Sup

mandatory report to the watchful eye

I've seen this trend in tags as well, which would be ACTIVELY FUCKING DANGEROUS if AO3 tag wranglers weren't literal, actual angels who make sure that "rape" and "r*pe" (and all such transpositions) are treated like the same tag.

AO3 isn't TikTok. Tag accurately and completely for your fic themes so people can search AND filter. Use the correct words in your fic content so people who use blacklist extensions can actually benefit from the tools that protect them.

If you don't feel comfortable using a word without censoring it, then don't use that word at all. Maybe consider why you're even writing something that contains that theme.

Sincerely,

Imagine the tiniest, most wimpy, pathetic, pitiful dragon you possibly can. She's got blunt horns and blunt teeth, and her claws aren't very sharp! She's a little smaller than your average house cat! Her name is Altheria. Her hoard consists of;

One dirty gold coin

That's it.

And she's so little she can't even hold the coin in one paw. It's not a big coin, she's just little and doesn't have thumbs! 👍

So the other dragons are all bigger and greedy, and very mean to her. She's struggling to hold onto her one pathetic coin, and these other dragons are fucking HUGE with caves full of gold, yet they're super greedy and want all the gold they can get! So one of them sees Altheria's single little coin and steals it. She tries to fight back, but they're so big compared to her that they just bat her out of the sky like hitting a fly with fly swatter.

So she's lost her entire hoard in one night, and she's feeling pretty pathetic, when she sees a poster!

HELP WANTED - RESCUE PRINCESS ELIZABETH - REWARD 15,000 GOLD

and she gets a very bad idea, but she's pretty desperate and stupid so she does it anyway!

So the story follows Altheria as she blunders her way through this quest to save the kidnapped princess (so tragically taken days before her wedding!!!) And she kinda sucks at it. She mostly skates by because everyone looks at her and goes "She's so small!!! She's harmless!!!"

And there's this thing called The Gift that people are born with. Only people with The Gift can understand dragons, so no one knows what the fuck she's saying anyway. Everyone just ignores her!

Well Altheria makes it to the bandit infested fortress where the princess is only to discover....

Drum roll please!!!!

The princess wasn't kidnapped. She ran the fuck away because she was not vibing with that whole marriage thing. She's taken over this small army of bandits and become their leader. She's plotting to take over her father's kingdom and become queen instead of being sold off to some prince. She's building an army.

Elizabeth has offered every would-be rescuer to show up a choice; join her cause, or die. Out of 37 would be rescuers, only three have joined her. The other 34 she defeated and killed in single combat. Because she's a badass.

She then ransomed the bodies to their families for a shit load of money.

So Eliza has The Gift, and gives Altheria the same choice but with some added sugar; if Altheria joins up, she can be Eliza's treasurer.

Altheria takes one look at the 35,000 gold Eliza has built up, and Eliza promises they'll get even more gold if they can take over the kingdom... And Altheria is 100% on board!!!!

But the reason dragons need gold is simple; the more gold a dragon possess, the larger they grow. That's why Altheria was so small. She only had one coin! But now she has 35,000 that she (kinda, she shares with Eliza) owns.

Altheria starts growing again. Throughout their quest to take back the kingdom in Eliza's name, she gets bigger, her teeth and horns get sharper, her fire gets hotter... She becomes a fucking badass, just like Eliza.

And you know I had to draw my favorite part

Most known dragons have grown up big and strong because they were supplied with starter hoards from their parents.

Altheria is an example of a rags to riches story that follows a narrative that few lower class dragons get to experience.

“My Great Destroyer, Consumer of Lands, Harbinger of the Deep Seas,” you say trying to keep the exasperation from your voice, “you need to be connected to the internet to see your email.”

“{}@&_@&%(#(&@__!*_”

“Yes. Can you move the mouse to the lower right side of the screen? There should be some little bars that will tell you if you are connected to the wi-fi.”

“&%)!^*^$%^!_%_$}{|”

“No my Great and Terrible the wi-fi is not a rival god from the desert lands, it’s just the technology that let’s you see your email.”

“!*&){}|@*#”

“Good, that means you are connected to the internet. Now if you can open your browser, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or even Microsoft Edge.”

“!@^&)(&@!&&&@}|”

You mute yourself so you can swear. “Yes, you can use Internet Explorer to access your AOL email account. If I may offer a suggestion?”

