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Kendra, regular version @kendrawcandraw.bsky.social ⋅ 13h
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*insert Homestuck meme about stack data structures*
Say what?
FIFO, obviously
Meme inserted and found excellent.
Thanks Taffy, that means a lot.
Especially since the indie game studio just informed me that they had to lay me off because of budget reasons and stupid European laws
Crap. If your interview project was useful you might want to try to get paid for that much.
Oh no! Sympathies. That sucks.
I know fuckall about the game industry but if its anything like other creative gig economies this sounds par for the course, as will be hundreds of unpaid and barely-paid hours and assorted indignities…
Hope you’re dealing OK, take care
Been in games for a bit over a decade. The vast majority of the game industry is an established tech industry. Layoffs are dramatic but fairly rare, paychecks are constant (but lower than other parts of tech), and work-life balance varies from studio to studio. It can be a lovely place to work, but you do have to remember that “indie studio” can sometimes be code for ‘A group of people who have no idea what they’re doing and no funding’ as opposed to most actual indie game studios, which are just small companies. Never work anywhere if they miss a single paycheck.
Condolences here, as it sounds like they wandered into the former as opposed to the latter.
Agreed, it sounds like they didn’t realize the legal and financial implications of “hiring an employee” vs “commissioning freelance work”. (Especially if said employee is outside the EU, which brings international laws into play IIRC.)
Please don’t take it personally or be too hard on yourself! You got that far through the interview process! That was an oversight on their part, not any fault of yours.
Thanks 🥲
Further down the corridor, someone goes “OW! Who threw this Fireflight at me?”
…are we sure ETHAN won’t start calling Booster “Replacement Mike”?
Only in bed.
depends which transformer facts he would need to forget
Booster’ll make him forget all of them.
That requires Ethan to think Mike can be replaced.
Mike Usurper seems more likely.
So, does this mean Booster leans femme-presenting more often than not, and that’s the reason Ethan won’t be into them, or is it because Booster is just not straight-up masculine, like Ethan presumably prefers?
I would think the former, that Booster is more femme-presenting what with the lipstick and everything.
Or it could be they want to be seen and aknowmeged as they and since Ethan is gay, not overall queer that the relationship wouldn’t go forward anyways because they are not a he.
Booster: Alright new friend, I have here some cards of suggested conversational topics. Tell me, what are your thoughts on…”FIRRIB”?! I don’t…what is that?
(Ethan launches into three hour explanation/rant. Booster shrugs and sits back to admire.)
I’ll tell you what firrib is: the correct answer!
Um, I think you meant RIRFIB.
RIFRIB!
“Okay, let’s try… ‘TRUK NOT MUNKEY?’ Seriously what the hell?”
Huh, actually, not as bad a train wreck as I thought it’d be.
I guess the day is young but that didn’t go too badly.
I’m curious how this will go when they actually get to Ethan. He may not be in the mood to make a new friend. Ethan might already know who Booster is as well and know he is Walky’s new roommate, and thus know he is “Replacement Mike.”
well if they’re in the same dorm area they’d run into each other eventually but ambers just speeding up the project
You have to admire her sales technique.
Well, I have to.
Looking forward to Ethster sometime next week.
I guess I’m ok with that name, given the alternative is Boothan, which is a little too close to Bothan for my liking (they die for information, so they probably die for entertainment too, and we don’t need that kind of carnage on our hands)
Ether
Okay, friendshipping. That’s… better.
Also I don’t know if Ethan is strictly masc-for-masc. Danny’s not exactly a paragon of hulkitude.
He seems to have a decently varied taste, going between Danny/Mike/Thad/Drew.
I was thinking that too. He was into Jocelyn too, who of course looked just like a man, but still. Booster is biologically male, I assume, given that they live in the men’s dorm, and their looks are (to me at least) those of a man who embraces certain feminine things, not those of a woman. Just because their gender is non-binary doesn’t necessarily mean a gay man won’t be into them based on their biological sex.
And I hope I didn’t unintentionally insult or hurt anyone with my words. Everyone deserves to be able to live as they identify, and find a nice partner of their preferred gender & sex, if they want to.
As someone who fairly recently learnt they were demi-sexual, I’d say your assessment is valid. Sometimes all you want is someone who makes decent Batman jokes and that ain’t restricted to one body type last I checked.
It would probably matter to booster that Ethan recognise they’re gender cause it doesn’t feel great when the person you’re with isn’t actually attracted to who you actually are. Booster probably wants to be with someone who is attracted to their non-binary self, not “I’m into you because I view you as a guy, but won’t say anything”
I could be way off base as I’m not attracted to people’s bodily arrangement but what I think Anna meant was that Ethan could find Booster physically attractive as they don’t have overt female characteristics aka boobs and a vagina. That doesn’t mean wouldn’t be attractive to who they actually are as sex and gender are two different things ( what you were born as vs what you identify as) so in theory you could be attracted to the physical package and the various cerebral quirks that make up a humanbeing. Does that sound fair?
