Linebyline is here I guess

Here for a way to keep up with some fellow former BumbleKing peeps. More active socials are Mastodon (@[email protected]) and Sheezy.Art (Linebyline)

[linebyline-i-guess]

Probably I should do a pinned post?

I've been reading Tumblr posts nonstop for something like a decade but I have never bothered signing up for an account until now, and probably still won't be very active (at least not as long as the platform is owned by We Have Zuckerberg At Home).

I have an actual Personal Web Site like the cool kids used to have back in 1998, but you're better off looking for me on the Fediverse (Mastodon, in my case) at @[email protected] (RIP to my previous instance, bytetower.social) or on the new SheezyArt as Linebyline.

Used to be thereallinebyline on deviantArt before it got eaten by techbros, and I have no plans to delete that account.

I'm a Catholic, a recovering Sonic fan, an artist (albeit a slow one), an avid webcomic enjoyer, a newbie chiptune-music-thing-maker, and allegedly not a furry.

[cryptidjeepers]

just watched a star trek episode about a planet that relied so heavily on it's computer system that they all forgot the basics of their own knowledge. and that allowed them to miss the fact that they were being posioned with radiation and nearly ending their civilization. because they couldn't use their own knowledge to figure things out. i bring this up for no reason in particular

[mcdubs42]

There was at least one Stargate episode on this too. One where the town bubble was shrinking (the computer was shrinking jt) and they were just forgetting the people that caught outside of it ever existed, erased from the collective consciousness by the computer.

And I think it was the same episode that how the actual computer worked had been lost to time and they almost all died but that might’ve been a different one.

[linebyline-i-guess]

I remember that one. Spoilers (if that BC-303 hasn't already sailed) but: The force field was shrinking because the power supply was dwindling, and the computer was killing people off so it had a smaller population to support.

The main plot point I remember from that episode was the way the people attached to the computer suddenly thought they were so dependent on the link that they'd die if they removed it, despite clearly being able to take it off as easily as a pair of glasses earlier in the episode.

In other words, the story was about a group of people utterly convinced that they were completely dependent on a technology for which they previously had no particularly pressing need, which I bring up, of course, for no particular reason.

[gamgyuls]

Commissioned Painting! for elkwood111 on ig

[vulkiri]

crane climbing artfight for @/serpent___x on twt !!

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Worst Animorphs book title?

#5: The Predator (what predator? whomst?)

#23: The Pretender (title spoils the twist about Aria)

#27: The Exposed (deep underwater ≠ exposed. kind of the opposite actually.)

#31: The Conspiracy (who's conspiring? and why do they suck at it?)

#40: The Other (unintentionally hilarious, in the "funny aneurysm" sense)

#43: The Test (Tobias doesn't even go here! He dropped out!)

#50: The Ultimate (it's clear you were running out of titles at this point)

#51: The Absolute (see above)

Visser (why not call it the Yeerk Chronicles? Whyyyyy?)

IDK, I've never read Animorphs

You forgot about: _____________

Voting ended onJul 24

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

@as21-7

#i kinda love the title visser i just wish they had eva on the cover#it refers to both visser 1 and visser 3. it's a title of power. it's v1's identity and it's not mother because she *isnt* a mother#to madra and darwin she is a visser. she infests them to make them act like her children#it's fundamentally about power and the yeerk empire and v1's identity in a way that the title visser communicates

But! By that standard, The Andalite Chronicles is about power in the Andalite Electorate, and about War-Prince as an identity. None of the Chronicles is about an entire species; they're all about individuals and titles. And half of Hork-Bajir Chronicles is narrated by non-hork-bajir!

So like, if the series was called Seer, Ellimist, Prince, and Visser, it'd be consistent! OR if it was called The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, The Ellimist* Chronicles, The Andalite Chronicles, and The Yeerk Chronicles. But it's NOT, and it bugs me SO MUCH, because I am EXTREMELY NORMAL about the grammar of parallel structure.

*It's super unclear whether "Ellimist" is a category name or title, so I'll allow that it doesn't have to be Ketran Chronicles.

[deepfang-dreamer]

Visser overlaps directly with the story, and shows the wartime culture of the species over whatever's going on back home. All three other Chronicles are prequels, what bits in the present used as framing devices for a story that already happened. Maybe that's why?

[linebyline-i-guess]

That's my take as well. The present day stuff is just a framing device for the three Chronicles books. (I think; full disclosure, Ellimist Chronicles is one of the three Animorphs books I haven't read, and one of the other two is the second Alternamorphs.)

