#making new original observations

[jeremiahthefroge]

yeah ok so I caved. Lit up another bowl, opened a new folder on my Obsidian vault, and I'm gonna rewatch the minecraft diaries and I'm going to take detailed notes on everything plot related I can, separated episode by episode, make observations, and then create a little personal wikipedia of my interpretations of the characters as they appear on the show.

I just did episode one to do what is essentially a "am I capable of watching this" test (I feared since it was 2016 youtube that I was into in the year 2016, a historically terrible year for me, that I would have some HEAVILY BIASED ideas on the quality of this show, and that if I rewatched I would ruin it for myself) and I honestly didn't have too hard of a time with the youtube of it all. Cringe is and has been dead, and I'm looking at this like a fun little excercise in studying how this piece of media tells the story it tells.

Speaking of, I find it so interesting how the machinima of Zenix and Garroth kicks us off and we then have Aphmau speaking as like... a comentary youtuber. The machinima sets up a plot that isn't even hinted more at in the episode, too, but I can see the first 10 or whatever episodes having all been recorded in 1 batch all at once and then cut up. I don't recall how characterized Aphmau gets in this whole thing.

And also I find Aphmau doing the voices for Garroth and Zenix so unironically fun and endears me to the series. Idk why but it made me smile!

I'll probably liveblog more of this experience bc I'm incapable of keeping my mouth shut.

[taurus-caeli]

This Novel...Isn't Doing Well (A SAGAU drabble)

“Why isn’t my latest series selling well? You’d think my audience would give it a chance after reading Onibudou…!”

You took a sip of rainbow aster. “It’s because it’s unfamiliar. The market sells what’s currently popular. Those that go off the beaten path will face more trials compared to the rest.”

“...I’m sorry Your Grace, but you lost me after ‘trials’.”

“My point is: It’ll be generally difficult to sell an original creation if the audience isn’t familiar with them. So you have to slowly introduce them first until the audience does!”

“After this, I’ll help you with that part.”

[trickstersaint]

hey hi hello! first of all i'd like to say i took your patron saint uquiz and it. Changed my life unironically it's so good. i follow you now because every line in that quiz was a gut punch and i loved it. top tier hurt honestly

my question is this - i am a fanauthor. on the side i also write my own original fiction but i specialize in fanfic. Am I allowed to use your poetry for a reference folder? I wouldn't use your poetry in a fic without explicit permission and without linking back here of course, and I'd never use it for commercial work outside of maybe taking inspiration without copying, but I wanna have a ref folder of Things That Made Me Feel Things about a character. It's not planned to be public as of yet, it's just supposed to be a bunch of screenshots in my drafts, but I'd like to maybe one day make it public once the fic was complete. (I already have your blog linked in my drafts actually, so if it goes public I'm not gonna forget.) I just want to make sure you're comfortable with me using your poetry for fanfic of all things

It's cool if not and have a great day! I still think your poetry is great and evocative and all

hi, anon! you're all good, i prommy. so glad you like the quiz + the poetry, and i would always prefer people come and ask questions if they're uncertain! no trouble at all.

my general stance is that as long as it's clearly credited, i am totally cool with my work being used in personal projects. like you said, i've got a tag for the things that people make! i love to see what people create. if it's for a noncommercial creative project then i would say there's no need to ask beforehand (unless it would make you more comfortable to ask, in which case go ahead and i'll almost certainly say yes <3). my only thing is that if you post it, please tag me in it/send it to me so that i can reblog it here for people to see!

if there are any questions about using my work that anyone has, feel free to ask. i don't think i've got anything particular going on outside of common practice! same way you'd treat, like, a richard siken poem or smth: you wanna credit it so that people can find the source material, and make sure you're not using it for profit unless you have an understanding with that author. i trust you all to be decent about it <3 kiss kiss go out and make your cool little things so that i can be delighted and amazed with them

[bogos-bint3d]

Post that has rerouted my brain

[lovelesslittleloser]

Sometimes, when I listen to a particularly good song, I can envision a scene and the emotions brought with it, and it makes me sad that my art and animation skills aren’t good enough yet to depict it to others the way I see it

[headknight-oh]

Just noticed that there hasn’t been much, if any, coverage on the mangione trial in like a month. Like since he plead not guilty, there hasn’t been any major coverage on the proceedings. I just tried to look up anything about the past month and I genuinely cannot find anything. Nothing about it they’re still in jury selection, nothing about any rulings, nothing about the defending attorney or even opinion pieces. Like I know why there’s not much coverage, but nothing at all? Like we got CONSTANT updates about the depp/heard case when it was happening, but now that it’s something about an important issue that would have been the case of the decade in times past, it’s radio silence.

