flap?

The answer is yes, it can be done!

With another pair of invisible legs attached at the elbow joint of the wings, each with three feet, this dragon has truly taken flight! It certainly isn't perfect, but considering the capabilities and limits of Spore, I'd say it's pretty damn good.

The limb that creates the wing, the one which these new invisible legs are attached to, isn't just cosmetic--it's a fully functional wing limb from the Unshackled mod (check out my review of the mod here!). The wing limb provides the creature with the glide ability, complete with animation. Miraculously, even with these invisible legs attached, the wing limb animates exactly as it should. I really did not expect that.

kramer: see that? she platemogged you

george: platemogged? what does that mean?

kramer: look at her plate. expertly stacked, filled it with as much as she could put on there. and you... ? (gestures at george's plate)

bring all of your materials with you

find a nice quiet spot void of distractions 

make sure to take little breaks every half hour or so

maybe bring a little snack

don’t look at the giant floating baby

just don’t 

try to forget about the giant floating baby in the library 

Snake: “He was at church when a bomb went off, got pierced by a crucifix, survived by drinking his family’s blood.”

Raiden: “So that’s why he’s called Vamp?”

Do Not Panic - Organize