In other words, the Chronicles books are stories set in the past with present-day framing narratives, where the present-day Animorphs only appear as brief cameos (the end of Andalite) or the person the story is being told to (Hork-Bajir and Ellimist). Visser, on the other hand, while a great deal of it is flashbacks to earlier times, is set in the present day. We cut back to present-day Edriss multiple times, the Animorphs play an active role in the story, and the present-day Council of Thirteen member Garoff 168 technologically inserts himself into one of the flashbacks.

Moreover, framing devices in Animorphs are cheap. How have no Controllers picked up the obvious personally identifiable information in the stories, lack of surname notwithstanding? How is Rachel writing down what happens during her death? How does Jara Hamee know what Esplin 9466' was thinking? You're not supposed to think to hard about it. But the present-day stuff in Visser is significant.

I'm as guilty as anyone else of having referred to Visser as "a Chronicles in all but name," but these days I'm pretty sure that's not true.

Still a crime that Alloran gets to be on the cover but Eva doesn't.

[sarifel-corrisafid-ilxhel]

TAXXON casts DETECT FOOD. The enemy is made out of food! TAXXON casts BITE.

[linebyline-i-guess]

You've reminded me of how much of how the Animorphs game for Game Boy Color is a shameless Pokémon ripoff.

TAXXON used DETECT! TAXXON protected itself!

TOBIAS used SLASH! TAXXON is protecting itself!

TAXXON used BITE! It's super effective!

(Which I guess makes Tobias a Flying/Psychic type. Or Flying/Ghost. Read into that what you will.)

[fanonical]

i know the whole 'i'm jake and i can't tell you my last name cos the yeerks will get me' intro in all of the animorphs books is not there to indicate that these books are actually being published in-universe before the world knows about the animorphs, but i like to imagine they are mostly because that's a really funny image

how are the publishers getting the manuscripts? does a hawk just fly into a publishing house every so often with a bundle of papers attached to his talons and they have to accept it?

[linebyline-i-guess]

Toward the end of the series' run, I remember there being this whole metafiction on the official website where K.A., the official chronicler of the Animorphs' real-life adventures, had to be moved to a secure location. I'm like 90% sure that the person who ran the Q&A in her place was the same person who ran the fan site Morphz.

So K.A. was the official go-between for the Animorphs and the publisher. (She also makes a happier headcanon for the one host Cassie freed in #1 than Crazy Helen.)

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Can you link us to this page or its Wayback Machine version? Because I'd love to read that!

[linebyline-i-guess]

Hirac Delest has a rundown.

The actual Animorps Xtreme website, circa 2001, via Archive.org.

ETA: Holy crap, there's a KaBlam! reference: "Henry and June, avid bird watchers ever since they were married twenty-nine blissful years ago, saw an odd, amazing sight the other day. 'We were watching the train of tanks go by,' Henry said. 'Then we saw a glorious uprising of Peregrine falcons led by a Golden Harrier.' 'Truly a spiritual experience,' June added. 'Though I do feel bad for the Red-Tailed hawk and the osprey they were attacking.'"

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Pacing in circles at work somehow led me to the idea of trans woman Jake. Copying Rachel when they were little, over the course of the war either letting the identity settle as fact and not outwardly worrying about it too much, or retreating back into the closet as they get closer to the endgame. I can’t tell if this is a great idea or a boring one but what do you think?

Aw man, I can imagine during the series Jake's gender being "I'm probably a girl, but I have a war to fight in the morning so I don't care about that right now." Because in this scenario I feel like she would. She's got Animorphs to lead, a planet to save, God's Own Angst to chew on at night... and, okay, everyone gets her gender wrong. But that last is just... she just can't deal with it right now. Her friends and her brother and her entire species all have to come first.

And then after the war? Healing looks like retreating from the public view. Healing looks like letting the TV networks and armchair historians have that boy called Jake whom they've mistaken her for, and quietly building her own identity. Healing is trying on dresses, trying on eyeliner, and letting herself move ever further away from that guy called Prince that someone wants to carve into a mountain and 20,000 strangers want to be president. At some point she just disappears from the public view entirely, and at some point soon after that there is no one legally called Jake Berenson anymore, and the inaccurate name goes down in the history books as the real person lives on.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Also: I just remembered that the woman after whom Jake was named came out as trans! I wonder how she feels about a famous fictional character having her deadname. Regardless — Jake was originally inspired by a trans woman!

[linebyline-i-guess]

Looks like Jake was not named after K.A.'s daughter. The Wikia* says she was born in April 1997, but Animorphs #1 was released in June 1996 (and obviously being put together much earlier than that, though in fairness the same is usually true of babies).

Wiki says she spent some time in the NICU and was added to the dedication "after that," but the dedication had yet to be changed #13 and The Andalite Chronicles (the latest Animorphs books I have within arm's reach) in December 1997. I'm guessing that's due to the time it takes to get a book on shelves after it's written.