It’s so incredibly disturbing that they’ve filtered it out of the media and that people don’t care enough to demand it be covered. People treated it like a trend and aesthetified it to the point that an actual act of resistance means nothing now.

Also there’s like no concrete evidence in this case. It’s all circumstantial. I feel that everyone forgot that, and because of it, the idea that “innocent until proven guilty” as a precedent is very much in the process of being undermined

Edit: Putting this here again because I keep getting people misinterpreting what I’m trying to say: You guys, I know there’s nothing new to report on. What I’m saying is that when something like this happens, everyone talks about it. Every talk show and opinion columnist and political analyst will talk give speculation and reaction and opinion on it. Like when columbine happened, every news outlet talked about it for months before the trial ever happened. It happened in 99 and the rulings didn’t come out til 01 or something. And even if they never directly mentioned columbine, they would talk about gun violence and bullying and how police weren’t trained for situations like that. They talked about the surrounding issues. Like yeah there’s nothing new that the media has access to rn, but no one is making opinion pieces about the judges conflict of interest, no talk show is having a 20 min segment about gun violence or the state of healthcare. Twenty years ago, it would have stayed in the news cycle at least passively until the case moved forward. But now it’s been phased out almost completely. And I know coverage will pick up when the trial starts. I know courts move slowly. I’m not trying to push conspiracy. I was simply making an observation that it was strange that there was almost no talk about it, that it’s been phased out of news cycles, and how there’s no widespread conversation about the issues surrounding the shooting.

Also, I only used depp/heard in the original because it was the most recent case I could think of. And because I was tired and thought this post would be seen by like 20 people max, so I didn’t bother wording it as precisely as I could have. Columbine and the OJ Simpson case are better examples to work off of.

I just wanted to clarify what I meant so I stop getting comments that misinterpret what I’m trying to say and people being rude about it

[quantam-furniture]

I adore doing things that my prehistoric ancestors would probably recognise

[cipheramnesia]

Not perfect and not always right but basically:

Is it a screen shot?

Is there a link?

Did you click/read the link?

Was it a real source (AP wire, local news, the original online post - not Fox, not the Sun, not NY Post, etc)?

Did you find any confirmation?

Did it strongly confirm a bias or suspicion?

Did it make you feel angry, smug, disgusted, superior, and/or helpless?

Is it important enough to you that you think it needs to be shared?

Do you have the energy, time, ability to research, confirm, and provide sources, links, and some additional clarifying details?

Generally I have this in mind, not necessarily always and not always observed, and I forget and blah blah. But it's a pretty simple guide to remember, and honestly items 1 and 9 cover me most of the time.

[kacievvbbbb]

I just rewatched the original Lilo and Stitch movie and honestly was not expecting to find out that Stitch has to be one of the biggest victims of a decade long flanderization.

I also forgot, and honestly I think most people, that stitch has so much character like he’s not just a ball of chaos, he's also very much a smart ass and makes jokes. And is angry and curious and a little bit of an asshole. You just don’t really get that in the live action or really most iterations of him. He’s reverted back to one.

Like Stitch in the movie is really smart. And he doesn’t just make noises as they will have you believe it’s actually pretty implied that he’s bilingual and was actively learning English (and not talking because Dog cover) and that’s why it was all stilted and kind of broken and unsure. He sounds much smoother and natural speaking in his alien language that Jumba understands. I don’t think the live action movie really got this.

And through out the movie he is not unstoppably causing chaos he’s just angry, confused, and curious and not gentle with things and so things just go wrong around him. The only thing he actively destroys out of a want to destroy is the mini San Fransisco he built and that was copying a movie scene he saw. Stitch destroys things because it’s how he knows to interact with the world around him by the end of the movie he does very little destruction and more just general goofing off (granted with a true lack of understanding on like property damage)

Hell Jumba goes good because he’s been observing Stitch and his struggles to become more than he was made to be. How stitch reacts in a situation where he can no longer perform his primary objective. Jumba pities him like a robot without a job but Stitch evolves to more than he was meant to be and it’s that evolution that flaw in his programming that allows Jumba to switch sides (even if it is played for laughs and never mind that despite his creations Jumba honestly was never even that bad a guy to begin with I mean obviously it’s a kids show but when Jumba lists Stitches objectives they are are inconveniences at best frustrating and mild property damage at worst)

But like the idea that like Stitch is actually just another burden that Nani would need to take care of is laughable when by the end of the movie it is explicitly shown him doing household chores. He makes their lunches escorts Lilo to the bus, bakes her birthday cake, does the laundry and does it well. Hell he practically even has a job. Never mind that Jumba and Pleakly are also there and also pitch in. Plus Cobra. Nani had so much support by the end of the movie that ofcourse she could continue to raise Lilo she wasn’t doing it alone.