“$%^&*@”

“It will be easier in the long run, I promise. But Microsoft stopped supporting Internet Explorer a long time ago, and AOL is barely a company anymore. If you will let me walk you through some steps we can get you a modern web browser and a brand new email-”

“&^$}”

“Yes, with all of your old email.”

—-

Five hours of your life later, you’ve got the deep sea eldritch god set up with Firefox and a new email with forwarding from it’s old email. Just when you start to think that this job isn’t remotely worth it, a small crab-like creature crawls across your desk. (you can’t in good conscious call it a crab because it somehow has both too many eyes, legs, and pincers, and not enough of the same. yet your brain interprets the being as “crab”)

It’s about the size of a coffee mug and it holds something up for you, shaking one of it’s many claws at you.

You take the small thing, and crab scuttles away to where ever it came from.

The small thing in your palm seems to be a tiny treasure chest, the kind of thing that you’d put in a goldfish bowl. It feels wet and the kind of slimy something gets from being covered in seaweed.

You put it down on your desk just in time for it to rapidly expand, cracking a support on your desk and covering you in sea water.

Before you can get mad about it the chest opens revealing a small horde of gold, jewels, and a bottle of what you have to assume is pirate rum.

“Oh! Cool!” one of your coworkers say as they pop their head up over the cubicle wall. “I wish I got pirate booty once in a while.”

“Why, what did Thyrien, Emissary of the Sun, give you for helping them recover their steam library?” you ask.

“A sense of peace and calm about my life and place in the world.”

“Oh sounds nice.”

“It is. They also gave me this ceremonial headdress.” You coworker disappears for a moment and puts on a giant headdress that appears to be made from gold and platinum and has several truly giant diamonds all over it.

“Wow,” you say.

“Yeah, I’m thinking I should wear this to the next company mixer.”

It's never done that before so I looked it up and turns out Roku TVs have added all sorts of creepy things in the privacy section since I last checked.

One of which being they take screenshots from what you're watching and send them to third parties to identify it.

Fucking hell! Remember when every fucking device in your life wasn't a spy implanted in your home and working against your interests to try and sell your data? Remember how nice that was??

Remember when the TV was just a tool that would play the things you plugged into it?

Hey there! As social media becomes more and more inhospitible for the local user, I wanted to post some useful/fun links to just about anything I can think of! Enjoy! Also, if you'd like an invite to the P!rated Games discord, lmk! ^_^

I AM CURRENTLY STILL UPDATING THIS POST AND I WILL REBLOG IT WHEN I ADD TO IT! Feel free to comment things I've missed, I'm sure there's way more than this came from!

WEB CENTRIC

CURLIE: THE COLLECTOR OF URLs (Curlie strives to be the largest human-edited directory of the Web. You can save sites and create your own mini webring!)

Internet Archive (A collection of over 818 Billion websites, books, movies, music, and more. Hosts the Wayback Machine, which can be used to access a multitude of sites, given they were indexed in time.)

Wiby (Human submission search engine for older webrings, as well as a how-to guide on how to develop your own search engine)

Unicode Text Converter (Easy way to make your text illegible to Google but be warned, it will make screen readers malfuction)

Embed Responsively (Easily convert links and embeds to work responsively within your site - perfect for neocities!)

Generator Land (Generate a list or prompt for just about anything!)

GifCities (Part of the Internet Archive, a special project done as part of the 20th anniversary in an effort to save data from GeoCities. Find a gif for just about anything!)

Animated Images (Another gif repository, though this one is easier to search and includes small animations.)

Gifs-Paradise (Another gif repository. I swear I collect these. Searchable and categorized.)

ASCII Art Archive (Database of ASCII Art, also known as text art)

Christopher Johnson's ASCII Art Collection (Another, arguably larger, ASCII Art database)

MelonLand (A web project and online arts community that celebrates homepages, virtual worlds, the world-wide-web and the digital lives that all netizins share, here at the dawn of the digital age. See their thoughts and the WEB REVIVAL they're starting.)

Sadgrl Webrings (Webrings brought to us by Sadgrl.Online - 60+ different ones to be exact) and Sadgrl Links (70+ links just like the ones in this post)

Districts at Neocities (Remember neighborhoods on Geocities? Imagine that but for Neocities!)