Which, unless K.A. picked the name before the baby was even conceived, would suggest that she was named after Jake Berenson, not the other way around. I have wondered how she felt about being named after an Animorphs character, but obviously that's a moot point now.

*Never deadname people. Always deadname for-profit corporations. Also, Fandom, Inc. can gulfach their lolcath, so I'm using Breezewiki/Phantom just on principle.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

So I need to find that AMA again, but at one point on Reddit KAA talked about developing the concept of the series and selling it to agents while struggling with fertility. She mentioned something about having a notebook with her in a hospital waiting room, and how the fertility process created all this anxious wait time that became the space within which she developed Animorphs. So like, the daughter in question didn't exist yet when Jake Berenson got written into existence, but I know that reusing the name was deliberate.

(If anyone knows the AMA I mean and has a link: please hit me up!)

[fanonical]

i know the whole 'i'm jake and i can't tell you my last name cos the yeerks will get me' intro in all of the animorphs books is not there to indicate that these books are actually being published in-universe before the world knows about the animorphs, but i like to imagine they are mostly because that's a really funny image

how are the publishers getting the manuscripts? does a hawk just fly into a publishing house every so often with a bundle of papers attached to his talons and they have to accept it?

[linebyline-i-guess]

Toward the end of the series' run, I remember there being this whole metafiction on the official website where K.A., the official chronicler of the Animorphs' real-life adventures, had to be moved to a secure location. I'm like 90% sure that the person who ran the Q&A in her place was the same person who ran the fan site Morphz.

So K.A. was the official go-between for the Animorphs and the publisher. (She also makes a happier headcanon for the one host Cassie freed in #1 than Crazy Helen.)

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Pacing in circles at work somehow led me to the idea of trans woman Jake. Copying Rachel when they were little, over the course of the war either letting the identity settle as fact and not outwardly worrying about it too much, or retreating back into the closet as they get closer to the endgame. I can’t tell if this is a great idea or a boring one but what do you think?

Aw man, I can imagine during the series Jake's gender being "I'm probably a girl, but I have a war to fight in the morning so I don't care about that right now." Because in this scenario I feel like she would. She's got Animorphs to lead, a planet to save, God's Own Angst to chew on at night... and, okay, everyone gets her gender wrong. But that last is just... she just can't deal with it right now. Her friends and her brother and her entire species all have to come first.

And then after the war? Healing looks like retreating from the public view. Healing looks like letting the TV networks and armchair historians have that boy called Jake whom they've mistaken her for, and quietly building her own identity. Healing is trying on dresses, trying on eyeliner, and letting herself move ever further away from that guy called Prince that someone wants to carve into a mountain and 20,000 strangers want to be president. At some point she just disappears from the public view entirely, and at some point soon after that there is no one legally called Jake Berenson anymore, and the inaccurate name goes down in the history books as the real person lives on.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Also: I just remembered that the woman after whom Jake was named came out as trans! I wonder how she feels about a famous fictional character having her deadname. Regardless — Jake was originally inspired by a trans woman!

[linebyline-i-guess]

Looks like Jake was not named after K.A.'s daughter. The Wikia* says she was born in April 1997, but Animorphs #1 was released in June 1996 (and obviously being put together much earlier than that, though in fairness the same is usually true of babies).

Wiki says she spent some time in the NICU and was added to the dedication "after that," but the dedication had yet to be changed #13 and The Andalite Chronicles (the latest Animorphs books I have within arm's reach) in December 1997. I'm guessing that's due to the time it takes to get a book on shelves after it's written.

Which, unless K.A. picked the name before the baby was even conceived, would suggest that she was named after Jake Berenson, not the other way around. I have wondered how she felt about being named after an Animorphs character, but obviously that's a moot point now.

*Never deadname people. Always deadname for-profit corporations. Also, Fandom, Inc. can gulfach their lolcath, so I'm using Breezewiki/Phantom just on principle.

[theprofessional-amateur]

Apparently ever group chat I am in woke up this morning and decided to flood the thread with the absolute worst and rage bait-y items they could find.

I’m trying to decide if I check out for the day or roll in with the whimsy and most unhinged discussion questions

[theprofessional-amateur]

[theprofessional-amateur]

Pick one

Secret passage

Epic treehouse

Voting ended onJun 17

This is your reminder to drop random silly questions in your group chats. Add some enrichment.

[linebyline-i-guess]

As a kid, I fantasized about both of these. But the one I wanted most, the one I thought I could reasonably have but never got, was the treehouse.

I was deathly afraid of heights.

Secret passage, please.

[victorjockin]

Visit Original Link

Unreleased track I made two years ago.