The new ending just feels like the makers didn’t have faith in the original concept like they didn’t believe that anyone would believe that Lilo would be okay in the care of aliens we have to replace them with people or else it doesn’t make sense. It’s just weird like they didn’t trust the audience to garps that these silly little aliens are not in fact children that also need supervision but beings capable of taking care of lilo and contributing to the family. And honestly I don’t blame them because people did accept it. And it’s so fucking sad.

We’ve talked a lot about Nani, Lilo and Jumba and their blatant mischaracterization . But not enough about the flanderization of stitch and it’s just sad honestly.

[communistkenobi]

(taken from a post about AI)

speaking as someone who has had to grade virtually every kind of undergraduate assignment you can think of for the past six years (essays, labs, multiple choice tests, oral presentations, class participation, quizzes, field work assignments, etc), it is wild how out-of-touch-with-reality people’s perceptions of university grading schemes are. they are a mass standardised measurement used to prove the legitimacy of your degree, not how much you’ve learned. Those things aren’t completely unrelated to one another of course, but they are very different targets to meet. It is standard practice for professors to have a very clear idea of what the grade distribution for their classes are before each semester begins, and tenure-track assessments (at least some of the ones I’ve seen) are partially judged on a professors classes’ grade distributions - handing out too many A’s is considered a bad thing because it inflates student GPAs relative to other departments, faculties, and universities, and makes classes “too easy,” ie, reduces the legitimate of the degree they earn. I have been instructed many times by professors to grade easier or harder throughout the term to meet those target averages, because those targets are the expected distribution of grades in a standardised educational setting. It is standard practice for teaching assistants to report their grade averages to one another to make sure grade distributions are consistent. there’s a reason profs sometimes curve grades if the class tanks an assignment or test, and it’s generally not because they’re being nice!

this is why AI and chatgpt so quickly expanded into academia - it’s not because this new generation is the laziest, stupidest, most illiterate batch of teenagers the world has ever seen (what an original observation you’ve made there!), it’s because education has a mass standard data format that is very easily replicable by programs trained on, yanno, large volumes of data. And sure the essays generated by chatgpt are vacuous, uncompelling, and full of factual errors, but again, speaking as someone who has graded thousands of essays written by undergrads, that’s not exactly a new phenomenon lol

I think if you want to be productively angry at ChatGPT/AI usage in academia (I saw a recent post complaining that people were using it to write emails of all things, as if emails are some sacred form of communication), your anger needs to be directed at how easily automated many undergraduate assignments are. Or maybe your professors calculating in advance that the class average will be 72% is the single best way to run a university! Who knows. But part of the emotional stakes in this that I think are hard for people to admit to, much less let go of, is that AI reveals how rote, meaningless, and silly a lot of university education is - you are not a special little genius who is better than everyone else for having a Bachelor’s degree, you have succeeded in moving through standardised post-secondary education. This is part of the reason why disabled people are systematically barred from education, because disability accommodations require a break from this standardised format, and that means disabled people are framed as lazy cheaters who “get more time and help than everyone else.” If an AI can spit out a C+ undergraduate essay, that of course threatens your sense of superiority, and we can’t have that, can we?

[flamingpudding]

Dan's Rage Room

It all started as a little Joke for Danny. Jazz mentioned Dan needing a place to decompress and that resulted in Danny getting a crazy idea while he sat in the Buisness Class Course of his Highschool. It wasn't supposed to become a serious business but somehow the little warehouse in Amity Park he secured, through blackmailing Vlad cause the man owns him after all he was put through. Became an official big store, once Dani put up a sign saying 'Dan's Rage Room' as joke.