That’s the other side of it, of course: even if Ethan is into Booster, does Booster want Ethan? B does think E is hot, so that would help. And who knows how Ethan feels about a non-binary person, for all we know he is into biologically male bodies with whatever gender. On the other hand, he backed right off from Jocelyn when Jocelyn told him she’s not a man, despite her looks.
That’s actually true, I’d forgotten he was actually good about that.
It would be an interesting avenue of queerness to explore, often it’s a seemingly cis het character discovering queerness, but a cis gay man going out with a queer person who isn’t strictly in the boxes is not something you see expired often
It would be a funny relationship considering booster is not that angsty and even if booster can resist their analysis brain, I don’t think they’d be able to stop themselves at least making helpful suggestions. Like the opposite of garbage roof type relationship. Does Ethan even want the good version of a relationship with booster considering how he currently is?
Did he actually back right off from Jocelyne because of that? He kinda tried to flirt with her, then she confronted him with ‘wait you’re gay, why are you dating my sister’ and he got enough second hand embarrassment to back off. The ‘finding out she’s not a man’ was pretty much after the dust had settled, and it was via text.
@Anna
Disclaimer: none of this is intended as a criticism. I saw your comment and thought you might find this helpful!
I am no expert myself, but if I remember correctly (my memory is poor and accepted terminology varies greatly!) a better term for Booster would be “assigned male at birth” (AMAB) rather than “biologically male.” As many people educated in biology have pointed out, there are *tons* of biological indicators of sex, and a human being can have some very interesting combinations that defy sorting into a gender binary even on a purely biological basis. (For example, most people have no reason to know what their chromosomal sex actually is, so some people that were assigned male at birth, have presented and identified as male their entire lives, and have considered-male sex characteristics including deep voice, lots of body hair, etc. are actually chromosomally XX.) So, since the sex/gender assigned at birth is based on simple straightforward visual cues (“does the baby have a D or a V,” and of course this is why assigning gender at birth is so flawed) it’s typically a better shorthand for the kind of thing you’re referring to here about Booster
People will understand what you mean either way, though.
Also, Booster still has a good point; sexual orientation/attraction is so varied and unique from person to person, Ethan being gay doesn’t tell us much about whether or not he’d be into Booster. Danny is not exactly the most masculine dude ever, but he is still a conventionally masculine presenting dude, and everyone else Ethan’s slept with is either the same amount of or more masculine than Danny. We really have nothing we can point to in determining whether Ethan is into gender-nonconforming dudes. I wouldn’t count Jocelyn because, as a result of her being closeted for safety, she probably looks even *less* femme than Booster. She seemed to think Ethan wouldn’t be interested in pursuing her after learning she’s trans, but I think that’s because Jocelyne does hope to transition someday
@Myth, I appreciate it! I know the term assigned male at birth/AMAB and how it is useful, and I know sex is a spectrum, both when it comes to chromosomes and in what a person has between their legs. All this is interesting and in my view everyone should be able to live a life that matches their gender, and only have operations on their sexual characteristics if they want that themselves.
But when it comes to this specific person Booster and whether or not Ethan would be attracted to them, I think it matters not so much that Booster is presumably AMAB but that they (probably) have the physical features of a man. A trans woman can have a vagina and boobs, and I think we can safely assume that Ethan would not be attracted to her, even if she was exactly as AMAB as Ethan himself or Booster or Mike or etc.
Hence my choice of the term ‘biologically male’; perhaps ‘with the physical features of a man’ or ‘physically male’ would have been a better choice.
@Psi Baka Onna: Yes, that is what I meant.
@Nono: maybe you’re right, I might misremember exactly how and when Ethan backed off from Jocelyn.
The red ONE? I thought there were several who were at least partially red. I’ll never work this out.
From memory, I think Fireflight is the one with the most red, but Slingshot is the only one I had as a “kid” (teenager).
Feeling called out by the alt-text.
he was a smaller legends class toy, and like that line’s shockwave and a couple others, he could be turned into a gun for a bigger figure. box art canon had him as superion’s weapon.
Amusingly enough, he can be wielded in gun mode by his larger 2008 toy.
IM so called out bu the alt-text – my first thought of Powerglide was a GM automatic transmission!
Likewise, Had one in my race car for years. Mainly because it was lightweight and gave me a trans that would survive hard launches and had a reverse gear.
Ha! Got ’em.
Don’t worry, it’s not emotional labour, you aren’t getting paid
“You wouldn’t be doing my emotional labour, you’re not getting paid anything for this” would have been a better sentence than this. Oh well
1 dollar for a kind/sympathetic smile, 5 dollars for a hug
That would be an emotional job.