Neocities Banners (Banners from all across neocities. Blinkies, banners and more leading all over the web. Mostly 88x31, though there are bigger ones too. Technically counts as a webring.)

Blinkies.cafe (Site for blinkies where you can even make your own! I get most of my blinkies here and off DeviantArt.)

88x31 Collection (Possibly the largest collection I've seen for 88x31 buttons)

90's Cursor Effects (Want a funky cursor for your blog or website? Wanna be able to realtime preview what cursors would look like? Come get some code!)

The Malware Museum (Interact with malware and viruses from the 80s and 90s through emulation! No nasty virus interactions needed :D )

KNOWLEDGE BASES

Library Genesis - LIBGEN (Scientific journals - dedicated to archiving every science journal and their articles in existence.)

Information Mesh (A web platform celebrating the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web that explores social, technical, cultural and legal facts throughout different interactive timelines.)

Web Design Museum (Over 2,000 sorted websites showing web design trends from '96 to '06.)

The History of the Web (A twice monthly newsletter about web history, and the incredible people that built it. Goes from 1989 to present.)

Field Guide to Web Accessibility (Principles and applications to every day web scenarios in order to make the web a more friendly place!)

CARI - Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (an online community and collective association of researchers and designers dedicated to carrying on the important work of categorizing "consumer aesthetics" from the late midcentury, when work on the subject somewhat trailed off, through today.)

The Eye (Archive consisting of 140TB of books, websites, games, software, or anything else you can really think of.)

The Uncensored Library (A project from Reporters without Borders, where they use a loophole using Minecraft to distribute information.)

National Gallery of Art Public Domain (The National Gallery of Art has an open access policy for images of works of art in their permanent collection which the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are available for download free of charge for any use, whether commercial or non-commercial.)

Library of Congress Public Domain (Features items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.)

Public Domain Review (an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.)

New York Public Library Public Domain (Our digitized collections are available as machine-readable data: over one million records for you to search, crawl and compute.)

Official articles from NASA (PubSpace is NASA's designated public access repository. It is a collection of NASA-funded scholarly publications within the STI Repository, aiming to increase access to federally funded research in accordance with NASA Public Access Policy.)

Universal Hint System (Wanna get some vague help for an older video game without getting spoiled? Check out these awesome hints!)

Smithsonian Open Access (Download, share, and reuse millions of 2D and 3D digital items from their 21 museums, 9 research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.)

Instructables (Wanna know how to make just about anything? Check here!)

QZAP Zine Archive (Archive of LGBT+ Zines, began in 2003 with zines dating back all the way to the 1970s. NSFW AT TIMES, BROWSE AT YOUR OWN RISK.)

P!racy Masterpost (Tumblr-based masterpost of game piracy, last updated 2021. A bit old but some of the stuff there is still good. If this link breaks, please contact me.)

P!rated Games Megathread (masterpost created by r/P!ratedGames includes required components as well as anything else you need. NOTE: PLEASE HAVE SOME SORT OF PROTECTION WHEN NAVIGATING THIS SITE)

Geocities Gallery (A website hosting a working archive for many abandoned Geocities Sites.)

Snipplr (Code Snippet repository. Great for coding issues.)

GeoCities (Archived) (Great for searching ancient webrings for gifs and website ideas. Not so great for downloads.)

Freeware Guide (Archived) (The Freeware-Guide died sometime in 2021 [we think March] but it's still full of VERY valuable information. Links are broken pretty much all the way through, but the names of software as well as what they do can be useful in finding them elsewhere thru some google searching)

Peelopaalu (Where I got a good handful of these links - AND THERE'S MORE!!!)

The Simple Site (More links to so much more cool stuff!)

ART TOOLS

Untitled - Paint (An in-browser version of classic Microsoft Paint!)

KidPix (In-browser version of classic KidPix for the public domain!)

Pixel Logic - A Guide to Pixel Art (Comprehensive guide to making cool art for $10 USD, updated semi-frequently and you get all new versions for free)

SAI - Bootlegged (A version of SAI with a multitude of brushes and textures pre-installed. Quite literally the only thing I use to draw aside from Clip Studio Paint.)

Stripe Generator (Need some easy stripes for an art piece? Can't be bothered to try and space stripes evenly? This is for you!)