People of Amity Park apparently thought it was a legit store. And damn... Danny shouldn't have been as surprised as he was when more and more people appeared and asked how much an hour costed. It was Sam and Tucker that then convinced him to make it a legitimate Business, Jazz and his mother helped him fill out the form. And so 'Dan's Rage Room' became Danny's very own Business. Though he did try to push splitten ownership onto his clones/time selves/ cousins/ clone siblings / clone kids (It's complicated okay? Danny still hasn't figured out how to categorise Dan and Dani, but hey they were family.) But Dan and Dani refused to take any sort of owner ship, even when everything originally started as a place for Dan to unwind.

Eitherway his Business grew, and Danny ended up expanding to other cities, figuring out that if Amity Park's people needed this, others would too. With a bit of help and unwilling on his part teaching from Vlad. Danny opened up more Stores, Central City, Metropolis, Star City. Unintentionally Danny made enough money so much that he didn't knew what to do with it and suddenly felt a new kind of understanding for Sam. Despite being sure his parents likely already did that Danny made money Fonds for Jazz, Dan and Dani. He didn't have much hope to go to collage himself considering his grades but that was fine with him. (According to what clockwork let slip and he hadn't told anyone, he would become King of the Infinite realms anyway, no need for a college degree for that, right?)

And wenn his sister decided she wanted to go to university in Gotham, the most crime riddled city known? None of the three D's hesitated to follow. Danny opened another branch of 'Dan's Rage Room' deciding that would finance their live in Gotham and still be an outlet for Dan.

What Danny didn't expect was the amount of people that weren't just 'goons' like he expected paying to let loose in there. Not that he recognised them but some of Danny's new regulars made sure he knew who some of the apparent Big Names showing up to his store were.

Jason at first thought that a new drug place had opened up at the border to Crime Alley, but after observation and seeing not just Goons but also regular Gothamites frequenting the place. Jason gave it a cautious shot, he wallst into the place completely geared up as Red Hood expecting some muscular unkept drug dealer or something at the reception, but what he found was a boy that didn't look older than Tim, small lanky and looking weirdly tired. That took the wind out of his sails as he stared stunned at the kid for a moment.

"Ah... I see guns. A bullet room then? You seem new too, first time? An hour costs 50 bucks added 5 for every additional half an hour." The boy looked up briefly before looking back down at the book he was reading, muttering something about his sister making him visit online classes.

Jason was just about to say something when someone walked in behind him and he blinked. A fucking dump truck of muscle walked in flaming white hair looking ready to rip something apart. The kid didn't even look up as they held up a green card and the guy stomped past him into a door, Jason assumed lead to the... rage rooms?

It took a moment but once he composed himself again, Jason opened his mouth again only to get interrupted by a little girl stomping in next, screeching about a fruitloop and stupid galas and stupid boys. Again the boy at the reception didn't even loop up, holding another green card to the girl who then proceeded to go through the same door the other guy had.

Once again it took Jason a moment to compose himself again, before he spoke, gruff and voice modulated. "One hour... gun room." He would snoop around if he could but if this really was just a rage room business... well he had some unresolved frustrations with B stocked up he could let loose.

Jason quickly became a regular at that place, he kept visiting it, even when he found out some of their big Villains frequented the place too. Though apparently the Joker was band. One day a big ass sign appeared on the side of the building spelling out 'NO CLOWNS ALLOWED'. When he asked Danny, he had gotten to know the boy at the reception desk by now and found some uncanny resemblance to his little brother, the boy had just shrugged and said "I hate clowns." Laughter barked out of Jason for no reason and he took his regular room card chuckling a "You and me, and 99% of Gotham kid."

That place quickly became one of Jasons safe heavens. Even if he ever only went there in full Red Hood gear. This place helped him manage his rage and anger. Some of his siblings started to use that room too, he knew Damian went there too. In full Robin gear mind you but apparently they had a room where he could fully test out his swords skills. Good for the kid.

But what stung though was Bruce, that man still didn't trust the place, something about background checks not adding up.

Jason was going to refute that, that was until one day he noticed an unusual amount of white van all around Danny's store. And only moments after he entered the store guys completely and ridiculously dressed in white stormed the place holding what Jason thought was futuristic Guns at the Danny's head who appeared somewhat unfazed. Well no one could place Jason for pulling out his own gun and holding it onto the dressed in White guy's head while the man spewed some nonsense about ghosts and more. Like hell he was let these people destroy a new safe heaven.

If Jason spread the word in the underground and suddenly, villains, goons and gothamites as well as vigilantes (his overprotective brothers really, Dick was not going to let someone destroy a place his little wing and baby bat loved to frequent...) started a reverse hunt on people ridiculously dressed like them. It wasn't his doing. And he certainly loved the frustration it caused Bruce too, seeing as even Gordon and the police force, corrupt or not, were in on it too. Governmental institution or not, Jason would make sure the GIW would be going down soon enough.