Labour doesn’t necessarily mean payment.
Ask anyone who was never paid for their labor.
The concept of “domestic labour” was developed by 2nd-wave Marxist feminists precisely to name the unpaid value produced by women’s work in the house. The phrase “emotional labour” follows the same template, as do further elaborations such as “sexual labour”.
I believe in typical marxist terminology ” labour” is the value-producing effort itself, with or without compensation. The word for the commodification of that labour is “service”. See “domestic service workers”, “sexual services” etc.
Anyway, for further reading I highly recommend Jess Zimmerman’s riotous and whip-smart essay, Where’s My Cut?
Good comment!
Oh and don’t forget gestational labor/reproductive labor. :3
Fuck combiner wars. The red one’s Fireflight. (And his alt mode is an F4 Phantom II.)
I don’t know from combiner wars or Firefight, but I know F4s are powerful planes. I was on Nellis when the Thunderbirds flew F4s. If they got some speed up, they could fly straight up clear out of sight. If you ducked under one, though, you’d better be wearing a helmet. All kinds of things sticking down to cut your head open.
I’ve heard both the F4 and the Shuttle offered as proof that – with sufficient power, and some minimal streamlining and control surfaces – you can make a brick fly.
I think that same logic is what gave us that breed of watercraft called the “bass boat”.
My dad was a fighter pilot, and that was how he described the F-4.
How much is Booster into transformers? Or at least willing to feign intrest in transformers?
“I’m sorry, I’m into Go-Bots.”
*Ethan dies of apoplexy*
Since Go-Bots have been part of Transformers for longer than these characters have been alive, probably more confusion than anything else.
(In their lifetime, I believe it’s been pretty much always the pre-school-aimed lines, except for when it was the characters from the original brought into a G1ish Transformers universe.)
But ‘the red one’ could be any of them except for, what… Barrel Roll? The others have all got red on them, anyway.
That went… surprisingly well.
I don’t trust it, when is Willis going to pull the rug out from underneath us?
dunno how receptive ethan would be to being approached, even with just friendship esp if he knows they’re a psych major. depends on how organic the meeting is versus ethan just sulking in a public space like teh cafeteria/common area and booster just asking if he’s alright versus them approaching him and saying “amber said you could use a new friend” or so
OK I’ve decided this “psych major” nonsense has wrapped round from irritating to funny now
I mean, i’m not sure you mean it as a joke, which might mean I’m laughing *at* you now, but oh well
First he’s got to slide the rug back under us
This!
We have to become emotionally invested first.
You gotta build first, so later you can blow it all up or tear it all down.
We do need a way to get ethan firmly back like, actually participating in the story before any real heartbreak can happen. I imagine anything bad happening too early would just result in ‘Well, guess that guy is gonna continue to not exist in the comic anymore’
I’m sure the robot wars you’re referring to are incredibly deep and dense and full of genuinely tragic and heart-rending moments….
But that’s not really my demographic.
Make robot love, not robot war!
https://youtu.be/24PQ1_sMzLM
(Don’ t worry, nothing NSFW about this.)
Did they just make Daffy…. openly gay in that version?
Pretty sure both Bugs and Daffy have been Bi.
that’s what the wiki is for lol
off the top of my head it’s slingshot right?
I see that her time with Walky and Sal has resulted in her getting some of that Walkerton Charm to rub off on her.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/population/
I regret posting this.
Why? I see no issue here, unless I’m missing something obvious.
This never-remember-a-name issue isn’t only from Sal and Amber, huh?
This turned out better than I thought it would…Maybe this isn’t a bad idea, as ideas in this universe go. Perhaps Booster would be good for Ethan. And at least Amber realizes Ethan needs someone.
It might help if you dyed your hair blonde and started wearing black shirts.
Also, I know it’s a bit strange, but talk about how you did his mom for a quarter. It might break the ice a little.
Her price has gone up to a quarter? Man, inflation’s hitting everything these days.
Only Mike could talk her down to a nickel.
“Ethan Siegal Needs a Friend”
And so does anybody, actually. Even it may be transient, it’s still friendship.
Oh that’s far less bad then the previous strip led me to believe
Huh.
I thought the correct answer was Fireflight. Guess I lose.
The red one turns into a dinosaur
Maybe Randy could spare Fluffmodeus, and they could be Ethan’s “New Friend” for awhile!
That’s a crossover I’d really enjoy.
Makes sense. I guess it also probably means us getting more Booster and Ethan around, whether this works or not. Should prove interesting.
Also, good to know Amber wasn’t misgendering Booster, and that we, and Booster, were just somewhat jumping to conclusions.
This very sweet, there is no guarantee of sucess but then again nothing is in this life. Ask your aquantainces if they can try to befriend Ethan is better than doing nothing
First panel: VINDICATION!!!