Photopea (Free online photo editor supporting files for Adobe Photoshop, XCF, Sketch App, Adobe XD, and CorelDRAW, as well as many more!)

blender (A FOREVER free and Open Source software for 3D Modeling, full of tutorials and assets. I feel like most people don't know it's completely free to play with)

Vertex Meadow (A web-browser tool that renders 2D images as explorable 3D terrain. With it you can create detailed and unusual 3D environments to explore using a 2D paint-program-like interface.)

OpenGameArt (Need art for your game but you're not an artist? Consider checking here first [or just hire a real artist looking for work on here!])

MUSIC TOOLS AND DISCOVERY

BandLab (Social music platform that enables creators to make music and share their creative process with musicians and fans. Completely free with an option to set up stripe where you get 100% OF PROFITS. Available for apple/android/desktop)

JummBox (Free online beat-maker with a very simple interface that runs on your browser)

Mydora (Mydora is a continuous streaming player that gives you a deep dive into the lost archives of Myspace Music, based on some recovered data called the Dragon Hoard, with some additional metadata (most notably the locations and genres) from a different scan of Myspace conducted back in 2009. Contains 490,000+ songs, only a fraction of what was wiped out.)

Radiooooo (A place where people are able to play hit songs from the decade of their choosing from whatever country they wish.)

WFMU (Independent freeform radio broadcasting. Currently ongoing.)

Gnoosic (A sort-of music search engine that finds you songs/bands based off of your music taste.)

Khinsider (3.1 TB worth of video game soundtracks)

Radio.garden (Listen to thousands of radio stations all around the world.)

FUN STUFF

FrogLand (The purpose of Frogland is to show that the Internet can indeed provide a wealth of useful information and still be fun. Mainly, this site is dedicated to the many teachers out there who are finding new uses for the Internet as a tool for educating youngsters. Hopefully, it will inspire some young minds to find new interest in herpetology, biology, and environmental issues...not to mention providing some inspiration for young future computer "wizzes"! No longer active but still useful.)

Windows 98 icon Viewer (Want clear jpgs of all the Windows 98 symbols and icons? They're all here!)

GifyPet (Create your own embeded pet that people can play with and feed when they visit your page! See my version HERE [only works on desktop tho])

Ultimate Mushroom (Like the idea of picking mushrooms in your area but no idea what to look for? Check out this info hub!)

Gif Gallery (Another gif repositiory, only sorted by being numbered 1-100,000. Fun and silly, not so much useful unless you're looking for random gifs. Part of the MelonLand Webring)

Interesting DOS Programs (A host of DOS programming, guides and links.)

Internet Archive: MS-DOS Games (8,000 games right in your web browser! Your browser can play DOOM!)

Tiled Backgrounds (Need some small jpegs for easy website bg tiling? Browse this collection sorted by color.)

cOOl & EMO tEXt cOnVERTer xXX (Flashing warning. Wanna type like you're in the 2000s? Need a funny Green Day lyric as a caption? This is probably the best place for you.)

0x40 (Flashing Warning. Anime images synced with music. Fun for parties, lol)

WebGL Fluid Simulation (In browser fluid simulator, great for art backgrounds and desktop wallpapers.)

Flashpoint (The biggest collection of preserved Flash Games and Animations)

NCase (Free games and open source projects from Nicky [THESE ARE REALLY COOL AND FUN, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND])

Your World of Text (A huge interactive text doc that anyone can add to anonymously.)

Text To Speech (TTS in more than 30 languages and over 180 voices.)

ASCII Art Generator (Make ASCII Art from any image.)

Petit Tube (Random Youtube videos with less than 10 views)

Noclip Website (Noclip around various video game maps in your browser!)

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need To Know About Buying Stuff for Cheap

How to pay for stuff

Buy Now Pay Later Apps: That Old Predatory Lending by a Crappy New Name 

Businesses Will Happily Give You HUGE Discounts if You Ask This Magic Question 

Dafuq Is a Down Payment? And Why Do You Need One to Buy Stuff? 

Ask the Bitches: Should I Get a Loan Even Though I Can Afford To Pay Cash? 

Season 2, Episode 10: “Which Is Smarter: Getting a Loan? or Saving up to Pay Cash?”