[tonyzaret]

How are you able to make so many relatively accurate observations about fandom culture?

Because I have been researching fandom culture for over a year (using only Reddit arguments as a source) and this is what I’ve learned:

Fandom does not mean being a fan of something. Fandom refers to a group of adults creating and consuming romantic (also known as “shipping”) “smut” (p*rnography) content based on a handful of commercially-produced intellectual properties catering to the Teen Demographic.

Although these intellectual properties are marketed to 12-16 year-olds, fandom “spaces” are NOT for teens. This is because when minors are in fandom spaces fandom adults cannot comfortably share their Shipping Smut, due to Purity Culture.

The relationships in this shipping content may feature 2 or more canon characters (that is, characters created by people outside of Fandom) or a mix of canon characters and “OC’s” (characters created by someone in fandom). However, if you make shipping content that contains ONLY original characters, what you have created is not fandom but “mainstream media.” This means that the rules of fandom etiquette such as “ship and let ship” and “don’t like don’t read” no longer apply to people who consume your work. You made the mistake of, for example, creating a webcomic with 5 readers that earns you $0.84/month and now your fandom is free to harass you for ruining their comfort characters and head canons. Also, do NOT complain about people making smut out of your OC’s as you will get a lecture about the Death of The Author.

But the good news is, even if everyone is making smut out of your OC’s, at least your name & likeness will be left out of it, right?

WRONG. You, the non-fanwork content creator, are now a “public figure,” making your private life fair game for RPF (real person fan fiction), which hopefully you will never see unless one of the billions of internet users unfamiliar with fandom etiquette sends it to you.

So, in conclusion, fandom is a joyful and creative space for anyone over 21 who wants to get into endless arguments about which cartoon characters are ******* each other

[k0mmari]

Endless Abyss(kinda)! SY AU

First things first, this is very much inspired by this post by @/rainbowsmagicandshit and @/allpiesforourown, HIGHLY recommend reading that fist just to get a glimpse of where I started off, but do note I have accidentally deviated from the original idea a bit, so uh, oops ig.

This was born out of a mix of different ideas (as usual), so think of this as ‘The AU where SY is a demon, and also the Endless Abyss, and also my excuse to have Binghe possibly make a harem consisting entirely of SY’s’, or, as I like to call it:

As per usual, Shen Yuan has died. It happens to the best of us, and of course, he died while reading the glittering piece of trash that is Proud Immortal Demon Way.But, as he is in the process of getting snatched away by the System, something goes wrong, and the System has to quickly redirect itself and it causes SY to get knocked out of course.

His soul scrambles to find a new host, and it manages to find someone suitable enough. When SY wakes up though, he isn’t greeted by the sight of a roof, or a forest, or anything remotely familiar; instead, the moment he regains consciousness, he’s senses are flooded with as much information as possible. It’s like a computer with too many tabs open, but in this case, you can see all the tabs at the same time and all of them are playing the most obnoxiously loud videos possible, in fact, everything feels so overwhelming even thinking becomes too much.

What SY doesn’t know is that he has transmigrated into the body of a Titan, an almost extinct godly demon race that only existed in the confines of Airplane’s first drafts, and it turns out shoving a human soul into the body of a deity doesn’t bode so well, since what the human mind is able to process doesn’t even come close to what a Titan is able to feel. So because SY can’t get a hold of his own mind, his control of his own body is also not great, and he is completely unaware as his newly acquired body goes on a rampage.

See, SY is currently in a very old version of the Demon Realm, so old in fact, Heavenly Demons still rule over the Realm. It really is quite a shame that SY wasn’t in his right mind at the time, and instead of being able to observe how ancient Heavenly Demons governed demonic society, he instead accidentally set on a path of destruction, with the casualties being anything that had the bad luck of standing in his way. In fact, the destruction got so bad a few of the Heavenly Demons rulers, who notoriously hated each other, settles on a temporary peace agreement and joined forces to stop the mad Titan.