[linebyline-i-guess]

Visit Original Link

Did something today I didn't think I was capable of. Wrote a little NES ditty in somewhere around two hours. I think it turned out pretty well, given the time frame and the fact that I don't do much of this.

I just wish I knew what was causing that clicking. I wonder if it's an LMMS thing; maybe I'll try recreating it in FamiStudio and see if that has the same issue.

[linebyline-i-guess]

Okay, so I didn't figure out what was actually causing that popping, but my guess is that LMMS's Nescaline plugin doesn't start/stop its notes at zero crossings. Rather than try to work around that I just recreated it note-for-note in FamiStudio.

Visit Original Link

Turned out okay, I think.

[linebyline-i-guess]

Visit Original Link

Did something today I didn't think I was capable of. Wrote a little NES ditty in somewhere around two hours. I think it turned out pretty well, given the time frame and the fact that I don't do much of this.

I just wish I knew what was causing that clicking. I wonder if it's an LMMS thing; maybe I'll try recreating it in FamiStudio and see if that has the same issue.

[theowlburrow]

Do you have plans on picking Taxicat back up? This year is its 10th anniversary :,)

Wow, has it already been 10 years?? Yes, I do plan on resuming it. My biggest goal for this year is to get my Kickstarter game shipped. I have to prioritize that since I have paying customers there. But when it is done, I am planning on making more Taxicat pages!

I have improved a lot at watercolors in the meantime, so I think the new pages will have a better quality, too. Thank you for checking in and for reading Taxicat!!

[linebyline-i-guess]

More Taxicat!? This is joyous news!

[thyrell]

i love when boomers complain about shit like this because as a fast food worker i would literally rather walk out into the lobby and shoot myself in the head than suggest more than one menu item to a customer

[holycrapitsbags]

Yeah former 8 year Starbucks employ here. This never happens. I’ve have had what amounts to a flip on this happen more often. Something like

“Welcome in what can I get you”

“I want a plain black coffee”

“All rights wha-“

“No sugar or cream or flavor or anything else.”

“Okay, got it, wha-“

“I don’t want no caramachmocha flippy-do’s or frappachina-what-it’s. Just. A plain ol regular black coffee”

“That’s great sir, now please wha”

“Just a old fashioned stright up coff-“

“SIR WHAT SIZE DO YOU WANT YOU STUPID FUCKING COFFEE”

[blazehedgehog]

Now, listen: I absolutely trust the above posts. I know they’re true.

But I also want to relay you a story from the days when I was paid to write for a gaming blog.

So the Genesis Mini had just come out. My boss was comping my purchase but I had to go down to the local Gamestop and pick it up. When I get there, there’s this guy at the register almost half my age and he’s one of those dudes who is a little too energetic. He looks like the skater archetype; he’s wearing a beanie covering a big frizzy afro and he has a scruffy beard. But he’s super bright and bubbly.

I tell him what I’m there for and at first he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Genesis Mini? what’s that? I point right at it on the shelf behind the registers and he’s like “ohhhhh, one of THOSE, haha.”

He rings me up and asks if I have a Gamestop Edge Rewards card. I remember that I used to many years ago, so I go fishing around in my wallet for it. I cannot find it. “We can try a phone number!” he cheerfully reminds me. I give him my current number. “There’s nothing under that number. Was it an older one?” So I give him my previous number. Nope, nothing there either. I try my mom’s phone number, just in case it was somehow registered under hers. Also no. “What about an email address?”

At this point I can tell there’s at least one other person behind me. I waffle, telling him I dunno about the email, and he pushes me to “just try it.” So I give him my main email. No good. Side email #1? Nope. A man behind me audibly clears his throat. Side email #2? Nope. Side email #3? Nope.

“I guess I don’t have an Edge Rewards Card after all.” “Well, do you want to sign up for one?” I can feel daggers hitting the back of my neck. “No thanks.”

He goes over to get the Genesis Mini. As he’s walking back to the register to give it to me, he suddenly laughs. “Dude, imagine if I tripped and fell right now, hucked this thing across the store. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

I was stone faced. I collect my console, turn around to leave, and discover there were four people watching him push me for an Edge Rewards card for the last five minutes.

[linebyline-i-guess]

Which is, I think, illustrative of the problem. Generally the "Would you like to try…" spiel, as well as the push to sign up for rewards card or (worse yet) store credit cards, are being pushed by management or corporate, not the front-line workers.

I haven't worked retail myself (closest I've come is phone tech support) but I'm reliably informed that the workers generally hate pushing the cards as much as the customers, but they're punished for not getting enough signups.

Anyway, as gross as this cartoon is, I'll take it over the similar one where the barista can't even comprehend the concept of a plain black coffee.

[tricksnbears]

Starfox hype got to me so have krystal sketch✨