How to pay less for stuff

Why Name Brand Products Are Beneath You: The Honor and Glory of Buying Generic

How To Save Money With Affordable Car Repairs 

How to Save Money on Your Beloved Pets 

How to Get DIRT CHEAP Pet Medication, Without a Prescription

The Pink Tax, or: How I Learned To Love Smelling Like Bearglove

Blood Money: Menstrual Products for Surviving Your Period While Poor

Understand the Hidden Costs of Travel and Avoid Them Like the Plague 

7 Totally Reasonable Ways To Save Money on Cheap Entertainment 

How to buy stuff ethically

Ethical Consumption: How to Pollute the Planet and Exploit Labor Slightly Less 

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Consume Ethically AND Frugally Under the Trump Tariffs?”

21 Ideas for Sustainable Swaps That Aren’t Shitty, Expensive, Greenwashed Garbage

Fast Fashion: Why It’s Fucking up the World and How To Avoid It 

You Are Above Bottled Water, You Elegant Land Mermaid 

Kara Perez’s Debut Book “Green Money”: How To Use Your Money To Save the Planet

Wallet Activism: Using Your Money for Good with Author Tanja Hester 

How Can I Justify This Deeply Unethical Purchase? 

How to buy stuff secondhand

Almost Everything Can Be Purchased Secondhand 

Our 5 Best Secrets for Secondhand Shopping Like a Frugal Warrior 

The Library Is a Magical Place and You Should Fucking Go There 

Your Library Lets You Stream Audiobooks and eBooks FOR FREEEEEEE! 

How to buy big ticket items

Bullshit Reasons Not to Buy a House: Refuted 

Season 2, Episode 2: “I’m Not Ready to Buy a House—But How Do I *Get Ready* to Get Ready?” 

How to Pay Hospital Bills When You’re Flat Broke 

Our (Ridiculously Simple) Method for Choosing the Right Healthcare Plan For You 

Buying a Car with the Bitches, Part 1: How to Choose Your Car 

Buying a Car with the Bitches, Part 2: How to Pay for Your Car

The Only Advice You’ll Ever Need for a Cheap-Ass Wedding 

You Deserve Cheap, Fake Jewelry… Just Like Coco Chanel 

How To Pay for College Without Selling Your Soul to the Devil 

Splurging on Kids: When It Works, and When It Doesn’t 

How to buy gifts

The Anti-Consumerist Gift Guide: I Have No Gift to Bring, Pa Rum Pa Pum Pum 

How Can I Tame My Family’s Crazy Gift-giving Expectations? 

In Defense of Shameless Regifting 

Traditional Wedding Gifts Can Burn in Hell Where They Belong

Other People’s Weddings Don’t Have to Make You Broke

How to buy food

To Hell and Back for Cheap Groceries: The Epic Investigation (and Shocking Results) of My Grocery Store Price Comparison Quest 

How to Shop for Groceries like a Boss 

Cosmic Truths of Cheap Grocery Shopping: 12 Universal Rules to Save Money on Food, No Matter What You Buy or Where You Shop

The Ultimate Showdown: Cheese Crackers, Ranked 

If You Can’t Afford to Tip 20%, You Can’t Afford To Dine Out 

We Ranked Chocolate Sandwich Cookies by Taste and Price So You Don’t Have To 

Confessions of a Thanksgiving Lunatic: Why I Spend $500 Hosting Every Year 

How to avoid buying stuff

How to Avoid Lifestyle Inflation … and When to Embrace It

The Magically Frugal Power of Patience  

Don’t Spend Money on Shit You Don’t Like, Fool 

Status Symbols Are Pointless and Dumb 

Here’s What to Do With Those Credit Card Pre-approval Offers You Get in the Mail

Your Yearly Free Medical Care Checklist

How to COMPLETELY Insulate Yourself From Advertisements 

6 Proven Tactics for Avoiding Emotional Impulse Spending 

The Subscription Box Craze and the Mindlessness of Wasteful Spending

Everything I Know About Minimalism I Learned from the Zombie Apocalypse 

That’s all for now, bitchlings! We’ll periodically update this list as we post new content. In the meantime, if you’d like to support our mission of [checks notes] scathing reportage and dank memes, donate to Bitches Get Riches on Patreon or PayPal with the buttons below!

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