SY, in his frenzied state, didn’t even notice as hundreds of years went by as the Heavenly Demons tried to stop him, and also barely noticed when they finally managed to chain him down and cast him away to be forever banished to the Endless Abyss. His body, once so tall it grazed the clouds, was torn apart, with each of its different parts sealed away in various locations as an attempt to diminish the Titan’s power. It worked, actually, and unbeknownst to the demons, SY slowly began to get his thoughts in order; the event that finally pushed him to coherency was when a few of those Heavenly Demon rulers got greedy, and while sealing away SY’s body parts, attempted to harness his power for themselves, and tried to create legendary weapons out of his flesh and bone.

Most of them failed, a Titan’s power to overwhelming for even a Heavenly Demon to handle, but one of them succeeded, and created a powerful sword made from the Titan’s own heart: Xin Mo. Unfortunately for the creator of Xin Mo, it didn’t take long for them to fall into madness and eventually succumb to Xin Mo’s power, casting themselves away to hold onto the sword forever in the same valley SY’s hands were sealed; but it is as they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and while Xin MO’s creator perished, they managed to take enough power away from SY for him to finally be able to think.

It had been a thousand years at this point, and SY’s first coherent thought was that he desperately needed a break, and that in all these years, he hadn’t managed to get a single glimpse into the world of PIDW, and what a waste! Specially since he was now in the most interesting area Airplane had managed to create, he was itching to explore the world. Of course, in his current state he wasn’t exactly able to move (having his limbs cut off certainly didn’t help, but apparently it had been so long since he was imprisoned that his Main Body had started to fuse with the Abyss? Really, more of a slight inconvenience than anything), but he also had become tired of his Titan body with it’s Titan feelings, and so he decided to split his consciousness and create a small army of human sized avatars who were later dubbed his ‘Watchers’, who’s sole purpose was to explore the Endless Abyss and send their findings back to the Main Body (in bite sized, easy to understand thoughts).

It is the first years of his Watchers wandering about that SY finally understood what had happened to his body, and figured out that Xin Mo was a product of his flesh. He figured that since demons tried to use his body for malicious purposes before, with one even succeeding, he decided that one Xin Mo was enough, and came up with a plan: He was going to piece his Titan body back together as a means to prevent anything of the sort happening again, but he was immediately going to seal the Titan body away again, as to not have to deal with it’s overwhelming power.

As the Watchers were sent to locate his body parts again, one of their first findings were the hands, which also meant the resting place of Xin Mo itself. How lucky, he thought! He could just take the hands away and maybe leave one of the Watchers guarding Xin Mo so when Luo Binghe eventually comes to retrieve his sword, SY at least can catch a glimpse of his favorite protagonist! He wasted no time, and while his avatars tried to unseal his hands, one of them went to move Xin Mo, just so it was out of the way, and in doing so the sword retaliated and ended up disintegrating the poor Watcher. What a rude sword, going against its own body.

Fine! If Xin Mo was going to be difficult so be it, and SY formed a new plan: before reuniting his Titan body back together, SY send his Watchers to keep an eye on as much of the Endless Abyss as possible and the moment Luo Binghe fell in, he would turn to hugging the protagonist’s thigh and help him survive the harsh environment as long as Binghe took Xin Mo. Well, it should be no problem, right? Binghe was fated to get the sword one way or another, and SY is sure his involvement will be small insignificant enough that it won’t be much more of a side quest for the future Demon Emperor!

Now, if he were a half human, half Heavenly Demon teenager who just got pushed into hell by his teacher, where would he land….

*

So, as you can see, this is mostly more like SY’s origin story lol, but I’ll probably write Binghe’s first meetings with the Watchers sometime soon (hopefully).In the meantime though, enjoy some more of the bonus sketches I did while figuring out the AU, and of course, if anyone has any questions or thoughts about this, feel free to send them to me!

[just-a-space-duck]

So About That Armor…

I regret to inform myself that I like it.

If you haven't seen it:

I'll give you time to take it in. This is a static, (hopefully) eternal text post, so take your time.

Ok so before I go further, you are allowed to have any and all opinions about the armor. Do not listen to me; I am a stranger on the internet who attaches himself to fictional murder cyborgs and treats them like kitty cats.

So first of all, it's weird. And I like it for that. Even if I found it to be the most infuriating piece of costume design ever, I still wouldn't be able to help but respect it for how strange it is.