Second panel: …ah.
That was not nearly as uncomfortable as I feared it would be. I did not even feel real second-hand anxiety. Just a bit.
re: Alt-text:
Everything I know about Transformers I learned by osmosis from going “yup, uh-huh, sure, robots” at all the references here.
Not a bad idea, so Booster will have an interesting case to study and Amber an excuse for periodically talk with Booster, becoming friends with them (and maybe something more, I ship Amber and Booster and the Amber/AmaziGirl’s “case” is like the ultimate dream for a psychology student). It would be a triple win! Let’s see what Ethan think about this.
Thank you for “Ambooster” … thank you VERY much.
I like this name♡. Ambooster forever!
I’d like fun at Amber for that but I also memorise NPCs with one line of dialogue in an MMO and every Power Ranger and Sonic character I’ve ever seen.
I envy you, being able to memorize those things just for fun.
Autistic burnout low-energy mode sucks
a great sacrifice was made today
Acceptable answers, in order of acceptability:
Fireflight – The red and white one
Slingshot – The white and red one
Silver bolt – The white and red leader
Alpha Bravo – The white and red helicopter (Combiner Wars)
AirRazor – Mostly white with small hints of red (Powerlinx Combiner)
Air Raid – The most black and white one, but with red parts
Balloon – White and red dirigible
Unacceptable answers
Sky Dive – the black red and grey one
Barrel Roll (IDW/minicon)- Green, grey and yellowish one
Thurst (Armada Supercon) – Grey, cream, green and orange honorary aerialbot
Powerglide – red and cream aerialbot (combiner wars)
If there’s a Powerglide shouldn’t there be a TorqueFlite and a Ford-O-Matic to balance things out?
I’m waiting for the Turbo-Hydramatic myself.
This whole thread shows why this forum needs a upvote button instead of a flag.
Agreed with Opus. Here’s your upvote.
Although there may be a Turbo-Hydramatic in your future, there won’t be an Oldsmobile.
Waitwaitwait. The one with ‘silver’ in its name isn’t silver?
Well, the version of Bluestreak that I got as a kid was silver, not blue (though his original mold appeared to be blue and white).
I begin to see why Amber needs to apply mental capacity to this.
Damn, Booster hardly ever met Ethan and knows he’s gay. That obvious, huh?
Booster and Walky might have talked off-panel? (which is aggravating, I know) (how dare) (then again most of the things most people say most of the time are super boring so maybe its for the best)
What’s this “off-panel” you speak of?
oh, excuse the jargon, it’s part a hypothetical model postulated by some dumbstrophysicists to explain a class of weird phenomena their current model fails to account for.
The suggestion is that reality as we know it may be explained in terms of fundamental structures they are tentatively calling “strips”, which mathematically imply extra, unobservable, “off-panel” dimensions (alternatively described as particles called “scriptons”). Those dimensions were somehow (???) “folded into” reality around the time of the chaotic origination event technically known as the “Inaugural Poop”.
This “Strip theory” is meant to help explain inconsistencies within the current experimentally-supported model of the dumbiverse, however it is debated, with critics considering this to be an untestable and therefore unscientific proposition.
Some of them go as far as to call it a resurgence of the widely scoffed-at myth that all events in the dumbiverse are either (scholars differ) predetermined or constantly tinkered with by a mischievous divinity known as Willis.
*applause*
Joins clapping.
Plot twist: The red aerialbot’s name was ALSO Booster. As in, “Booster Aerial”….
…aaaaaaaand now I’ll let myself out. xD
Okay, now I’m confused. I thought Powerglide was the A-10, which was a stand-alone minibot, not a Combiner.
What? Isn’t Powerglide blue and Viper Red?
Amber writes superhero smut. Countdown to when she accidentally calls them “Boostle”.
Powerglide is Superion’s gun, so he’s an Aerialbot now. This is canon to me and a great elevation of my favorite minibot. It’s not like Hasbro is doing anything with Powerglide in official fiction now…I love Windblade but I’m gonna be REAL upset if it turns out they think “we can only have one red autobot plane” because I wanted her to be blue!
If these are her real intentions she’s a better person than we all gave her credit for yesterday.
Urrrrgh. ooh no its Booster.
It has been such a long (and very happy time) that i almost forgot Boosters
existed.
if it’s red, it’s the leader, right ?
Or it is about to die, if it’s in the Star Trek universe.
Only in the Original Series. In TNG and the other series made after it, the commanding officers usually wear red shirts, and the random yellow and blue shirt people are more likely to die.
Hey, friendships that started for less have been good for everyone involved.
Everyone is like, “Ethan is going to think of them as replacement Mike too,” and here I’m like, I hope he’s not that big of a jerkass?
It’s a weird experience to read this and not be a transformers fan