When it comes to fanworks, adaptations, new installments in a franchise, or even just different takes on the same trope, I love it when creators take things in an unconventional or even seemingly unrelated direction that upon closer inspection still relates to the base or original concept. To get what I mean, think goth interpretations of Rarity or Cosmopoliturtle's Pokémon redesigns. The TV series armor sits alongside these for me, because this was the thought process of the designer, Tommy Arnold:

First of all, it is so funny that The Company would just brand their armor and by extension their secunits, their combat/security products, like Louis Vuitton bags. Also, the logo of The Company strikes a nice balance between being simple enough to be easily reproducible and recognizable, but complex enough to read as a logo and not just a simple shape or pattern. Plus, The Company logo being mostly just concentric Cs, clever there.

But there's also some worldbuilding and character expression in this design.

The Corporation Rim is just capitalism but more. A company slathering everything and everyone they create and own in mountains of logos, even when it's potentially impractical, showcases just how extensive corporatism is in this setting. Additionally, this design could be something of a status marker. Secunits are high end additions and/or alternatives to other security measures. Much like how logos on purses, tennis shoes, and cars serve to tell observers, "I have the fancy, expensive version of [insert category of thing here] ergo I am a very wealthy/powerful/cool person", a secunit covered in corporate logos communicates the high status and access of the client(s).

Now what was one of the first things we learned about Murderbot in the books? It disabled its governor module, the thing preventing it from defying orders and having any level of freedom, but instead of doing what it could to leave The Company, Murderbot just stayed with it and kept doing its intended function. For over four years. What else do we learn in the first book? That it feels most comfortable in the armor because this prevents humans from seeing its face, from treating it more like a person or human rather than a tool or bot. This makes the armor being composed of the logo of the group that both created and hurt Murderbot very symbolic.

Murderbot has internalized the message that it is a dangerous weapon and not a person deserving of care to the point that, at least at the beginning of the series, it shies away from anything that insists that it deserves the same kindness that humans do. It's only ever been taught what the company built it to do, so it doesn't know what to do next once it's obtained some semblance of freedom for itself by disabling its mental shock collar and so keeps doing what it's always done, even though it very much would rather not be in such a situation. Even by the most recent book, System Collapse, Murderbot is still wrestling with the idea that it matters beyond how it can assist others. Murderbot finding comfort hiding behind the very thing that will not let you forget the company that enslaves it, is just juicy theming.

Also, the helmet looking so weird works well with how many humans don't know what secunits look like, with some not even thinking they have human-like faces. If you had no context for this image, you might very well assume this is a fully robot character or even a statue.

I have my own gripes and worries and hopes concerning the upcoming show, but I just couldn’t get this fun bit of character design analysis out of my head. Shouldn’t have watched so much TB Skyen.

[fear-is-truth]

˖˚⊹ 𝓙’s note: rafe cameron x pogue!reader who hates his guts but can’t stay away from that d warnings: smuttyyy

the sound of the ocean drifts through the open window, moonlight spilling across your bedroom floor in uneven streaks. kneeling on the mattress, you dig your fingers into the soft, linen sheets, knuckles paling. eyes fixed on the vanity across from the bed, its polished surface cluttered with perfumes and a half-open jewelry box.

you despise him. you hate his fucking guts.

yet, you can’t bring yourself to stay away from him.

“it’s not gonna fit, you pig,” you snarl through gritted teeth, pushing back against him. this earns a rough smack across your asscheek, the painful sting making you flinch. you shoot him a venomous glare over your shoulder.

“no… i think it’ll work,” rafe cameron drawls from behind you, voice dripping with that goddamn condescension that never fails to make your blood boil.

“of course you’d say that, you think everything works in your favour.” you feel the mattress shift again. this time, it’s the unmistakable feeling of his cock sliding between your legs, the ominous hardness, and how you can feel every ridge and vein rubbing against the plush of your thighs.

“yeah well, only ‘cause it does, pogue.”

the last part leaves his lips with such venom, it might as well been a slur. when his engorged tip breached your weeping hole, you tighten your jaw in an attempt to bite back any sound that’ll give him the slightest ounce of satisfaction. as embarrassingly turned on, unbelievably soaked you are, the burning stretch still feels overwhelming. inch by agonising inch, his cock bullies its way past your tight walls—each time when it felt as though it wasn’t biologically possible for you to accommodate any more, that you couldn’t take another fraction, your walls give way, expanding stubbornly.

“tight fit, huh.” rafe observes, rough hands gripping onto your hips, “but don’t worry, we’re gonna make it work.”

“if you think for a second that– mghha— fuck you!”

without warning, he plows right into you with one powerful thrust of his hips. bottoming out, he lets out a deep groan at how hot and tight your cunt felt; squeezing around him as if it were carved to fit the exact shape of his cock.

“tight fit. but i told you, we’d make it work,” he crows in savage triumph, fingers pressing on the faint bulge on your lower abdomen.

“s-shut up,” you hiss, trying to ignore the tingling sensation crawling up from the base of your spine, or the telltale twitch inside you. your palms are flat against the mattress as his hands snakes around your front to grope the soft curves of your breasts. rafe pulls back with a lewd squelch, and relief washes over you as your walls recoiled into its original state…but alas, it doesn’t last long. he snaps his hips forward again, impaling you to accommodate his massive girth.

“you’re so f-full of yourself,” you turn your head just enough to catch his smirk, that cocky grin that makes you want to slap the living shit out of him. bracing yourself, you bite your lip, refusing to let any sort of whimper slip out when he sat back onto his heels, the new angle allowing his cockhead to prod at your g-spot.

“you’re so f-full of yourself,” rafe mimics in an obnoxious singsong, hot tongue tracing along the cartilage of your ear. he punctures the sentence with a sharp thrust that caused your vision to go white momentarily when his tip threatened to push past your cervix. curling his hand around your throat, he thrusts once, twice, before sinking his teeth into your shoulder at the third time as your cunt flutters weakly around him.

“big words from someone who’s stuffed full of my cock,”

[cosmic-dust-poltergeist]

Imagine an AU where the GIW are less Ghost Hunters and more scientific. Being Ecto-Biologists and trying to learn more with as little harm to creatures, but of course fumbling a bit because it's a new field of science.

Just, the GIW getting lucky and capturing Danny as Phantom, knocking him out in the process. No vivisecting or cruel tests happen. Instead he's put in a room they designed with the younger ghosts in mind, (here's soft toys and blankets, Legos, books for a wide range of ages, things of that nature) but it's not perfect because they didn't know who'd they get.

They feel terrible when Phantom has a full-blown panic attack when he wakes up and crams himself into a corner so he can see the whole room. They quickly send in the onsight psychologist to help him through the attack and explain his new situation. His reactions are way too real for them to be faked.

A few days later, while trying to let Phantom settle into his new environment, they catch a second ghost and learn he can tell they have someone new, but the other ghost can't sense him. Phantom's fear and depression turning into worry (for both the ghost and humans) and determination, his attempts to break out of his room increases significantly. It makes them realize Phantom is a very social ghost and probably needs to see his "friends" to be healthy, but since they know what "ghost fights" look like they can't allow it yet. They need to ghostproof a large area without destroying anything.

Cue the GIW catching a few more ghosts and realizing Phantom is a bit odd for ghosts. He's the only one that they NEED to send the psychologist in regularly because of panic attacks, and start to realize Phantom is getting sick. They're not quite sure what his obsession is, they think it might be either space related or protection related since he's very passionate about both, but the poor ghost is literally starving and it's devastating to the scientists observing him. They can't understand what makes this ghost so different to the others, whom they've all gotten settled and, while not exactly happy, content. They've gotten really good at providing what the other ghosts need and gained enough trust for them to talk to them about their species. It helps when the GIW explain that this is meant to be more of a catch and release program, they just don't have access to a portal yet and are using the time it takes to build one to understand them all better.

A good chunk of the other ghosts express genuine concern over Phantom when they're told he's been there the longest. No one is sure it's healthy for Danny to be ghost so long, but aren't sure how to explain without outing the Halfa.

Phantom ends up passing out and reverting back to Danny, outing himself, because of lack of food or water. He'd be less skeletal if he could indulge in either of his obsessions, but neither were plausible while captive in a secret government base. He wakes up very distraught in a ghostproofed medbay.

The GIW is VERY confused and concerned by Danny's everything, but several behaviors make sense to them now and they start providing for his human half instantly.

He ends up explaining his situation and how it happened the best he can. He realizes they weren't trying to hurt him or the other ghosts, but still feels better when they wheel him around the base to see the ghosts (he's too weak to walk or turn ghost currently) and the scientists are intrigued by how happy and concerned the ghosts are to see the kid still kicking.

The ghosts were more meh to see either other, but are literally vibrating with glee to see the kid. They later explain they tend to see the "little protector spirit" as a cute baby or annoying little brother.

The GIW aren't sure what to do with the kid now. They originally planned to send him through the portal with the rest, but he's part human? They are even less sure when they find out his parents are the FENTONS who definitely didn't know. The whole situation turns into a mess, but this is their kid now. They shall help him.